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Comment by uptown | Hacker News Reader

Most people I know don't bother memorizing phone numbers anymore anyway - so I'm not sure what problem this is solving.

This is entirely true, but our phone contact lists are essentially the internet back in the day that everyone maintained their own /etc/hosts. That is, it would be nice is there was some kind of DNS for phone numbers. I don't think this is the solution, but I understand why they're doing it. (Well, aside from the lock-in aspects.)

I think facebook is the solution most people use now.

I decided against that "solution" when Facebook took it upon themselves to promote their @facebook.com contact information over whatever users had previously setup.

I view my contact list as more of a list of bookmarks rather than a list of entries in hosts. The main difference is that domain names are still uniquely identifying, whereas a name (e.g. first middle last) is not.

  >>What's your number. I'll call you later today.
  > Hold on, I'll give you a missed call.
  >>Is this you? Wait. This one?


  >>What's your number. I'll call you later today.
  >>JACOB

At least in theory

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