Time For Voice-Mail To Throw In the Towel

theodp writes "Slate's Farhad Manjoo feels the end of voice-mail is nigh, and it won't be missed. Since March, he's been using Google Voice to transcribe his voice-mail messages into text that he gets as skimmable e-mail. No more listening to at least a bit of each voice-mail message, hearing the same instructional prompts between each, and worrying about whether it's 9-to-archive and 7-to-skip (or vice versa). Goodbye and good riddance, says Manjoo, to an 'absurdly backward mode of human-computer interaction' that he half-jokes must violate the Geneva Conventions."

Comments

Re:i ignore voice mail

[seededfury]

time is money

Re:i ignore voice mail

[noidentity]

On most networks, if you call your own phone number, you get kicked over to voicemail and it is considered an in-network call (AFAIK) that doesn't cost you anything.

It costs me something I only get 24*60 of each day.

Re:That's great...

[Espectr0]

..if you live in America. I'm pretty sure Google Voice isn't available elsewhere.

I live in America, just not in the United States of America. America is a continent. /geography nazi

Re:i ignore voice mail

[BitZtream]

Stop being a cheapass and trying to take the cheapest route possible to having a cell phone. The cell phone companies will rape you and you will pay more per month than if you just get a regular monthly plan. You can still use the shitty phone with your monthly service so you don't have to agree to minimum length contracts.