Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the old days (up to ~2018) you could always contact people on the internet. Now you cannot contact people. That's bad. It's like the switch from knowing and being able to talk your neighbors to not knowing and not talking to your neighbors. Like the switch from a small town to a megacity. And you're completely wrong about GDPR. It is the primary, if not exclusive, reason most registrars in most regions have remove…
WHOIS having privacy guards was a thing at least as far back as 15 years ago, as memory serves.
I'm aware. Look at the plots of WHOIS privacy vs open once ICANN was forced to allow it by the GDPR. They're in my second link. You cannot deny that correlation so I assume you just didn't bother looking.