That’s what I said about email spammers, 20 years ago. Could have nipped the problem in the bud then.
That’s for darned sure. I’ve given up on government ever doing anything about them or spam/robo-callers.
There used to be a problem in Britain of pickpockets plying their trade at public hangings of pickpockets.The WSJ had an opinion piece a couple of days ago suggesting a tax of 1¢ per phone call placed. A small nuisance for you and me, a big problem for people who are exploiting the fact that mechanized cold calling is so cheap.
IMHO it shouldn’t necessarily be a tax, it could be a fee charged to the caller and credited to the callee. And even better, it could be a fee set by the callee at the time of the call. You receive a cold call, you offer to answer if the caller is serious enough to pay, for example, $1 for your response. You push that button, the caller gets a recorded message to that effect. And if you aren’t home or are just monitoring your answering machine in real time, the default response replies to the caller offering to record a message for a 50¢ charge.