In 1997, when I was still on dialup, I wanted to download Troops, a fan-made parody of both COPS and Star Wars. The film was about 10 minutes long, and for download, it was cut up into five chunks; each segment took several hours for me to download (and was at a fairly small resolution). I was on AOL as my ISP at the time, and I’d set it up to download a segment, and then log off once it was done, right before I went to bed. Most of the segments took several tries to get a good download, but I did eventually get the entire thing.
This doesn’t seem like what we are looking for. That would have been a temporary measure to handle a specific problem, and not something that became ubiquitous on its own rights.
I think we’ve managed to avoid all the things that happened because of Covid. That would have been the same issue.
Just yesterday when driving past a station with a price close to $7 per gallon, I was wondering when prices will top $10 and we’ll see this problem for the second time in my lifetime. Almost all pumps and electronic signs seem to max out at $9.99.
I was a pump jockey at the time and most stations just converted to liters as the unit of measure. The rising cost of gas and the 99 cent max on current pumps is what made gas stations one of the few retailers in the US to go all in on metric conversion before Reagan thrust a stake though its heart.
California here. Our school system was also all in on the metric system. I do remember a few stations resorting to the “double the price” system. I suspect the owners were conspiracy cranks who saw the metric system as some sort of encroachment on the American way of life.
Either way – double the price or temporarily switching to liters – it was just different methods of addressing the same issue, that gas pumps of that era weren’t set capable of handling a price of a dollar per gallon or more. And, as noted, it was a (relatively) short-term measure, until new pumps came along.
A salad or a trip to the salad bar* being included with the price of your entree (if you ordered the dinner portion, not lunch so much). Now you can add a salad to your meal, but there is a charge.
*Salad bars also seem a thing of the past, unless you eat at Golden Corral. In fact, cafeterias, the old time kind of fast food, seem to be fading too. We have one left here in St Louis, and it is closing soon, so I heard.
I suspect that this is highly dependent on the restaurant and/or region of the country. I’ve been to restaurants fairly recently, where a salad is still included in the cost of an entree.
I think they were mentioned upthread; salad bars already seemed to be on the wane, but COVID largely did them in. It probably also hastened the decline of cafeterias.
Gosh, I thought I read through the thread thoroughly to make certain of no duplicates. We tend to eat out at cheapie places, so that may be why we don’t get offered a free salad. I need to do some research, and eat out at better restaurants. I can afford to do this, but these days, just want comfort food.
Haha…this is really dating me, but those TV tube testers that once were offered in drugstores.
That may well be. Restaurants, as a whole, have been struggling with increased costs (food, staffing, utilities, rent) in recent years. it doesn’t surprise me to learn that lower-priced places may have changed former “freebies” into things you have to pay for, in an effort to keep the menu prices from looking too inflated, as well as not giving things away anymore.
It’s not necessarily the price so much as the type of restaurant. Chili’s/Applebees type restaurants, where the steak automatically comes with say mashed potatos and broccoli , seem to have at least an extra charge for salad (along with some other sides, like a loaded potato) while Texas Roadhouse and Cracker Barrel type restaurants where you choose two sides usually have a salad or two among their side dish options.
I should mention that these are mom and pop places, too. We tried hard to avoid franchise bc we do have some wonderful little places to dine. The owners often are working there, too, and maybe that is another thing that has gone away that used to be common when I was a child: the owner actually being on site, and being part of it.
I thought of another. It may have started slightly before me, but within some of your lifetimes.
Promotional glassware given away by gas stations and fast food outlets.
I remember as a kid, gas stations and fast food places gave away promotional glasses for buying full tanks of gas, or buying X amount of food. For example, Burger King gave away Return of the Jedi glasses for buying food there.
I haven’t seen anything along those lines in a long time.
Cheese-Whiz sold these small 4oz containers of their … product … that doubled as tumblers. These were used as the standard-issue Orange Juice glass for the morning breakfast ration growing up. Sneaking more OJ than this prescribed amount was highly frowned upon in the tater household as the dollar turned to confetti in the 1970s
