When people talk about all the fantastic new technologies that surely must be around the corner, because "No one thought the cellphone was possible until motorola released one in the 80s, now everyone has one!"
To which I always must point out that for a long time cellphones were _literally_ just analog walkie-talkies with SS7 badly shoehorned in. It's honestly wild that in an era where everyone and their dog had a CB radio, no one could imagine connecting a CB to a PBX
I guess that just means that if a new technological revolution _is_ just around the corner, it must be stupid simple and _insanely_ obvious.
Although, like, seriously, you could have just duck taped a landline handset to a CB radio, and carried around a second CB and a flute, and you'd have basically invented the cellphone. It's honestly hard to believe no one ever did that. But if they didn't, it's probably because phone calls were _expensive as fuck_ and CB calls were *_free_* ;)
🅰️ ®️ ✝️ U
@OpenComputeDesign The "free" hints at a rather modern problem.
If anything actually new (no matter how trivial) comes out now, i'd expect it to be monetized and weaponized (as in collect private data).
So i guess your point stands, but the hurdle for something (trivial or not) new coming out got much higher in terms of usability. It would have to be something that can be put upon existing hardware or manufactured at home. Everything else would be poisoned.
The thought of using CB is kind of the same idea i guess? Get independent from infrastructure that can be highjacked, that was (part of) your idea?
@OpenComputeDesign Hm. Say, wouldn't an alternative infrastructure around CB still work and be much better than established cellphones and walled gardens for everything that does not need much bandwidth?