4 ms·

I guess I'm too young, but I always feel a little weirded out that yellow pages just had everyone name and number, publicly available to everyone. That's... no

• yodon 5y ago
  I suspect you're being downvoted because you call it the yellow pages but the yellow pages were where businesses were listed by category (eg Dry Cleaners or Orthodontists). Individuals and businesses were listed alphabetically by name in the white pages, so the terminator looked Sarah Connors up in the white pages not the yellow pages.
• ska 5y ago
  > but I always feel a little weirded out that yellow pages just had everyone name and number, p That was the white pages, not the yellow pages (which were paid advertisements). White pages had name and number for every customer, typically you were in there unless you opted to have an unlisted phone (and paid an extra fee for that, most likely). The thing to think about is this is pre-internet technology for finding how to contact someone. There were reverse listing books too but not generally available (given a number, who owned it). These pages go back to pure analog telephone systems (no caller ID, no call-back, no voicemail, nothing). Oh, and in some places it was common to share a number between multiple houses (party line).