this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/10105454

• Gen Z's nostalgia for the early 2000s is sparking a revival of landline phones, seen as a retro-chic escape from the digital age.

• Influenced by '90s and 2000s TV shows, young adults like Nicole Randone and Sam Casper embrace landlines for their vintage appeal.

• Urban Outfitters capitalizes on Gen Z's love for nostalgia by selling retro items like landline phones alongside fashion trends from the '90s and 2000s.

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[–] GrindingGears@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I don't miss landlines. Can't take the friggin landline with you wherever you go. (Affordable) Cell phones were the game changer.

[–] SilverShark@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

I feel like over the last 20 years landlines become this thing you still had from the past in which you only got spam calls. Like, you're home, and suddenly you hear a strange noise, you realize it's the landline ringing. You forgot about it. It's that thing sitting on some shelves with a cord. You pick it up, and you hear something about your car's extended warrenty.

[–] Trafficone 3 points 9 months ago

One thing people forget is long distance fees. Cell phones basically did away with long distance fees, and we're better for that. However, landlines have some notable benefits:

  • self-powered, you could call in a power outage
  • high fidelity, yeah it was bandpass filtered, but everything in that filter made it through
  • freedom of usage, it was hard-fought but you could plug anything into your phone line, from more phones to answering machines to computer modems. There was a whole market around "dumb shit you plugged into your phone line" products

We're still way better overall with cell phones, but something was lost to get them.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A few years ago when I was working from home and on the phone all day, I much preferred my landline. My cell service was decent, but the landline was better. No dropped calls, no static or garbled audio (from my side anyways), and no latency causing me to talk over other callers. I always hated getting on calls when I was remote from my home office.

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[–] User79185@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My landline have been turned off completely.

[–] interolivary@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I live in an apartment building that was constructed in '22 and a landline wasn't even an option anymore, it's all just gigabit ethernet.

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[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 months ago

The optimal phone is both corded and wireless: it has a receiver corded to a base piece with a traditional dial, but the base piece is wireless.

[–] Melkath@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago
[–] Bitflip@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago

Might last a day or few if it's even true. Just like how they were all ditching smartphones for Nokias recently.

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You wanted to say that some gen Zers buy novelty Bluetooth headphones that look like a phone with a cord on it, right? Also: who still had a cord in the 2000's besides super important business ppl?

[–] blargerer@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

According to this graph, most people. graph

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

There was a fashion about 30 years ago in the UK to convert old-style rotary phones so they worked with DTMF touch tones. I had a rather excellent original candle-stick style phone. Got lost in a move somewhere. Retro is always cool

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 months ago

I'm starting to view fads as a form of annealing. To knock ourselves out of local maxima, humans have an predisposition for finding a reason to go back and try old stuff again. If there was something useful to it, it'll be reflected in the tools they create. I guess rebellion in general is just as evolutionarily useful as conformity. The Exploration/Exploitation dichotomy.

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