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Don't Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone (And the Network)
Ever screamed at your phone, or wanted to, when it can't handle the basic job of linking you to another person by voice? antdude writes to say that The Atlantic has posted a long article titled "Don't Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone" about how our telephone habits have changed, but so have the infrastructure and design of the handset. A snippet: When you combine the seemingly haphazard reliability of a voice call with the sense of urgency or gravity that would recommend a phone call instead of a Slack DM or an email, the risk of failure amplifies the anxiety of unfamiliarity. Telephone calls now exude untrustworthiness from their very infrastructure.
Going deeper than dropped connections, telephony suffered from audio-signal processing compromises long before cellular service came along, but the differences between mobile and landline phone usage amplifies those challenges, as well.
When it comes to extortionate practices, horrible customer service, bait-and-switch special plans, secret data caps, unlimited but not really unlimited data, throttling, and any number of other things I've seen, I have oh so many more reasons to hate the cellular phone company than just this.
No 99% of all phones out there have utter shit for audio quality.
Cellphone networks and cellphones have steadily went from decent to complete crap audio call quality.
Sadly only apple get's it. Facetime audio calls are fantastic. Skype is as crappy as a cellphone call.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That is because most of those people grew up with a landline phone backed by a network that prided itself in its "five 9s" reliability.