The phone system is trash and getting worse

Many of those reading this will still have a telephone. And, what is worse, a telephone number.

I used to have about a dozen phone numbers. I can't stand them, and neither can this dude:

Phone numbers are just an attack vector to flood you with notifications; once someone's got your number, they, and anyone who has obtained it from them, can bother you forever until you change the number.

Today I came across an article about how phone service is combining with 2FA to ruin lives of people in mountainous regions:

This doesn't surprise me at all.

Many years ago I was being harassed by someone whom I could not afford to take out an injunction against. She constantly filled up my voicemail, SMS messages and email. Now email I can block and filter, but the phone company refused to block the contacts without an injunction.

They then double billed me, and cut me off for supposed non-payment. Then restored my account. Then cut me off again. In the middle of this, I got a text message from a friend who was having difficulties, wondering why I seemed to be ignoring him, "hello mate are you still alive?" ... he shortly afterwards committed suicide, and I complained to Ofcom about the whole affair, who put me through to the Executive Office of the phone company who refused to apologise but did offer compensation. I refused the compo.

Instead I set up a virtual phone network where incoming SMSes and calls were diverted to email and VOIP systems I controlled. Bit by bit the phone companies made this infeasibile, even diverting the calls to voicemail at one point. Clownish organisations refused to accept that certain phone numbers could receive SMS messages. At one point I even got one of them to call my supposed landline and witness the mobile phone in my hand start ringing. It's beyond fixable.

There needs to be much more pushback against this legacy garbage.