In the early 90s, in San Fran, I needed to make a call. Every pay phone I stopped to use had its cord cut.
I haven’t been back.
I’m a 90’s kid too LOL. Probably spent $5 a week just to call girls because my parents get annoyed when classmates (and girls) would call the landline so I did them a favor lol. Then the advent of the pager..
For 20 years I kept a landline in my home primarily because of the alarm system. I finally called my alarm company with whom I’d been the same amount of time and said “cancel my subscription.” I said, “Because you guys cost too damn much a month and on top of that I have to pay $60 a month for a phone line I don’t need.”
Guy on the phone transfers me to the “Customer Loyalty Representative” and I explained my reasoning. Long story short? They dropped my monthly rate to comparable with cheaper ones near me AND they installed a cell-phone link system FOR FREE. Called the next day after installation and dropped the landline.
That was due to the street drug trade. Pay phones were used to set up deals and deliveries. People who lived or had businesses nearby cut the cords to discourage such usage. Some phone companies disallowed incoming calls to certain pay phones to cut down on the vigilantism, but that wasn’t enough.