It didn’t go out of business in '97, I was 1000% there for a birthday party in 2000 or 2001. It seems the company went bankrupt in 1997, and the assets were sold multiple times over the years. Locations stayed open, and, according to Google at least, there seems to be at least a couple left in Ohio, and California?
Either way, this took me down a nice nostalgia hole, very nice.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
I work on a helpdesk, my phone rings around 8-12 times per day, and most calls are less than 10 minutes. I work a 7.5 hour shift, and at most am on the phone for an hour or so total on an average day. I’m also in an office cubicle farm, not working from home, or behind a series of closed doors.
Lately, between taking calls, I’ve been reading books, looking at my phone, practicing French, and watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on my iPad. The upper management knows I, and my coworkers, kill time this way between calls.
We’re efficient problem solvers who get our jobs done with no issue, so the downtime is spent how we see fit.
This is a lot of what I was concerned about, for sure. Well said.
I do agree, but it’s also had ads for a very long time.
I think the basic idea is that data collection is a form of uncompensated labor. The matter of what it’s worth isn’t the issue, but the fact of it being worth anything to anyone at all, and it being taken from you with little to no choice in the matter. Not to mention bought, sold, traded, etc.
Yes, a lot of it is tied to agreeing to a EULA, but we all know that just about anything we click on or do on our phones and computers is tracked, stored, sold, and used to make money in dozens/hundreds of ways, EULA or not.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought something because of an advertisement.
Side note, this is incredibly difficult to believe, tbh.
Honestly, they’re the only smartphones I’ve ever used, going all the way back to the MyTouch 3G. Well, my first “smart” phone was a Sidekick that I got in 2009 or so, but I upgraded to Android and the MyTouch 3G when my cousin gave it to me when she got a new phone.
Since then I’ve had a Galaxy S, Galaxy S5, Note 5, and I’ve had a Pixel 4a 5G for a couple of years now.
Oddly enough I’ve been on the fence about going to iPhone for my next phone. I have a lot of time and money tied up in the Play Store, and I know it doesn’t just go away when I get a new phone, but I’ve gotta take some stock before I make a switch. Apple products have become more and more enticing as I get older. I used to have harder feelings about the phone divide, but I honestly haven’t cared the past 5 years, a good phone is a good phone.
This reminds me of the story I read once about Baseball Reference’s old link naming structure.
It was similar to this scheme, but it took the first five letters of the last name, and the first two of the first name. There were variants and workarounds for players with the same letters in their name, and such.
But then there was the result for Jewish player Kevin Youkilis…