I'll jump in here to add obsessed may be too strong a description to describe the general population. But dislike with a passion is not over stating the problem.
Also take into account you are seeing a very narrow slice of that general population on here, people who like to tweak technology like the Obi devices, and adjust the intensity accordingly for those who frequent this website.
The tele-callers prey on peoples sympathies (usually elderly and the infirm) and they use loop holes in the consumer regulations setup to govern this. Example: My numbers are on the state and federal Do Not Call lists. Charities (and political calls) are exempt from the regulations. So every month or so I get multiple calls from someone who says "Hello Mr. CoalMiner, I'm calling for the ABC Township Policeman's Association fund...". The words up to "fund" are the exact words they use. I live in ABC township.
Who doesn't want to help out the local police. But it isn't the actual police who are calling (I've asked them), it's some call center that has somehow contracted with the ABC Township Policeman's Association, scrupulously or otherwise (I'll suspect otherwise), and they'll give maybe 35% of what they take in to the ABC Policeman's Association, and the remainder goes to themselves. Multiple this by The Sierra Club (relentless tele-charity, do not get on their call list), and in my case say ten other charities that I have no prior connection to, ... well, do the math.
It's now about to become 'get out the vote season', and I'll be turning on the Google Voice
Audio Caller ID until after election day.
And one more point that just gets under the skin of anyone who knows about this whole sorry state of affairs. The local phone companies do nothing to stop this, and in fact they collect money from both ends: An incredibly high monthly fee for Caller ID and Caller Name (~$9.00 per month per landline, plus an additional monthly fee if you want to "subscribe" to anonymous call block) from me the subscriber, and on the other end from either the incoming call from a distant rate center, or from providing dial-tone if the call center is local (in the case of the police donation scheme, the call center is about 20 miles away). So the phone companies both promote this and charge fees to make it less intrusive/more user friendly. Fees that are outrageously high when compared to VoIP telephony. And the phone companies have been doing it for years and years.
If the people who facilitated this "industry" were drawn, quartered and burned at the stake it would be too humane a way to treat them.