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> The crazy part is: almost everyone added their numbers voluntarily to the white pages, because you wanted people to be able to easily find and reach you.

The default was that your number would be in the phone book, it was not voluntary. If you wanted an unlisted number, you had to pay for it.

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This is even crazier.

For reference: I'm old enough to remember using landlines and white pages, but not old enough to have ever had a landline at my own address.

I moved to San Francisco in 1999, my early 20s, and got a landline. Cell phones were not yet the norm, and I really didn’t have much interest in having one until a girlfriend of mine insisted I get one in 2000.

If I remember correctly, Pac Bell had a “opt in” white pages phone number removal which was not charged, but my parents just a few years prior had to pay for theirs with Pac Bell.

You would have to be like <15 to not remember landlines.

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