I’ve always loved the term plain old telephone service (POTS). It’s so folksy and unassuming. It’s also very clearly a product of a monopoly system, where the technology provider didn’t have to worry about any competition. Can you imagine a marketer today at any tech company — or any cereal company, for that matter — labeling their product “plain-old” anything?
In the era of Zoom, ideation boards, augmented reality glasses, and the like, POTS has never seemed more plain or old. And now much of the regulation that governed POTS for over a century is going away, and even the most cutting-edge enterprises may feel an effect.
