In the early 2000s I was still arranging landline calls ahead of time with my friends because you couldn’t use the internet at the same time as the phone.

It was more that the person you were calling meant so little to you that you made the call while you were doing other things. Back then calling someone was almost like meeting them for coffee, often you would pre arrange the rough time you would call, and you were both engaged in the activity because you had to be at home sitting next to the phone. There was a certain effort to it that would seem lacking if you just could pull out a phone while you were walking down the street.

I was using realvnc but I hit the 3 free PCs quickly. I’ve since moved to nomachine and run it “locally” over tailscale.