Are we all telephone operators?

A comment in the editorial Measuring the Blogosphere (NYTimes, August 5, 2005) caught my attention:

If the blogosphere continues to expand at this rate, every person who has Internet access will be a blogger before long, if not an actual reader of blogs.

It reminds me of something I came across a few years ago when I was pulling together material about the evolution of telephony. It was a comment (made back in the 1920s, I think) that went something like:

"If the number of telephones continues to grow at this rate, everyone will be a telephone operator by XXXX."

I suspect that the comment was intended to indicate that the growth in the number of telephones could not continue at the same rate. In fact, the rate of growth in the number of telephones actually increased -- and with the advent of direct-dialing, we did, in effect, all become telephone operators.