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New pay phone will link Abilene and San Francisco
(www.yahoo.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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From the Instagram:
We're installing a pay phone in the most conservative city in the U.S. and one in the most liberal city. When one phone is picked up, it automatically calls the other.
The goal of this project is to create space for friendly, human-to-human conversations. We believe that a few different opinions (even on important political topics) should not block us from having a truly positive, maybe even fun conversation with other humans.
These phones will be live on Sunday January 18th, and we will post any interesting/meaningful conversations that occur on this channel!
Perhaps a language understanding issue on my side (no native English speaker...):
Does the "pay" in pay phone has any significance or is it a term like "riding shotgun", that is still in use but has nothing to do anymore with warding of bandits with actual guns?
Before cellphones, payphones were coin operated public telephones people could pay to use if they needed to make a phone call.
In San Francisco, I know of one functioning payphone that is still in service. Most have been removed since there is no demand for them any longer.
But this one is free and only calls the other one in Texas with a specific intention.