The initial rate in 1866 for messages sent along the transatlantic cable was ten dollars a word, with a ten word minimum, meaning that a skilled workman of the day would have to set aside ten weeks' salary in order to send a single message. As a practical matter, this limited cable use to governments (transmissions from the...
Hah, if this happened nowadays you'd have to sign up for a $1000/month subscription for 100 words a month on a 5-year contract, pay a $35/word overage fee, and if you didn't use all 100 words in a particular month, you could pay $5/word to roll over up to 10 of them to the next month. And if you try to cancel your subscription after those 5 years, they put you on hold for 3 hours and then accidentally hang up on you.
it's definitely haunted. ( startrek.website )
TIL The initial rate in 1866 for messages sent along transatlantic cable was $10 a word, with a ten word minimum. ( www.pbs.org )
The initial rate in 1866 for messages sent along the transatlantic cable was ten dollars a word, with a ten word minimum, meaning that a skilled workman of the day would have to set aside ten weeks' salary in order to send a single message. As a practical matter, this limited cable use to governments (transmissions from the...
/r/place going full-on French Revolution now ( media.kbin.social )