Costs
UK 70's Phone & line rental & call costs were v. expensive compared to lot's of peoples pay, hence very slow adoption of phones in non wealthy households.
As for TV sets back then, B&W licences were cheaper than colour, a TV was very expensive so most people rented their TV, switch from B&W to colour TV meant hike in licence fee & hike in rental fee.
On the subject of the 70's, people who were around then as kids & still slogging away as wage slaves may bitterly remember all the optimistic predictions about how technology would mean we would all be living a life of easy leisure in a few decades.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
