I heard that in the US, every business needs to have a publicly listed phone number, not to mention the number of times I see “TEXT … TO …” or “CALL …” displayed more prominently than the URL on ads. Why do they still do so much over the phone?
IF you’re thinking that’s a legal thing, it is not. In my experience it’s the opposite. Companies obscure their phone number because taking calls costs more than dealing with a chat or email.
I know, and phone calls are more annoying for neurodivergent people like me, although I get the reverse is true for old people. I had a job that featured looking up data and for any given active company with employees in Czechia, there is over 90% chance you get an address you can visit (they are legally required to list one but there are obfuscation services), about 70% for some kind of maintained web presence outside the legal registry, and some 50% for a working phone number. The latter two are roughly reversed for one-person establishments.
What happened is that I heard a Czechoslovak emmigrant to the US rambling while visiting his homeland that “phone books are useless in Czechoslo- uh - Czechia because companies aren’t required by the Constitution [sic] to keep their data updated there”.
I heard that in the US, every business needs to have a publicly listed phone number, not to mention the number of times I see “TEXT … TO …” or “CALL …” displayed more prominently than the URL on ads. Why do they still do so much over the phone?
IF you’re thinking that’s a legal thing, it is not. In my experience it’s the opposite. Companies obscure their phone number because taking calls costs more than dealing with a chat or email.
I know, and phone calls are more annoying for neurodivergent people like me, although I get the reverse is true for old people. I had a job that featured looking up data and for any given active company with employees in Czechia, there is over 90% chance you get an address you can visit (they are legally required to list one but there are obfuscation services), about 70% for some kind of maintained web presence outside the legal registry, and some 50% for a working phone number. The latter two are roughly reversed for one-person establishments.
What happened is that I heard a Czechoslovak emmigrant to the US rambling while visiting his homeland that “phone books are useless in Czechoslo- uh - Czechia because companies aren’t required by the Constitution [sic] to keep their data updated there”.
I’m old and I HATE dealing with things on a phone call.
Old is a relative term, and Lemmy is an echo chamber of tech-literate people.