The Phone Call Is Dead | Hacker News Reader

The Phone Call Is Dead

techcrunch.com

12 pointsbwaldorf17 comments

Open articleView on HN

Other things that TechCrunch has declared dead:

* Phone calls

* Computer mice

* The Web

* The physical book

* Apple TV

* Software

* Music DRM

* CDs

I think that AT&T, Microsoft, Facebook, the library in every single city in the US, Apple, and Apple's App store would disagree.

The introvert nerd in me likes texting more then phone calls for the most part, but it is getting a little ridiculous where people ask questions via text that can't be answered in a sentence: "How did the job interview go?", "How was your date?" Unless you just want a one word answer or don't really care, make a bloody telephone call.

Turn it around. They are making a non-interrupting request for you to tell them something about you; they are showing interest in you. It's for you to decide whether to call or not. They are, in effect, saying, "Call me, I want to know". That's what people who care about you do.

Such nonsense. Horrifically US-centric in dealing with a global technology, and ignoring that tone of voice carries so much information in a conversation that simply cannot be expressed well in the written word (despite the heroic attempts of some people to stick smiley faces everywhere).

A skype call can give the same information but you can send a message first, asking if the recipient has time.

This also requires a functional computer, a steady power supply for it, and an internet connection reliable enough and fast enough to handle it. In large portions of the globe, this is laughable.

A telephone needs a couple of wires and can be powered remotely (those of you who still have basic landlines will recall that they often keep working when the power to your house is out), and is a fantastically simple technology to repair and maintain.

In some parts, mobile phones (AKA cellular phones, AKA handy phones) are leapfrogging landlines because they require even less physical hardware and maintenance - it's not the case that everyone has one; rather, someone has one and sells use of it. People use it to make voice calls.

But then most of the world hasn't got clean water either, so that is kind of a straw man.

In the western world (which is really the only part of the world where we can meaningfully talk about technology) the internet connection is usually fast enough, and smart phones are plentyfull enough that it doesn't matter.

If you want to talk about tech only in the Western world, that's great. Stating that the West "is really the only part of the world where we can meaningfully talk about technology" is just nonsense, though. Technology can be applied everywhere. The laws of physics don't magically stop outside the Western world.

Sure, but on the other hand they are so far behind us that the though of rural Africa developing high tech is laughable.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/04/african-student-tran...

Note: Lome is the capital of Togo, not rural or isolated.

  > they often keep working when the power to your house is out

Emphasis on the often. If the phone company also loses power, then you don't have phone lines. IIRC this happened during the NorthEast blackout of 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003

MoreMoschops I double that nonsense and raise you 1. I just read two TC articles from HN and both articles seam to be written as pure hyperbole. If you are in the business of writing news then write something of value, and please stop writing articles without some good data to back up your opinions.

The decrease in paid phone calls in the teen segment is likely more than made up for by the amount of time spent on skype and msn.

Based on my data point of one teen in the house: yes, if by "Skype" you mean the IM end of it, and SMS messaging via phone probably compensates for the paid voice calls the phone companies are not getting.

Teens don't really do voice much unless SMS and IM bandwidth is too low, like planning when I'm going to drive her around (and even then she'll put in her original request in SMS). I've asked her about it - if you're doing voice, you're restricted to talking to only one person at a time.

Although my 11-year-old tends to do confcalls (one memorable night at Cub Scouts he was confcalling with friends in St. Louis and Puerto Rico... the world is so strange sometimes); I think at his age text input is just too slow.

I don't like articles of the form "The <X> Is Dead" because they're always hyperbole - voice is still the highest-bandwidth information transfer beyond actually being face to face, and that isn't going to change for a long time. Like other communication channels, it's merely being augmented by others, but not replaced.

  > voice is still the highest-bandwidth information transfer
  > beyond actually being face to face

Unless you're including 'video calls' in 'being face to face,' I would put those at the highest-bandwidth information transfer.

Voice is getting integrated elsewhere, so perhaps the "dial, ring, answer" model IS going to go away. Witness Sococo. But voice communication can't for all the obvious reasons.

Actually, nothing ever dies. It's just remade in another format.

However, that doesn't mean it's any good.

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