"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

So, it's safe to assume GP meant modern life with modern comforts, rather than "my oxygen is only available with an iCloud subscription".

I joke in order to suggest someone reconsider what they may have overlooked.

I personally have never booked anything on a smartphone, and I'm content and perfectly well connected in 2022 in a first world country.

I book things in a browser when I need to book something online, and that is generally on a laptop. It's no less convenient.

In fact, I don't even have a mobile data plan, I just use WiFi. I prepay $10 every 6mo for voice calls, everything else can wait til I have WiFi.

I'm not a surgeon and taking calls while I'm driving isn't going to help anyone in any way that can't wait half an hour.

Phones are overrated, full of ads and casinos, and not as revolutionary as we often suggest.

The average person loses more time and money than they gain by having a mobile phone, I bet.

I suppose you own a car and solve all your personal logistics by driving (presumably in the US). That's a compromise I would not want to make just to get rid of the phone (a car seems much more annoying to deal with!)

I lived in the US years ago, I live in NZ now.

I do own a car, and it can go anywhere, carrying many people and goods very quickly and cheaply with no reservation or app required. It's also available in the event of natural disaster when all the rentals vanish. My family woke up to an earthquake that led to a tsunami warning at midnight in 2016, and there are fires and other problems one can foresee...

I do appreciate subway systems and find them very convenient for moving myself around, but dislike the idea of hiring someone else's machine every time I need to purchase groceries for a family or take 3 boxes of hardware to some place...

I think we may in some respects be regressing.

I know this was a joke, but...

The walled city of Athens when Socrates lived measured about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) in diameter.¹

Moscow is among the world's largest cities; the city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometers.²

Access to personal transport is an essential part of modern daily life, without which it is difficult to work, live, and even, sometimes, eat.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Athens

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow

And yet enormous Moscow somehow functioned before we invented iPhones less than 20 years ago...

Akchually the Russian economy was in the toilet until the mid 00s which is also when the iPhone was invented.

I’m kidding of course, but those systems that kept the city running are probably obsolete and forgotten about in the 2020s.

It did function "somehow", but not as well as it functions now. Hailing a cab (or an unlicensed one) when it's cold or rains was a struggle. No food delivery. No bus notifications and maps routing. Heck, it worked somehow before the Metro was dug by Stalin in the 1930s, but not as well as now.

So you're correct if you don't mind the quality of life.

I really don't get the food delivery thing. It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway, unless you're really starving. I've got far better things to do with my money than pay too much for bad, cold food.

Even during the entire 2020 Covid lockdown craziness (which was quite properly never really taken seriously here in Texas - even Austin!), we ordered food delivered exactly twice. All other food was either bought at the grocery store and cooked at home, or from restaurants (I actually miss being able to walk into any restaurant that was open and be instantly seated and served!)

> It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway

This depends on where you are! In Moscow, food delivery can be a 25 minute affair delivering you something from your favourite (vetted by you!) restaurant.

In Stockholm for example (at least when I used to live there), the number of restaurants that sign up for delivery is very low and you mostly just get shitty "Swedish pizza" (curry banana shrimp pizza, anyone?)

London is somewhere in between. Maybe it's just a function of city size, something something economies of scale.

At least be honest about having a car to get around