If every call cost 5 cents to originate we would no longer have a spam problem.
We would want to design a system that acts as a deterrent on spammers without acting as a communications tax on the poorest.
Another solution is to make the call cost $0.05 or some nominal cost unless the call duration is longer than 20 seconds. Or make calls that are unanswered cost more, etc.
But then again I'm in the UK where the robocall problem is much smaller for some reason.
This is due to the some UK numbers being "reusable" as well and location bound. There are numbers from businesses who went bankrupt and are now being used as they sometimes show up as "named numbers".
Or maybe this issue couldn’t be solved unilaterally, where one carrier could offer much better spam protection as a competitive advantage, and the industry is too decrepit for group effort that doesn’t have direct implications on their bottom line.
Do you think the scammers have a better return than $100 / 2,000 calls made?
Just make it so that reporting the call as spam triggers a $1 charge to the caller. Something that won't ruin anybody's life if their ex-spouse decides to be a shitty person, but enough that it makes spam calling no longer profitable.
Assuming you mean "we" as in "we, the telcos": No offense but it's not working.