But why? Why do people have to carry a wallet everywhere, unless they want to?

I have my payment cards on my watch. Pre-pandemic, my gym membership card was on my watch. If I had my ID on my watch as well, I don't ever have to worry about a wallet being stolen because I wouldn't carry one.

Sure, people can steal your watch at gunpoint- but it can be remotely disabled (even if you were forced to give your passcode under duress), and you'd still have a physical ID card at home you can use.

What if you had a serious business dispute with Apple or Google, and were (justifiably) uncomfortable walking around with a mobile bug running software of their choosing? [1]

For most people on this site, this kind of threat is far more likely than the mugging you described.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v...

Then

1. Keep using a drivers licence in card form.

2. If you want to use it in phone form instead despite your dispute with google and apple, have it on a phone thats not made by google or apple.

3. If you insist on using a google or apple phone for your drivers licence phone app despite your dispute with google and apple, just leave it off after putting your licence on it except for when you need your licence, and don't connect it to the internet.

Presumably you aren't in dispute with everyone, so you can use a phone from a company other than the one you're in dispute with.

Eg. If you're an ex-Google employee or contractor, use a personal iPhone without any Google apps on them.

There is a standard that allows you to make a compatible implementation on a device without Apple or Google software.

Which device would that be? This is pure interoperability theatre by a duopoly.

If I recall correctly, Moxie Marlinspike did a great talk about this idea years ago. How things like having a cell phone are theoretically “optional” yet to be normally integrated into today’s society entirely requires it. This is especially true in these covid-times.

"Changing Threats to Privacy" at Defcon 18.

I dont think this standard makes a phone a requirement. It just provides a new option.

Is having a computer a requirement to be part of modern society? It certainly helps, and the vast majority of people use them for the convivence, but its not required.

> can work against you anytime.

Often does work against you really.

It can be encrypted by a key held within the phone's TPM so it is up to you whether or not to unlock the phone and launch the app that allows the car to be scanned.

The techno-fetishists are taking over. The kind of people whose reaction to dystopian sci-fi is, "I want those cool gadgets".

A tool is not dystopian, only its usage. This is no more dystopian than Apple Pay, as long as it isn’t mandated and data access and storage is appropriately regulated.

Yes, I think so too. I am professionally a SWE but more and more I feel like a Luddite, and more and more distant from the predominant HN demographic.

Same, more and more I feel pariah because I don't praise big tech, I don't buy the new product and I don't talk about new features.

Maybe that's just the marketing working on 11 and I'm to tuned in, or maybe everyone is into it and I'm the one that doesn't care.