[ninkendo]

I wonder if the cell carriers are seeing this as the existential threat it is, or if they’re just continuing with the whole “bury our heads in the sand” strategy.

If having a phone number has no benefit and only brings spam, and WiFi is ubiquitous in urban areas, a huge chunk of the population don’t really need cell plans any more. And the places without WiFi coverage (less dense areas) are the most expensive to provide service.

In the US at least, the FCC used to be pushing hard to combat the spam, like requiring authentication for caller ID, and it was the carriers that were dragging their feet and lobbying against it. So something tells me they just continue to view all the spam senders as an easy income source and don’t mind letting their whole business model die if it means short term profits.

[bluGill]

Most places with wifi around me don't offer great options. My local school blocks a lot (and I'm mostly there outside of school hours, they block more) - these are mostly places I wouldn't go anyway, but once in a while I hit something blocked. My office does the same - but they don't have public WiFi, an employee needs to get you a login (this is easy to do, but if you don't know someone who works in the building you can't connect at all). Most public wiki (including school above) also requires you accept a terms of use. Most devices won't automatically connect to any found open access point, so to use public WiFi I need to manually do everything.

That is I don't think people will use WiFi only, unless they are going to drop always reachable communication. (which given the SPAM OP mentioned maybe...)

[pocksuppet]

You still need a phone number to use apps like WhatsApp. The provider gets all of the same money, but without having to provide a service.