But you had the option of having an unlisted or unpublished phone number. To give one datapoint, in Los Angeles in the 1980s about half of all numbers were unlisted. I would expect that the unlisted rate was much higher in big cities like L.A. compared to the rest of the country.

What I find fascinating is that people paid for privacy. Yes, indeed, people paid several dollars extra per month to maintain an unlisted/unpublished phone number. Today very few people are willing to pay actual money for privacy.

Very good point.

Everyone I knew while growing up was in the white pages (parents) with home address, not just phone number.

The early “FreeNet” and ISPs like Compuserve used anonymous usernames. Personalized email addresses came later…

Oddly, because we can’t even pay for privacy today, it appears as if nobody cares. Sure, still desirable but not even an option at any cost.

How we got from there to here is troubling.