A closer look
A century before you were sharing Netflix passwords, Edwardian aristocrats were wearing oversized headphones to pirate live operas over the telephone. The Electrophone service in 1903 London allowed subscribers to call an operator and be patched directly into the city's top theaters and churches. They used custom-built double-earpiece headsets, sitting around their drawing rooms in complete silence listening to scratchy, static-filled renditions of Shakespeare. It was essentially the world's first live-streaming service, proving that paying absurd fees to avoid leaving the house is a timeless tradition.
