Mike Masnick ✅Feb 2, 2023
Kinda hoping that Netflix's new "we'll ban you if you watch the Netflix account you paid for outside of your home too much" story turns into a "New Coke"-style business school case study in how to do something totally stupid that pisses off your most loyal customers, and leads Netflix to reverse course quickly.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 2, 2023
@mmasnick Kinda reminds me of how in early public Internet days some big ISPs tried to charge separately for every device hooked to the Net, and even tried to ban NAT.
Show threadKevinFeb 2, 2023

@lauren @mmasnick The phone company did this too. First you had to rent phones from them, then pay for each device connected. One of the ways they found "illegal" phones was the voltage drop from the number of phones that rang for an incoming call. So phone makers added a switch to turn off the ringer.

First phone mute button was for pirate phones.

Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 2, 2023
@kevin @mmasnick Oh, by the way, their phone counting did not rely on voltage drop during ring. They used a capacitance check, usually late at night. Sometimes this would result in a minor ringer bell tap.
Show threadLauren Weinstein
@kevin @mmasnick Coincidentally, I was watching old episodes of the "The Saint" recently (one of my favorite old shows) and in at least two they used bell tap during dialing on a different phone in the house as a plot point revealing that the other phone was being used to make a call.
Feb 2, 2023 at 2:00amWeb
Show threadJR Buckley 🏳️‍🌈⚛️Feb 2, 2023
@lauren @kevin @mmasnick
In 1970s Berlin, when you picked up one phone an indicator would flip red on all the other extensions and they would go dead until you hung up the first phone. I was told it was an anti-eaves dropping measure.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 2, 2023
@JRBuckley @kevin @mmasnick I've never heard of that. Unless there's a bypass, it also means you couldn't add someone onto an extension during a call!
Show threadJR Buckley 🏳️‍🌈⚛️Feb 3, 2023

@lauren @kevin @mmasnick
Exactly, only one extension could be used at a time.

Admittedly, I was 10 when I first encountered this and it was in locations controlled by the US Military (offices and off-base housing) in West Berlin, so I don't know if this was a standard thing or if I misunderstood its purpose, etc. I never saw it anywhere else after that or during the 12 years I spent in Southern Germany in the 1980s-90s.

Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 3, 2023
@JRBuckley @kevin @mmasnick Thinking it was a military thing most likely.
Show threadKevinFeb 3, 2023
@lauren @JRBuckley @mmasnick this is like the 4 extra buttons military phones had.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 3, 2023
@kevin @JRBuckley @mmasnick That was AUTOVON. Fourth column red buttons: FO - F - I - P (flash override, flash, immediate, priority).
Show threadJR Buckley 🏳️‍🌈⚛️Feb 3, 2023

@kevin @lauren @mmasnick

These phones looked like the standard gray German phones of the day except for the mechanical indicator. Now that I'm wracking my brain over something I haven't thought of in close to 50 years, I think some of our German friends had phones like these, too.

It may have been a Cold War/Berlin thing.