By that logic you can just not use Google. But that's ridiculous, as ridiculous as the statement that users can choose not to use a service. I believe it's impossible to live in modern society without having an account in FAANG, even harder than a business not having a google maps listing.

This is ofc locale-dependent, but if before the pandemic you could barely live without a smartphone, today is just impossible (at least in the 2 countries I visit often).

Switched banks.

> gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere?

There wasn't one, thank $DEITY (Germany).

> QR code for restaurants?

Never encountered one without a menu yet, but I'd just go to another one.

> Places that require an app in general?

Never encountered those, either. There was one on my offline backpacking trip which required digital payment. It was sad, but I had to forfeit.

Some places do require an app and while there are alternatives, there may not be another choice in the future. But not today, most of my elderly neighbours also don't own a smartphone and yet they survive in this city (Antwerp).

Life without a smartphone is possible, and imho calmer and more relaxed.

The easiest way to avoid this is by going physically to your bank branch.

> gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere?

Don't live in a country that does this, so I don't know.

> QR code for restaurants?

I ask for a menu.

> Places that require an app in general?

Haven't seen that happen yet. There are some parking lots that require an app to park in them, but I just park elsewhere. The laundry room in my apartment complex requires an app to pay, so I just go to the laundromat down the street instead.

I do have a smartphone, although I'll switch to the dumbest phone I can find when this one dies. I do not use any apps for doing any commerce or the like, though. It's far too risky for my taste.

A lot of people talk about 'needing' a smartphone for services/stuff I have never used, and probably would never use. I suppose I just kept living my life as I did before the 2010s, while everyone else changed. I was already in my 30s at that time, so not subject to the same social pressures a younger person would have felt, so perhaps it was easier.

That and my avoidance of Facebook didn't really matter until I had a kid and he started nursery school. I somehow got myself elected head of the Parents' Council, but it's been tough dealing with the mental block the slightly-younger generation has for email, and Signal is apparently a little too out there for non-techy 20/30-somethings of either gender.

I'm not as privacy-conscious as you, as I have a fairly recent iPhone; I'd probably be better described as social-media-skeptical, but your right to live a normal life without a smartphone is tied to my right to live a normal life without intrusive social media.

I use a bottom tier flip phone in the US, and a 13 year old Nokia with a pay-as-you go SIM in Europe.

I've noticed that there has been a generational shift towards smartphone-only communications, but I haven't really had to deal with it. I'd like to hear more about that. Oddly I use some of the same communication tools that young kids use, namely Discord, as it doesn't require a phone number. Linking online accounts and communications to a phone number has always put me off.

Also, even a lot of Facebook skeptics have no idea they’re owned and run by the same company…

I've been using GrapheneOS with F-droid and Aurora Store without logging into a Google account for years.

I've yet to run into a single thing I either couldn't use or couldn't work around.

I had to buy a replacement phone in a hurry last year when my old phone's screen stopped working, just so I could login to make an urgent bank transfer. I would have preferred to take my time over what to buy, but so many financial things I use are blocked without a smartphone now.

As for "working around" it, it's ridiculous to impose that expectation on the general population. Sure, you and I will always be able to find a way to hack around restrictions, but it's inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of the population.

Most people use phones they bought at their local electronics store, with default Android OS and default settings.

The exception establishes that you can.

The exception very specifically and precisely does disprove the rule.

At that point, you literally cannot live as an adult in the society without FAANG dependence, even if it's a third party Android phone, at least not legally.

For example, I went to visit the beach, which is on a national park. Parking required an app. There were park rangers there, the location was staffed, but they did not accept cash or credit card. Just an app. And there are two phone operating systems now, Apple and Android. So no. Can’t live without FAANG. I ended up downloading the app on the spot and purchasing a pass.

I’m sure the park service does this for their convenience. And it’s so populated near the coasts that if anyone doesn’t comply, they still have plenty of people who would gladly use the app. They can get away with demanding smartphone use. You can certainly get away with not having a smartphone further inland, and not needing to depend on FAANG explicitly. But I know this expectation is going to creep into the continent over time. In 5 years, if you say “I don’t have a smart phone” you’ll just be denied service. Period. No questions asked. And you will be considered the unreasonable party by most.

> In 5 years, if you say “I don’t have a smart phone” you’ll just be denied service. Period. No questions asked.

IANAL, but I feel like that should be illegal.

Sure, they can set up an app and those who want to use it may do so, but for things things like parking there ought to be an alternate. Beach, national park etc is a predominantly offline service for which it's absurd to insist on using an app.

Especially for something that's on a "national park" — I don't really know what the "national" part indicates (not from USA) but I'm assuming that the govt is involved.

Somebody should go to court.

The noose is tightening around the necks of those few of us who do not use smartphones. I hope a future wave of 'tech minimalism' gains enough traction to ensure that there are alternatives, but for now, as we ride the wave of tech-optimism and the mass adoption of intrusive technologies in the name of convenience or cost cutting, most people seem to see asking for alternatives as unreasonable.

There is an element of innate freedom in anonymous, analogue processes, even if they are not entirely 'anonymous' - such as writing a car license plate number on an envelope of cash for a drop box - it might as well be if the information is never entered into a searchable digital database where it will presumably be stored for eternity.

I few years ago I went camping at a state park in a system that had recently introduced usage fees (having always been free in the past). The state apparently partnered with some obscure parking app company to collect the fees. The use of the state park required submitting a considerable amount of information to a third party, with little or no information on how that data might be used, stored, or sold - in essence you had no choice but to submit to a third party's TOS in order to use public facilities at all. I did not like this at all, and having no smartphone, I paid cash at the manned office - only to have them collect my information and enter it into the parking app database.

A few months ago someone here made a comment in another discussion about having a pervasive sense that things are not quite as they should be. That stuck with me.

In the US, there are still large groups of Mennonites whose choices to avoid most post-19th century technology are generally well-accepted by the rest of the population, the best known of which are the Amish. They do travel around to varying extents, because not every Mennonite community agrees to what degree to avoid technology and under what circumstances - some have a community cellphone, some even have family cars (with a preference for less showy models); many are fine with taking public transit or hiring an "English" (non-Amish) driver. Individual smartphone ownership and use would conflict very strongly with what I understand of even the most "liberal" Amish communities, though.

There's got to be some sort of alliance that privacy-conscious techies can form with technology-skeptical religious communities, despite radically different worldviews.

No you can't just use a web app.

Nooooo...this is dark UX to artificially increase the number of violators and collect more revenue.

I expected better from the park service but around here they've started making people enter their license plate number on parking lot passes too to prevent the time-honored tradition of sharing day passes. They're in revenue-generating mode these days.

Case in point:

I had to drop off a cashier's check at a landlord's office. Same deal-- paid streetside parking, but didn't realize it was app-only. I struggled with downloading the app on a crappy connection and couldn't successfully pay for parking after 45 minutes of fucking with it.

What am I going to do, leave? I drove an hour to get there and had 3 minutes' worth of business there. In the end I just ended up parking illegally.

To be any scummier, they'd have to implement paid parking at rest stops and ticket anybody who dashes past the meter trying to get to the bathroom before they piss themselves.

Oh, this is completely possible -- I do it.

But it won't stop them from getting your personal data.

There's not need to pit fairness in business dealings against privacy. Both are wins for the average person.

We can chew gum and walk at the same time, no need to throw privacy under the bus.

Giving your personal data to private companies, however, is a choice. You can simply not use their services.

If you don't want to be homeless, you're either renting or buying, and in either case people are going to be processing your personal data. You're also probably going to need a bank account, which you also can't open without handing over personal data.

If you want electricity, you're then dealing with another company that is processing your data. Same for water and gas and internet.

Sure, some things are optional, some things can be worked around by buying in person and using cash instead of buying online. But a lot of things are just not practically optional.

It’s not as simple as “don’t use them”

Good luck with that. I get that you can refuse to email anybody with a gmail.com address, but lots of people use Google to host email. You may not be willing to upload your address book to Facebook, but the people who also have you in their phone book have likely shared that with FB through Instagram.

These companies get to know you pretty well even if you never directly use their services.

I love this liberal argument. It's the sister argument of "Well, if you don't like YouTube censorship, then you can start your own YouTube!" It is truly out of touch with how societies actually function.

This argument only works when you have lots of market competition full of small players where it doesn't make any difference which service you use. But large corporations can effectively become something like public utilities that function like economic gatekeepers in a way that even governments are incapable of.

It is also hostile and encourages/enables the hostility of big players. My presumption is characterized by liberality, but it's a presumption, which means I default to liberality, unless there is a good reason to restrain it. Saying "just don't use it" can either be unrealistic, or something like a move of last resort. We regulate business and have always regulated business for a reason, pace free market extremism.

The common good is the concern of the law, and protecting the individual is for the sake of the common good. Start there, and you might take a different view of the function of economies in societies and how they may or may not be constrained.

There is no real choice in our modern society to "not give your personal data" to these megacorps.

I did not gave my data to TeleSign but apparently they have it. And my operator did not tell me.

This is what I do, but it certainly doesn't stop private companies from getting my private data anyway.

There is no way to opt out of this.