The End of Phonebooks

The New York Times is reporting today that Verizon wants the White Pages phonebook to go the way of the rotary phone.

Verizon, the dominant local phone company in the state, asked regulators on Friday to allow it to end the annual delivery of millions of White Pages to all of its customers in New York. The company estimates that it would save nearly 5,000 tons of paper by ending the automatic distribution of the books.

This would be a great move in source reduction.

It also points out the fact that culture itself is moving towards paperlessness. And while there will likely always be certain things we print -- diplomas, religious texts, wedding invitations -- by and large, most of what we print -- newspapers, government documents, classroom worksheets -- is easily sourced to a digital alternative.

When even the phone company wants to stop printing its own phone book, one could make the suggestion that when it comes down to the brass tacks: society is eventually going to go paperless by default, whether it's trying to or not.