From Lifehacker: Should Voicemail Die

Over at Lifehacker they pose an interesting question: Should Voicemail Die?
My vote is that the current system of managing voice mail through the phone should definitely go away ASAP.
The whole process of managing messages through a phone is incredibly slow. I speed up the process by writing down the series of buttons I need to push to get my, thankfully, occasional message.
Phone menus are terrible though. There is so little actual data throughput in comparison to other methods of communication.
I do like, in principle, how Comcast does the voice mail for their Digital Voice phone service. Messages can be accessed online.
When someone calls my home phone number and leaves a message I receive an immediate email. I copy the link and paste it in Internet Explorer, because I can never get the Quicktime plugin to work on Firefox, and then I listen to the voice message.
This slightly byzantine process is faster than going through the phone and it could be much easier if I put in the time to get that Quicktime plugin to work in Firefox.