I‘m 30 years old. I have never seen a fax machine and a check. I have only once used a payment slip at a machine before my phone app was able to do this.
Ooh, I’ll play! I’m 40 years old. I write checks every month to pay my rent, which has to be delivered to their office either by snail mail or in person (no online payment option).
The last time I saw a dedicated fax machine was my retail job in 2008.
The last time I used a deposit slip was three years ago when I deposited a gallon bag of change in person with a bank teller.
So you’re definitely old enough to know what ✏️📼 means!
I’m 38, I’ve not used a cheque since I was 19.
The whole medical empire in the US still uses fax machines for “security reasons”. I had to sign up for some shadey ass online fax service to send docs to my moms doctor after she got sick. And the idiots at the doctors office had their fax machine broken half the time, so they never got half the docs I sent to them.
Sadly, many can’t be trusted or bothered to use a secure means of communication. A lot of people think whatever they use for email or sms is ‘secure.’ Often healthcare, finance, and higher ed try to sidestep the liability as a result.
I’m over fifty, and the last check I had to deal with was about 30 years ago. And the only reason to have this check back then was because I had to pay an American company for some software updates, and as I did not have checks anymore back then (about nobody had then anymore back then). I needed my bank to issue one check acceptable in the US.
It was the most expensive free update I ever had: The update was free, but shipping and handling was $10, outside US&Canada another $20, and express delivery another $10. Plus about $35 in fees to the bank for issuing an American bank compatible check and swapping local currency into US$.
Fun fact: Despite paying for “express delivery” and sending the check and the order per air mail, it took six weeks. One Sunday, the doorbell rang, and a courier right from the next airport delivered a beefy box (software was media and printed manuals back then!). In the box was a copy of the order - it was stamped as “received” on Friday morning, so they really did express delivery. Why the air mail to the US took six weeks though is still a mystery.
How have you never seen a check at 30? I’m also 30 and I receive checks now and then, and I used to occasionally have to write them. At least here in the US, most jobs give you a paper check for your first check when you just started for some reason instead of that one going to your direct deposit. I also on occasion get a refund check of some sort in the mail. I’ve had to occasionally write a paper check to things like an apartment complex or utility service. It’s become significantly less common tho in 2025, but I still keep paper checks with my other important documents just in case.
Several years back when I was living in the northeast US, our local utility company was stuck in the dark ages. It didn’t have an online payment portal!
Fax machines have been built into copiers/printers for years now. That is…many printers have faxing capabilities. In the medical field, people send faxes all the time. But I’ve never seen a dedicated fax machine, myself.
I‘m across the pond in Europe. I’ve literally never seen a check outside American movies and business books.
I still have checkbooks with the 19__ prefix printed to make it easier to write the year!
JFC, I love you old tech savvy people, but is this place really the internet’s retirement community?
Oh well, at least I appriciate your wisdom and prefer running into you guys instead of the fucking bots that sprout absurd propaganda.
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What is with Americans and paper cheques? I haven’t seen one for at least a decade.
Checks are still useful. When adulting you have to pay bills to the government, various taxes and fees. Unfortunately (yay privatization 😡) in order to accept online payments there are more than a few government agencies that have contracted with private vendors to take electronic payment. Of course this saves tax money so the government doesn’t have to expend IT resources to create a site to do this, especially in smaller municipalities, but it also generates leech middlemen who use their position to extract fees for the convenience of allowing you to pay a bill online. Fuck those businesses.
So the old process of writing a check, finding an envelope and stamp and sending it via regular post is better than giving some shitty leech company a fee for taking money from you and handing it to the agency.
I wouldn’t mind having a horse for transportation, but got damn are they expensive (both financially and physically) to maintain.
How the hell did anyone but the rich afford horses before the car‽
A horse is a car you can never turn off. If it dies it never starts back up.
Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
Just finished chopping a bunch wood. I don’t get it /s
I mean, I’ve done all this at various times. Maybe not to grab provisions, but to go get a coffee.
