how Chinarut maintains a Internet-facing US-based phone # with very little spam (knock on wood)

2020 is the Year Spam is out of Control

I knocked on wood and after 13-17 long years, on Oct 11, 2020, I received 20 missed calls in 7.5 hrs and by Oct 14th, came back to my phone with 33 missed calls/vmails in 11 hrs from the previous day (!)

Never-Ending Phone Spam Is Turning Off Consumers : NPR

I am part of this 70% of consumers (in 2019) not answering calls from numbers I don’t recognize.

I’m not upset, I actually find it to be a fascinating problem to solve and this can only be a larger trend where people will ditch their cell phone # and go with “data only plans” and receive calls from those they have explicit permission with apps like Messenger.

This can only be another [possible] sign of a desperate economy.

This does mean that it’s very likely my ringer to my phone # is now permanently off. Call me on Messenger or iMessage.