It was a useful tool. Still would be. Online searches for people are hard now. But note, those were limited databases. Phone number and address. No birth dates, security numbers, etc. It was a tool, not a weapon.

We still have a much different attitude toward that kind of data today. If some company leaked all its customers' names, addresses and phone numbers it would be considered a terrible scandal. In the 80s you would be upset if the phone company didn't print out that same data and give it to every customer for free.

On the other hand, there was a huge outcry at the time over Lotus Marketplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Marketplace

That sort of information is regularly bought and sold today. A breach that's just names, addresses, and phone numbers will draw a few headlines, some comments on HN, and a bunch of scolding tweets. But I don't imagine most people see that as particularly sensitive information in most circumstances. (Some exceptions of course such as the fact that you're in a particular database is itself sensitive.)

The recent tmobile breach?

A database feeds more evil than a printed book could, even if scanning/ocr it were feasible.

>I wonder why white pages fell out of favor.

People could look up numbers online if they wanted to, so there was just no need for a big book any longer. They also never had cell numbers so they became less useful in that regard. And most people don't just call a person out of the blue any longer.

I meant more why this kind of directory lost coverage overall as cell phones came in. Maybe it was just really that unpopular to have the name, address & number be public by default.

I don't know the history of why there was never a cellphone directory. There was never a monopoly controlling all those numbers for one thing as was originally the case with landlines--and regional monopolies after the Bell breakup.

I also suspect that by the time cellphones got big, the public overall wouldn't have been big on cellphones numbers being listed.

Around that time frame is also when spamming picked up quite a bit, while at the same time early mobile plans rarely had unlimited talk time making the spam particularly costly.

Most people's early mobile plans were very limited, the person receiving the call paid for it in the US, and costs were even higher for calls that weren't from your immediate local area. And, as you say, junk landline calls were becoming a bigger deal.

This old article https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/06/why-isn-t-there-... claims that the wireless carriers didn't want to put out a directory because consumers would be upset if they had to pay for junk calls.