The Feds are coming, and I hope they keep going and going until there isn't a single product or service left that dares dictate what you can do after the transaction is complete.
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I remember reading that, back in the 50s or 60s, the phone company owned "your" phone. It was permanently attached to the wall, and you weren't allowed to do anything to alter it. Did AT&T pay taxes on those phones as inventory?
That's a bit hyperbolic. It was just hung on the wall. If it was permanent, they wouldn't be able to take it back. Thanks for the reminder that we're to the point in time that "kids today" honestly have no memory of land line phones.
But yes, the phones were only available from Ma Bell, and you did have a monthly fee for them. They did have table top versions as well, so it wasn't just wall mounts. They were heavy solid well built devices. Once it was opened for anyone to make, they became cheap light weight plastic pieces of crap.
I had a landline when I was a kid, but my parents got rid of it shortly after I left for college.
The nice part was it being their phone, they took care of it. Service was a call away and the service tech could do what it takes and have few worries.
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Our wall mounted phone was surrounded by phone numbers and other bits of information. I started it one day writing the name of a burger joint we used to call all the time by the phone.
Mom was pissed, but Dad liked it! Next time we went to call the number was right there!
And so it began...
When I left home for the last time, I looked at that phone and wall for a long time. Many years of our lives were there. Friends, family, businesses, other things like EMS, poison control, various hotlines were all there organized fairly well given the organic way it started.
I wish I had taken a picture!
Seeing that happen and being a part of it all is probably one of the more potent reminders, to me of course, of what the pre-digital times were like.
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Wish I knew about inventory. My guess is yes! They would have to do accounting on all the modems anyway. Service, where they are all at, serial numbers and more.
When one went bad, it usually involved either a visit to the ISP, or a tech shows up with a new one and a few records get updated and the modem ends up home.
Cable TV boxes are another example!
I do know those were inventoried. A friend went to work as a tech for a local cable company. (Yes, they did tell me how to enable decryption on all channels for at least one model...) They fixed the incoming boxes and those units went right back out to homes.
The units were purchased a few times per year to balance subscriber growth and attrition. Good repair metrics saved a TON of money. The units were from one to a few hundred dollars a pop!
Rental was $7.99 / month at one point I could remember.
Say the box was $150, at that rental rate the box becomes a minor profit item after a year and a half, right?
Well, most cable boxes got used a decade or more, especially when the company did not have to change its encryption tech.
That is a 4 to 5x return on the purchase price. Maybe 3x return after attrition, failed returns and repair costs get woven in.
Not a bad deal for them. And as the user, not many worries, but also basically zero options.
An example from cable boxes was serial ports and input and output ports either disabled or nerfed to the point of poor usability really sucked for anyone wanting to use the gear technically, or as part of an automation of some kind.