Spam Robocalls Aren’t Slowing Down. Here’s the Tech That Could Stop Them (2018)
nymag.com
nymag.com
[S]ince mid-2015, a consortium of engineers from phone carriers and others in the telecom industry have worked on a way to [stop call-spoofing], worried that spam phone calls could eventually endanger the whole system. “We’re getting to the point where nobody trusts the phone network,” says Jim McEachern, principal technologist at the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS.) “When they stop trusting the phone network, they stop using it.”
In today's news, a lost hiker ignored search-and-rescue calls because they came from an unknown number.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/26/hiker-lost-o...
Important people rarely call out of the blue, and they never hide their numbers. They also subsequently leave messages, email, or text.
That hiker probably has the same problem.
I don't know what the turning point will be, though I suspect somewhere in the 50% range. As with other technologies, "phones won't be dead", in the sense that there will still be companies providing service, and some institutions relying on them. But the notion that anyone has a phone number, that if they do they will pick up when you call, and that a call recieved is trustworthy, will have been lost.
What I don't see clearly is what will replace this, though one possibility is that some new high-aspirational-group communications technology will emerge.
I'm all but certain it won't be email, as that's already following a similar curve.
I hope it won't be one of the numerous proprietary alternatives which have emerged.
I suspect that FB are attempting to position their Metaverse proposal, if it is indeed serious, in this space. In part, the absurd resource and hardware requirements would effectively limit adoption to institutions and high-net-worth individuals, recreating the exclusive group cachet that the original Harvard Facebook had (and has very much long since lost).
Significant problems include directory service (how do you reach a given person), privacy and security, abuse (trust, safety, harassment, fraud, crime), and more. It's a bit of a challenge.