Dial-up Internet is like old party-line phones
 

Of course I wasn't around back in the dawn of the telephone era, but I'd wager that the telephone then was regarded similarly to what the Internet is right now for many: a technology that has some practical purpose, but is mostly just nifty, and can be done without. Dial-up Internet is a joke, and even most broadband solutions are unreliable at times. Sort of like picking up the party line and hearing the voice of someone else using it... you have to wait, and it calls into question the wisdom of becoming very dependent on such a technology.

It's my belief that once the majority of homes have reliable, always-on high-speed Internet, we'll truly find out what the medium is capable of. I think that web-browsing-and-email-only terminals with flat-panel touch screens will become commonplace in households. Maybe they'll include a credit card swipe for making online purchases. Of course I shudder to think what Internet advertising might become, because it grows more obnoxious and intrusive by the day.

I was wondering for comparison's sake... how long was it between the advent of the party-line phone before most of the US's non-party-line system was in place? 15-20 years? Anybody know? I know that in 1878, the first commercial switchboard opened, using 8 party lines for 21 phones, but I can't find when most of the infrastructure was updated to non-party-line type phones.

I have no idea about the history of the party line, but if you're thinking about questions like these, you may like The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. It's about the early telegraph systems and how they made possible previously unheard of feats of communication.

In the sticks of MA, 15 miles from a city of 100k we got phones in 1938. Electricity in 1949. Dial phones in 1955. Private lines at extra cost about 1958. Private lines for all in 1962 or 3. Touch tone service about 1992.