Online restaurant reservations?

Apparently restaurants are now catching on to the idea of reserving tables online. The article says how it is necessary for restaurants to embrace this new technology (while paying the online reservation service a fee of course), but is this really a needed service?

Granted, I do not live in New York City, nor do I eat regularly out at fancy restaurants. Frankly, if a restaurant is so overbooked that I can't get a reservation, it's probably too crowded for my taste. Still, even when calling expensive restaurants for reservations and odd times of the day (or on special days) I have never thought to myself, "Gee, I wish I could do this online."

I use the Internet to find the restaurant's phone number and I call them up. I have seen some of them using online reservation systems, and I have tried them a total of 3 times. Each time it came back with "no reservation available" for my time and date. So I called the restaurant, saved my table through them directly, and had a wonderful evening.

My opinion, the online reservation system is pointless (and broken). Just give me their phone number.