Counterpoint: I've had the same phone number for 7 years (Sweden), and another number for 15 years (British), but I've deleted my Facebook account multiple times in that timespan, and removed "friends" even more commonly when they started posting excessively political stuff and I didn't have a strong connection to them.
Are you aware that you can take phone numbers with you when you change providers? As for the other point: they're addressable on the entire planet, you can be sure everyone has one and it's not tied to a singular company.
So, while I'm joking about the equivalency, you said that a "registry that everyone on the planet was on" was the value add- I'm suggesting, somewhat tongue-in-cheekly, that we have such a system.
I travel a lot, and so do my friends as I end up meeting a lot of exchange students and expats. Moving with your phone number is not a thing everywhere.
Are you aware that you can take phone numbers with you when you change providers? As for the other point: they're addressable on the entire planet, you can be sure everyone has one and it's not tied to a singular company.
So, while I'm joking about the equivalency, you said that a "registry that everyone on the planet was on" was the value add- I'm suggesting, somewhat tongue-in-cheekly, that we have such a system.