Yellow Pages Are Useless (unless used as doorstops)

Talking to small businesses in town, the topic of Yellow Pages has certainly come up. You see, it blows me away that there are people still paying a lot of money to have one banner ad in the Yellow Pages. One professional told me that the yellow pages ad costs him $12,000/year! I couldn't believe it.

Yellow Pages Ad "Features"

Let's look at what you're getting when you buy a Yellow Pages ad:

• A black and white or at best, coloured, ad on really low quality paper.
• Totally static -- you cannot update the information mid year.
• Totally boring -- it can be quite difficult to look unique or catch the eye of a customer amidst all the distractions.
• Ancient -- even grandmas are on Google now.

Having a website doesn't compare to the yellow pages, it seems both in terms of effectiveness and price!

I know I'm being somewhat biased as I'm in the web design industry but I am wondering do people find the Yellow Pages useful?