FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreign robocalls to US
How many HN readers actually answer their phones anymore?<p>Personally, I pretty much never answer calls from unknown numbers, unless I am specifically expecting a call (eg: from a service company coming to the house, or calling back about an inquiry I made).<p>It&#x27;s really rare I even get a call from someone in my contact list - even for something &quot;urgent&quot; most people just send a text (&quot;call me - urgent!&quot; is <i>serious</i>). Anything for work is scheduled, and even then it&#x27;s been years since it was anything but zoom&#x2F;teams&#x2F;etc.<p>Part of this I think is a shift in the way people operate with technology: texting is faster and better than voicemail. Slack, zoom, etc dominate workplaces. Part is it&#x27;s been ruined by spam.<p>I don&#x27;t know if society as a whole is there yet, but I think it&#x27;s basically rude to expect you can just interrupt someone at any point and demand their direct attention to have a synchronous voice conversation with you. Had the PSTN not existed and you were to try to launch &quot;Telephone&quot; as an app today, it would almost certainly fail. &quot;You get a unique 10 digit number and if anyone types it in, it makes your device ring loudly, 24&#x2F;7, no matter what else you&#x27;re doing, and you&#x27;re instantly placed in a two-way audio call with them!&quot;