[KeepFlying]

Personally it feels weirder to have my address public today because it's too freely available across the world. Sure, someone back in the days of the yellow pages would still be able to get to me, but it would probably involve a bit more work of tracking what city I'm in then getting their hands on the book.

Now with it being digital it's too easy to casually find and abuse. The barrier to access is a lot lower.

[II2II]

Oddly enough, the information is just as available to businesses today yet it is less available to individuals. The digital databases have existed for decades. Certainly longer than the Internet as a publicly accessible network. Yet the phone books, that were accessible to anyone, no longer exist. (I also believe that cost of phone books were included in the price of telephone service, which meant that they were "free" for most households.)

(And, for the sake of accuracy, the yellow pages were a business directory that companies paid for higher profile ads. The white pages were the directory of individuals.)