I’m almost purely digital for pretty much all of notifications that come my way - even my doctor.
I don’t live in the area code where my phone number is from, and haven’t in so long that there’s only a few people that would call me from that area code.
And - well spotted - The 38 call salvo from the day prior was actually a contractor trying to get ahold of me. Because it was a number from my current area code, I went ahead and called them back. The person who called me only tried to dial once, and the redials were all the computer automatically retrying.
Admittedly, it is less than optimal, but in the 5ish years I’ve gone without a voicemail, it’s the second time I haven’t picked up for a desired call.
Usually when I know I’m going to be receiving calls from new folks, I’ll first try to call their number or text them - even if the number isn’t in my contacts, if I’ve interacted with it in some fashion, it will ring through. Or I’ll disable the ‘straight to voicemail’ for a time.
It’s not too onerous, and I really hate spam calls, so the effort of remembering to enable/disable it a few times a year is worth it to me.
And, for what it’s worth, I do think it has an effect. Earlier this year I let calls through and forgot to block them again, and it was 3 weeks before I got a spam call. Before taking such extreme measures, I was getting about 5 a week.