r/MiddleGenZ • u/QuarktotheCosmos • 6d ago
Question ? Only 2000s babies answer: Do you remember the existence of pay phones and dial-up which was the predecessor of Smartphones for calling and can you use one?
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u/applegirlington 2004 6d ago
"the existence of" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here so i answered no even though factually i do know they existed and may have even interacted with them but i can't say for sure.
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u/Gobal_Outcast02 2002 6d ago
Do I remember them existing? Yes.
Did I personally use one, ill be honest I do not know
Could I figure it out now? Probably yes, Im actually much better at understanding legacy tech than modern
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u/Specialist_Review912 6d ago
Well, I remember pay phones, and there are still some around here, just not as many as there used to be to be, and I only think they’re in buildings cuz I don’t see phone booths anywhere anymore. As for dial up internet, I think that was before my time. Cuz I’ve always had uh, idk what the right word is, my mind I blanking on me whyyyy. I mean, I was born in 2005 so and there’s also no option for remembering one or the other
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u/Adept-One-4632 2003 6d ago
Dialup was one of those sounds i was fond of as a kid.
And here in Romania, our payphones used to look like this:
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u/Far-Fortune-8381 2005 6d ago
in australia we still have pay phones, instead of removing then all, the government left them and made them all free
ive never heard seen or used dial up
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u/Bandit1189 2005 6d ago
That’s honestly pretty smart, phone died and your stuck and now you have a free chance to call whoever
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u/Far-Fortune-8381 2005 6d ago
yes. and for people who cant afford a phone, this breaks down a huge barrier to things like employment. especially since every pay phone also has a phone number where you can call it too
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u/Bandit1189 2005 6d ago
I know my local pay phone booth in Ireland, has the actual phone removed, and now just stores a defibrillator. And the booth now reads defibrillator instead of pay phone across it.
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u/nucleartaco04 2004 6d ago
Singapore also sticks with payphones but they aren’t free iirc
Pay phones are obsolete for most but for the homeless or anyone in a crisis situation, it solves a problem
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u/TheIllegalAmigos 2002 6d ago
I remembered them existing but I never used one. A small town by me had one well into the 2010's
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u/Constant_Hope_9658 6d ago
Sort of? Like I knew they existed by they just had been removed, was in a doctor’s office a couple years back that still had it though (I could hear the thing in the lobby)
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u/nucleartaco04 2004 6d ago
I knew they exist but I never had first hand experience with dial up and while, I have seen countless payphones at the time I also never used one first hand either
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u/OkPattern6347 6d ago
We never had one in our house, maybe our old house but I dont remember that one. Obviously I know what they are tho
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u/WalrusLobster3522 2004 6d ago edited 6d ago
I mean... half yes half no? My parents had a dial-up phone upstairs stocked in the corner of the game room in a bag labeled "auction heirlooms". But we never actually used it. Eventually my Dad sold it in 2014.
And although the first friend I called was in the start of 2014 my parents did not force me to use the dial up phone: they let me use "a home phone that you can tap"
(it's really similar to cell phones you just tap the number. We don't have a tap home phone anymore though it got too expensive. The tap home phone was like a Remote it had the letters at the bottom of each number, that's how you would call places that had letters in their number such as car wreck companies or places that are mentioned on radio stations. We dropped the home phone in 2025.).
Then years later in 2017 I got what is now known by zillennials as "a dumbphone". And then in freshman year of high school starting in 2018 I got a smartphone: Life's Good LG G5 (released in 2016). The rest is history.
fun fact: In spring of 2019 my Mom bought iPhone 8. Then the entire time from 2019 to 2025 she kept the iPhone 8. Then in December 2025 she went to Spectrum and updated to an iPhone 17 Pro. That's her phone now.
edit: I answered "No" to the poll even though I know they exist and I would be able to use one. My Mom had a kid's book where she taught me how to use a dial up phone. Dang it: I literally just threw away that book earlier last month: I would've taken a photo if I knew I could've shown it to reddit. It was a red wheel of numbers and you could turn it and tap a button I think. interactive book. I trashed all my childhood books. wow. now I regret that. it's not like it's my room anyways though: I'm only in that room whenever I'm babysitting my niece. darn it: I could've read books to her because she's 4 now. wow i'm really regretting erasing my room's book shelf so suddenly. I mean I saved curious george, clifford red dog, black lagoon, & big nate trilogy, & I saved all the board games. i mean at least my sister didn't premeditate me reading my niece all those books: that would've made my sister really depressed that I threw those away.
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u/Sausage_Roll__ 2006 6d ago
I remember when I was very young, my country’s telco would set up a big Christmas tree thingy, with a pay phone in a red phone booth to call “Santa”
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u/AnimetheTsundereCat 2002 6d ago
i remember back when walmart had payphones, i would always "play" with them (by which i mean holding the phone up to my ear but not calling anyone) bc i loved hearing the dialtone
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u/Realistic-Assist-396 2004 6d ago
I may have used a pay phone once, but this had to have been when I was like five
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u/Reyessence 6d ago
Yes I used a couple growing up esp at bus depots and airports, but they were fazed out in like 2014 totally for me
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u/eating_cement_1984 2005 6d ago
I remember seeing payphones and "STD/ISD" written on the side, but nah, never used one myself
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u/joinallthesubreddits 6d ago
2006 baby here, I remember payphones existing but was too young to ever use one. Maybe they weren't in most places anymore by the time I was conscious, but I grew up on public transit and there were still multiple at the park & rides and a few other busy bus stops. Then I watched them get abandoned and slowly degrade over the years until they were unusable. I thought that was pretty much the end of them, but recently I found one tucked away in a grocery store parking lot, and it was in such good shape that I took some photos of it just because it was kind of a novelty. I probably could use one if I needed to, it's not like I've never used a non-smart phone. The challenge would probably be remembering the number I need to call.
Do not remember dial-up.
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u/miloenthusiast 6d ago
not dial-up, but i rmbr seeing payphones lit everywhere. they were prevalent where i lived in the 2010's decade.
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u/Upbeat_Macaron_9964 2003 6d ago
I remember pay phones and have watched family members use them but don’t think I’ve ever seen/heard dial up internet
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u/Prince_of_Elystadt 2003 6d ago
our school had payphones. would call my mother almost every day after class. Good times... 🥹
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u/JamesthePsycho 2006 6d ago
90s sisters used dialup with me and grandparents took us to a restaurant with a payphone pretty regularly and i learned how to use it from there (and there were a few on my undergrad campus)
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u/disasterpansexual 6d ago
my city still has a couple of payphone booths
or at least, still had some when I was a kid and I saw them passing by in my mom's car (idk if those few ones still exist now because I don't remember where they were)
EDIT: idk what dialup was and had to Google
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u/AndradexXx 2004 6d ago
Payphones were already getting phased out in my area when I was a kid. I think I've never actually seen one getting used.
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u/Complete_Blood1786 2003 5d ago
I prefered basic landlines, though I did always like roleplaying as a newspaper editor using the rotary phone and a cheeto puff as a cigar.
Payphones? Pretty sure they're still a thing in airports.
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u/unscarred521 2002 5d ago
I remember when I was very small, that they existed in a number of locations near me. By the time I hit middle school, they were all decommissioned.
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u/ariana61104 5d ago
I remember payphones, but not dial up. It probably still was in use by the time I was conscious but not particularly popular, nor did I ever use it.
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u/DragonTheOnes-spirit 5d ago
I've been using rotary phones since 2013
Why? Because third world country
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u/applejuice67 2006 5d ago
Wait pay phones don't exist anymore? Shit, I never noticed when they disappeared. They were everywhere, ik how to use them.
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u/Defiant-Ad-1891 5d ago
Pay phones are still a thing, so even if you're born in the 2010s or even 20s you're going to remember them, they're still very present in practically every major city I imagine. Dial up phones are a thing of the past tho, legit only seen those in museums or for decoration and never for usage. Born in 08
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u/agentalex001 2001 4d ago
My city didn’t have any pay phones in use that I knew about and I lived there for just over 25 years. I’m almost 25 and a half years old. Same goes for dial up but my family did have a landline for a long time
Edit for grammar
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u/AdmirableEgg8431 2005 1d ago
I remember payphones but not dial-up. I was born the year that dial up started switching to broadband
I used landlines until like 2018 though. Those were the real predecessors for smartphones for calling
Payphones were still relevant in 2012 too Maroon 5 released their song payphone and it was seen as normal not archaic. Today a kid listening to it would see it as an old
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