On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 12:23:09 PM UTC-5, John Levine wrote:   
      
   > >Can you sat "deregulation"?  I know that you can...  :)   
   >   
   > You are of course right, but it's also true that a lot of operator   
   > services don't make much sense these days.  Person to person calls   
   > made sense when a call could cost a dollar (back when that dollar   
   > would buy lunch) and a single phone was often shared among many people   
   > so it could take a while for the person who answered the phone to find   
   > the person you wanted to talk to.  These days, not so much.   
      
      
   A great many consumers got screwed in the early days of Divestiture   
   by "alternative operator services".  Unlike other commodities, rates   
   are not posted on telephones.  People would place a collect or calling   
   card call and would unknowingly be charged steep fees.  Ordinary   
   people do not keep up with the fine points of technology and were   
   not aware of the changes or need to dial special access codes first.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)