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Are Phone Numbers Doomed To Die? (fortune.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Valentina Zarya writes at Fortune Magazine that the top 2016 prediction for David Marcus, Facebook's vice president of messaging products, is the disappearance of the phone number and its replacement by applications like Facebook's Messenger. " You can make video and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone's phone number," writes Marcus. "You don't need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger anymore, and it's also a cross platform experience – so you can pick up where you left off whether you're on a desktop computer, a tablet, or your phone." Jonah Berger, Wharton professor and author of "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" agrees. "For most of us, I think it's really hard to actually remember what someone's phone number actually is. We use our phones so often or we click on a button that has it. But if there was a test where you had to say, do you remember your best friends number or could you type in your best friend's number I think most of us would fail."
But not everyone agrees that Marcus' predictions are objective and disinterested. "It's all very well the company wanting to be the de facto Internet — especially in places like India. But drier minds and eyes might wonder whether the wish to eradicate phone numbers has something to do with not everyone having yet given Facebook their phone numbers," says Chris Matyszczyk. "It may well be that phone numbers will disappear. Some, though, might wonder how making their disappearance a company theme squares with what Marcus claims is the ultimate goal: 'It's all about delight.' This one's easy. It's all about delighting Facebook."
But not everyone agrees that Marcus' predictions are objective and disinterested. "It's all very well the company wanting to be the de facto Internet — especially in places like India. But drier minds and eyes might wonder whether the wish to eradicate phone numbers has something to do with not everyone having yet given Facebook their phone numbers," says Chris Matyszczyk. "It may well be that phone numbers will disappear. Some, though, might wonder how making their disappearance a company theme squares with what Marcus claims is the ultimate goal: 'It's all about delight.' This one's easy. It's all about delighting Facebook."
I bet Facebook would think twice about wanting to replace phone numbers with Facebook IDs when they see the regulations common carriers operate under.
"phone numbers" are how the switching -- and billing -- are done for landlines, cell phones, and for many data services like DSL.
they are not going away. he can hide his, but he can't change everybody elses.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Phone numbers are going to die. But Facebook isn't the answer. Any proprietary solution isn't the answer.
It's especially not going to happen outside of the US. Imagine the president of Russia ordering military maneuvers using Facebook Messenger. Not going to happen.
It would be extremely complicated to switch away from phone numbers and phone numbers in and of themselves do not have considerable drawbacks, so phone numbers will probably be around for the foreseeable future. We humans will no doubt see the actual number less often as our software gets more intelligent, but the number will still exist, much like the ip address of a server.
You have an IP address. Do you know it? Your computer can't really function without it nowadays. It's there, but it's not necessary to know.
Your phone has an IMEI number. Do you know it? Do you know what IP address it was assigned? Do you care? No.
But what detail do you remember? What do you login with? How do you give a contact your details? I don't know about you but I don't read out my phone number except in very rare circumstances. At worst, someone dials the other party's number ONCE, and then we both assign the number to a contact on our phones. With name, and photo. The things that remind us of that person. Nobody cares about the number.
Nobody is saying numbers will go away. We're saying nobody needs know them and it would only take a single protocol to come along with a hint of "coolness" to get rid of them forever.
Rather than "My number is..." and then a string of numbers, you'll just say "I'm fredbloggs21 on Whatsbook". And people will be able to get your phone number (which they'll store as Fred in their phones), email, IM, etc. just from that. They already do. The younger generations don't piss about with phone numbers already. They have no need. They find each other on facebook and then from there it's "What your instagram?" or whatever.
Phone numbers will die out of common use, the same way that IP addresses will. Nobody cares about what their particular one is, nobody need know it, nobody need share it. At worst, you give a descriptive name via a service that encompasses that number without you knowing. No different to DNS or email (Do you know what IP of what email server your email goes to when sent to your domain? Or that it goes to port 25? Because 99.9% of people couldn't give a shit).