I had work phones on and off in the 90s, but I know the exact day I actually paid for a phone for the first time. 25th September 1999. Its our son's birthday. He was born extremely premature, and we didn't know if he would live or die. I really wanted to not be out of touch, and that was the impetus I needed to finally buy something. You can try to justify purchases of flexible things based on all the various things they can do for you. However, when you get down to actually handing over cash, its usually for one specific quality you badly want or need.