Comparing PublicIdentity.org with the yellow pages

In the days before the internet, we used phone books to find the phone number of someone we wanted to call. The phone books were divided into two sections: white pages, with an alphabetical list of every number, and yellow pages with business numbers grouped by category.

Advantages

• The list included every phone number for the given area.
• Opt-out was monetized: you could pay for an unlisted number.
• There wasn’t any advertising, but you could pay to for ads and for enhanced (bold or boxed) listings.

Disadvantages

• Each phone book only included numbers for a given area.
• Areas with a lot of businesses had huge phonebooks.
• It was run by the phone company and only included businesses with phones.

Notes

This is directly comparable to what I want to build. I wouldn’t monetize opt-out, maybe I could charge for enhanced listings.

• In the United Statues, the term “yellow pages” is generic and not trademarked. Thryv (owners of the yellowpages.com domain) has the trademark on “The Real Yellow Pages”.