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It was always free to not be a customer. The fee applied to customers who wanted an unusual service.

• ghaff 2y ago
  Yes. You could not have a landline telephone. Which was not very practical for most people pre-cell phones.
  • Retric 2y ago
    Not initially, phone’s have been around long enough it’s easy to forget ubiquity took time. At the beginning you just said the name and location of the person you wanted to call. Publishing names addresses and phone numbers was a useful feature after phone numbers existed but before everyone had a pocket supercomputer. Callers avoid needing to talk to an operator and addresses distinguished between different John Smith’s. So being included was just part of the service. Sure some people with unusual requests were charged more, but it’s inherently a different situation from doxxing. If you pay a carpenter to build you a deck you can’t exactly sue them for trespassing while they’re doing what you asked for.