It was recommended multiple times in history, the problem is that it doesn't really solve any problems, just moves the problems elsewhere:

• At some parts of the world "midnight" (the time when the day changes) will be during the "day". Would you like that you have to use a different calendar date at the morning and at the evening? It also makes much harder to check if something happened one or 2 days ago by simply checking the date, you would have to know the new UTC time as well
• You still would have to know how far they are from you to set up an international call. Some people wake up at 2:00 UTC, some wake up at 16:00 UTC. So actually nothing solved, but you have to use different numbers instead of time zone names.
• Time in China works like that, you can already see how it's going there. Full of China is one time zone, on its western border if you would cross to Afghanistan you would have to set your clock 4 and half hours backward. In Xinjiang solar noon is around 15:00 (3 pm). How people live like this? They simply use different timetables, 9-5 job is something like 11-7. So even it doesn't have a separate time zone people live like they would have a separate time zone.
• Swatch Internet Time was a well known example of this in the late 90s, you can read the general problems with it on wiki

But then we would need some method to quickly discern the relative position in the day/night cycle of a locality, perhaps some form of number to indicate the percentage of a day before or after midnight their local area is at. Then probably just add that offset so that the viewer doesn't need to do the math everytime.

https://qntm.org/abolish

I'm onboard with this!

I keep arguing for this but everybody thinks I'm crazy. They say stupid stuff like but what time would school start kids would be getting up at 8:00 a.m. and it could be the middle of the night.

Dude, so many people just use cst, EST etc. When they say 10am est during DST, I reply so 11am EDT/10AM CDT.

Always, always, decide on a time zone that matches the clock above the CEOs desk at the company buying the service.

You're selling boats? Customer's wall clock. You're talking with azure support because your bill has some bloated charges? You better believe your clock is the only one that counts. The highest ranking person in the entity forking over cash has control over time zones and fuck everyone else.

The next time I ask Siri anything, she better just tell me the time in Atlanta even if I ask for anything else.

Do not ask for the time zone, ask for the city. Than use a tool for the task. People are stupid, and they don't necessarily know the name of their time zone, even during DST.

I used website this before, you just type the city names and it will show you which time is good for which participant: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html But I'm pretty sure a lot other websites exist to solve this.

The problem in your story was not time zones, but you didn't use the correct tool for the task.

timezones are important

I have a flight at 2 am but I don't want to get up at midnight!

I'll just change my clocks and get up at 6 am instead.

Makes me appreciate being in Atlanta, which is in eastern time but (as shown on this map) "ought" to be in central time. I get a daylight-savings-time-like experience year-round and then get actual daylight savings time stacked on top of it.

You should have confirmed in GMT, and then you could both convert it to whatever your local time is.

What are your feelings on base 60?

Right through the god damn center of Tampa.