Prepaid mobile calls cost what public payphones had cost when the plug was pulled

This seems a bit off. Public payphones were what, 25¢/min? Now that they have been eliminated, the cash equivalent is a prepaid mobile service.

Public payphones had an infrastructure of phone booths that needed to be maintained, cleaned, and serviced. They consumed real estate.

Prepaid mobile service is a trivial deployment by comparison. I must maintain my own hardware. Yet my carrier charges 22¢/min in 2025. Comparable to the cost of public payphones.