The hand-helds gave access to the web without a the burden of a large personal computer. Which could and can be a PITA to maintain. And were slow. The hand-held OSs are in some ways easier to use.

My Uncle was a headmaster for about 35 years. When I presented a laptop to him, he couldn't use it. Told me he had never had to use a typewriter and couldn't use one. It was a really hard hurdle for him to adapt to a keyboard. And he still struggles.

The thing I'm really uneasy about is the Googles tracking everywhere you go, and all of that. It's very difficult to opt-out of tracking. I desperately tried to suppress my location from Google for years, and in one afternoon with a product activation via location/bluetooth they finally appeared to get it. Play services etc., make harvesting your contacts, reading your mail, and following you much easier. And it then becomes that bit easier to turn you into a commodity.

My Samsung was pre-loaded with Facebook. These are shitty little tricks. But advert networks in the browser also make it very difficult to escape the big trackers without a fight. Fingerprinting is everywhere.

We also dump files into the cloud these days. Which is very trusting.

Indeed. That rapidly accelerated the shift from the Web, for most people, being a physical place you went (a desk with a computer on it, in a specific spot) to being everywhere at all times. You had to choose to go use it before, and make an effort—now it follows you around, wherever you go, never more than a few seconds away.