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Phones and snail mail have been supplanted by equivalent Internet services, and both are trying to stay alive/relevant by selling out to annoying commercial int

Phones and snail mail have been supplanted by equivalent Internet services, and both are trying to stay alive/relevant by selling out to annoying commercial interests. Telegrams gave way to phones, but it was never possible to spam someone with telegrams, and they had a cost per word.

tdeck 5y ago
If telcos want the phone to be relevant, this is the wrong way to go about it. Just 10 years ago I answered my phone when it rang, even with an unknown number. Does anybody do that anymore? It's become nearly unusable, for example, as a way for businesses to contact customers they have an actual relationship with because of all the spam.
- thewebcount 5y ago
  > It's become nearly unusable, for example, as a way for businesses to contact customers they have an actual relationship with because of all the spam. On top of that the telcos are joining in on the fun. I am an AT&T cell phone subscriber and in the last month they’ve started robo-calling me non-stop to sign up for their ailing DirecTV service. Who in their right mind would subscribe to that with all the better streaming options available? But the worst part is that they technically aren’t breaking the rules themselves because we do have an existing business relationship (if you can call paying my bill on time and doing everything in my power not to otherwise interact with them a relationship).
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    I'd really like to be able to use my phone for real relationships with natural persons too even if they're not in my contact list.
  - jlarocco 5y ago
    I'm not 100% sure, but that may be a scam. I recently got one of those, and I'm not an AT&T customer.
    - monkpit 5y ago
      A scam or a dodgy 3rd party (or both?). DirecTV has a reseller program where anyone can become a “retailer”.
      - thewebcount 5y ago
        OK, fair enough, but in my book it’s still on AT&T because they have to know this is going on. They must be getting complaints about it. Oddly enough I remember DirecTV doing this ~20 years ago. It was the first time I was willing to pay for CallerID. DirecTV (or some representative that had that as their outgoing name) called me several hundred days in a row. I ended up making a game out of it, seeing how many times they’d call back if I never answered.
        GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        What. You mean AT&T being your carrier is the only relationship between AT&T and spam? And how many unanswered calls they made? Here spammers give up after 6 unanswered calls or so. Not sure why they give up though, but eventually it becomes quiet.
    - BoogerDan 5y ago
      Supposedly, some of these are scams. But DirecTV admitted to hiring Telecel Marketing Solutions to place robocalls. There have been multiple class-action lawsuits against AT&T for such things. It's bizarre that AT&T would sabotage the usefulness of their own customers' telephone service, but this is a bizarre world.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    > Who in their right mind would subscribe to that with all the better streaming options available? Large swaths of the US can't get usable broadband. These people use satellite TV services. Of course that market is already developed so growth requires pestering the people with better choices available.
  - ktkoffroth 5y ago
    I recently questioned this when setting up my mother and grandfather with TV and internet for their new house. The internet TV provider either don't have, or charge so much extra for channels they consider "essential" (that's another issue) that it's not worth getting the service, as the price is equivalent or more to a satellite TV provider.
  - monkpit 5y ago
    But you’re assuming that the ATT/DirectTV calls are legit and direct from HQ. DirecTV is resold through 3rd parties all the time, I am pretty sure these calls are from a 3rd party or even a scam.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Imagine if nobody ever used or knew about traditional phones, and then someone came up with the "Phone app": "Yea, so here is an app you will love! Install it, and it allows anyone, anywhere, anytime, to interrupt whatever you are doing on your device, background whatever app you are running, cause it to ring, buzz, and notify! Further, if you press the green button, it will allow that random person to start talking to you." Even if it managed to get past either of the app stores' rules, who would install such an intrusive app? Yet, every smartphone sold today has that exact annoying app pre-installed!
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    Why would you frame it like that? It's all about how you market it.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    Imagine if it also reliably indicated who was calling you and had super easy blocking capability. Also, what if you could set time and day for availability - i.e. for work related numbers.
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      Be nice if you didn't actually have a phone number and you exchanged cryptographic keys with someone touchlessly when you were in physical contact. Then you'd have two-way ID verification, and if a merchant abused that by leaking their key material (or if it leaked in a hack) you could revoke that key's permission. A large weakness with existing communication systems (phone, e-mail, physical mail) is that its a pipe where anyone in the world can blast at you, often anonymously.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    Yeah, why would anyone want an app like Facebook or Discord or Skype or Teams or Google Meet or Zoom or the littany of other apps that have some version of the functionality you just described?
- ridaj 5y ago
  US telcos know at best two things at this point: keep the network up and collect rent. They cannot solve complicated social problems like spam or internet security. They just don't have the skills or the willingness to invest. We will all continue to pay them if only for internet access, and for a good price too thanks to countless mergers leaving consumers with few choices, but they are otherwise transforming into dumber and dumber pipes at a pretty fast clip. There's more profit to be made for them being a dumb pipe while device and OS manufacturers pick up the security / spam slack for free (eg, how much is anyone actually willing to pay for spam filtering) because it lets them provide a trusted environment to sell apps and ads in.
- zipswitch 5y ago

tdeck 5y ago

If telcos want the phone to be relevant, this is the wrong way to go about it. Just 10 years ago I answered my phone when it rang, even with an unknown number. Does anybody do that anymore? It's become nearly unusable, for example, as a way for businesses to contact customers they have an actual relationship with because of all the spam.

thewebcount 5y ago
> It's become nearly unusable, for example, as a way for businesses to contact customers they have an actual relationship with because of all the spam. On top of that the telcos are joining in on the fun. I am an AT&T cell phone subscriber and in the last month they’ve started robo-calling me non-stop to sign up for their ailing DirecTV service. Who in their right mind would subscribe to that with all the better streaming options available? But the worst part is that they technically aren’t breaking the rules themselves because we do have an existing business relationship (if you can call paying my bill on time and doing everything in my power not to otherwise interact with them a relationship).
- tehjoker 5y ago
  I'd really like to be able to use my phone for real relationships with natural persons too even if they're not in my contact list.
- jlarocco 5y ago
  I'm not 100% sure, but that may be a scam. I recently got one of those, and I'm not an AT&T customer.
  - monkpit 5y ago
    A scam or a dodgy 3rd party (or both?). DirecTV has a reseller program where anyone can become a “retailer”.
    - thewebcount 5y ago
      OK, fair enough, but in my book it’s still on AT&T because they have to know this is going on. They must be getting complaints about it. Oddly enough I remember DirecTV doing this ~20 years ago. It was the first time I was willing to pay for CallerID. DirecTV (or some representative that had that as their outgoing name) called me several hundred days in a row. I ended up making a game out of it, seeing how many times they’d call back if I never answered.
      - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        What. You mean AT&T being your carrier is the only relationship between AT&T and spam? And how many unanswered calls they made? Here spammers give up after 6 unanswered calls or so. Not sure why they give up though, but eventually it becomes quiet.
  - BoogerDan 5y ago
    Supposedly, some of these are scams. But DirecTV admitted to hiring Telecel Marketing Solutions to place robocalls. There have been multiple class-action lawsuits against AT&T for such things. It's bizarre that AT&T would sabotage the usefulness of their own customers' telephone service, but this is a bizarre world.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  > Who in their right mind would subscribe to that with all the better streaming options available? Large swaths of the US can't get usable broadband. These people use satellite TV services. Of course that market is already developed so growth requires pestering the people with better choices available.
- ktkoffroth 5y ago
  I recently questioned this when setting up my mother and grandfather with TV and internet for their new house. The internet TV provider either don't have, or charge so much extra for channels they consider "essential" (that's another issue) that it's not worth getting the service, as the price is equivalent or more to a satellite TV provider.
- monkpit 5y ago
  But you’re assuming that the ATT/DirectTV calls are legit and direct from HQ. DirecTV is resold through 3rd parties all the time, I am pretty sure these calls are from a 3rd party or even a scam.
ryandrake 5y ago
Imagine if nobody ever used or knew about traditional phones, and then someone came up with the "Phone app": "Yea, so here is an app you will love! Install it, and it allows anyone, anywhere, anytime, to interrupt whatever you are doing on your device, background whatever app you are running, cause it to ring, buzz, and notify! Further, if you press the green button, it will allow that random person to start talking to you." Even if it managed to get past either of the app stores' rules, who would install such an intrusive app? Yet, every smartphone sold today has that exact annoying app pre-installed!
- charcircuit 5y ago
  Why would you frame it like that? It's all about how you market it.
- phkahler 5y ago
  Imagine if it also reliably indicated who was calling you and had super easy blocking capability. Also, what if you could set time and day for availability - i.e. for work related numbers.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Be nice if you didn't actually have a phone number and you exchanged cryptographic keys with someone touchlessly when you were in physical contact. Then you'd have two-way ID verification, and if a merchant abused that by leaking their key material (or if it leaked in a hack) you could revoke that key's permission. A large weakness with existing communication systems (phone, e-mail, physical mail) is that its a pipe where anyone in the world can blast at you, often anonymously.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  Yeah, why would anyone want an app like Facebook or Discord or Skype or Teams or Google Meet or Zoom or the littany of other apps that have some version of the functionality you just described?
ridaj 5y ago
US telcos know at best two things at this point: keep the network up and collect rent. They cannot solve complicated social problems like spam or internet security. They just don't have the skills or the willingness to invest. We will all continue to pay them if only for internet access, and for a good price too thanks to countless mergers leaving consumers with few choices, but they are otherwise transforming into dumber and dumber pipes at a pretty fast clip. There's more profit to be made for them being a dumb pipe while device and OS manufacturers pick up the security / spam slack for free (eg, how much is anyone actually willing to pay for spam filtering) because it lets them provide a trusted environment to sell apps and ads in.
zipswitch 5y ago