Recently I have come to assume that any call to my landline is from a telemarketer or an automated call from Terminex letting me know that our regularly scheduled pest-extermination service will occur on its regular schedule. So I usually ignore my home phone.

Not since the steam engine has any invention disrupted business models like the Internet. Whole industries including music distribution yellow-pages directories landline telephones and fax machines have been radically reordered by the digital revolution.