[dragonsky67]

In Australia a couple of years ago Telstra, which I believe is required by the government to provide public phones. They have discovered that it's cheaper to just provide the phones free rather than have to continuously repair them after people try to jack the coin hopper or deal with support for refunding card payments when the payment succeeds but the call does not go through.

https://exchange.telstra.com.au/why-were-making-payphones-fr...

[batiudrami]

Telstra also installs large digital billboards on the back of many pay phones which is why there are still so many in urban areas.

[SQueeeeeL]

'Something something, tragedy of the commons. Some veiled comment about "undesirables" using the phones all the time. There's no such thing as a free lunch, this is a perversion of all known theory to not force a profit.'