The telephone is becoming obsolete. Before smartphones were commonplace, houses and businesses had landlines and at airports, bus stations, malls and other public areas there were pay phones.
Back in the 1970’s and 80’s, futurists thought that people would make video calls rather than just the audio only kind of call. Futurists are often wrong about predicting the future.
There are many ways today one can make a video call on an iPhone or Android phone, In fact, during the Covid-19 pandemic years, it really was the way to connect especially on Zoom.
I’m just not seeing a ton of video calls and if you’re like me, getting a real life person to answer the phone has gotten much harder.
Used to be it was the big companies, like AT&T, Walmart, cable or satellite TV providers that were the first to start routing incoming phone calls through automated phone systems which sorted calls based on the subject the customer was calling about. Then after navigating the maze of options, the customers would often listen to an outgoing voicemail message. Leave a message it would say, someone would get back to you. Except many times, the call would never be returned.
Now, even locally based companies are now not answering the phone. Either the phone just rings and rings or the call goes to voicemail and chances are you won’t get a call back. There will be no apologies given either as it has become acceptable to ignore phone calls.
What has hastened the demise of the phone calls is the rampant Voice Over Internet Protocol or VOIP system of using a computer to spoof any number to make calls. Scammers in India use computers to dial many millions of calls daily to victims. There are laws on the books against this type of abuse but it’s as if the authorities have totally ceded the telecommunications turf to foreign scammers. Phone calls are like a lawless frontier area with extremely few sheriffs out there riding keeping the peace on the digital range.
Texting has become prominent and is replacing phone calls. Who wants to talk to a person and hear a human voice when you can text something?
I’m convinced that in the near future smartphones will not offer a voice calling option.
Back in the 90’s there were tons of call centers that would hire telemarketers but the work was so grueling that computers now use Artificial Intelligence or AI to place those annoying sales calls and these bots often sound like real people or at least try to mimic a real person’s voice and mannerisms. .
I don’t know who thought that programming computers to make unsolicited outbound calls to people was a great idea, but I’m not a fan.
“Please hold, your call is very important to us.”
Yeah, Right.”
Michael Robinson is the Owner and Editor of the Uvalde Hesperian.
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