The problem is not that the phone system is old or "archaic", or that it uses old technologies - rather, the system is as bad as it is, because it's been ravaged by a cancer - a cancer on modern society known as advertising[0].

All of this has happened before, and it will happen again.

Any new media, any form of communications we invent, develops this cancer as it grows into mainstream awareness. The more people a new tool can reach, the more rewarding it becomes to marketers and salesmen, who all flock to it - and as they do, they accelerate the growth of the medium while also displacing and degrading the intended/legitimate usages of it. Soon enough, the medium turns into barren wasteland full of threats to users' sanity and wallets. Only once it goes so bad that people stop using the medium, and/or find a better alternative, do things get better - the cancer dies off as its nourishment supply, i.e. the audience, goes elsewhere. But the disease follows them there. And, if didn't inflict terminal damage to the old medium, chances are that old medium will experience a second spring[1], albeit in a much more diminished shape, becoming a niche hobby or internal technical tool[1].

Advertising is what destroyed AM/FM radio (remains a niche). It's what destroyed outdoor information displays (now existing only to show ads). It's what denies us beautiful vistas (all obstructed by billboards). It's what killed OTA TV, then cable TV[2]. It's what killed e-mail[3]. It's what killed the phone system, and it's what will kill any new thing we move to.

This problem will not go away until we start treating the actual disease - advertising. And by treating I mean the equivalent of radiation therapy[4]; anything else, anything narrowly targeted, leaves space for the disease to come back with extra force - the line between "outright scam" and "legitimate communication" is fuzzy, and salesmen and marketers are very creative at blurring it further.

And no, adding crypto (the legitimate kind) to the mix - authentication protocols, encrypted handshakes, whatnot - will not help, for the same reason your immune system isn't of much help against real cancer either. Sure, it'll get harder for a random Joe the Scammer to do their fly-by-night salesmanship, but advertisers in general can afford to implement all the schemes marking them as AAA tier 1 legitimate communication.

After all, if you look at the web, who's actually pushing most of the security stuff? Unsurprisingly, biggest players in adtech. Improving the medium's immune system is in their interest - they're still invisible to it, and getting rid of the most obnoxious scams secures their own ability to feed on all of us.

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[0] - Well, kinda. It also includes bits of activities classified under "sales" and "marketing". I think the closest term encompassing them all might be "marketing communications", but "advertising" as understood by regular people covers most of it.

[1] - In rare cases, it may turn into a kind of "zombie mode", a blob of glowing radioactive mutated cancer, able to live out of background cosmic radiation, or such. I mean, how else can you describe the Fax system? You plug it in, wait a moment or three, and suddenly it starts spitting out ads!

[2] - The prime example why paying doesn't protect you from the disease. Once medium contracts advertising, the option to "pay instead of seeing ads" quickly turns into "pay and see ads anyway", and then "fuck you, pay more and see even more ads".

[3] - No, spam filter only catches the worst of it. "Legitimate" advertising still fills most of everyone's inboxes, which is a big reason why people flock to closed, gate-kept alternatives.

[4] - Or nuking it from orbit. Pick your own favorite exaggerated metaphor; it's the only way to be sure.