But that just requires any cellphone that can text, and cell phones have been common for 25 years. Are there some specific examples of where you have to have a smartphone?
Try getting a job without a smartphone.
Try getting government services without a computer.
Try getting anything without a phone at all.
You can't even walk into a physical brick-and-mortar business without them worrying about being defrauded.
We built a high trust society and then threw away the trust part.
1. At least where I leave, local libraries provide a ton of support for people who need help using a computer: free access to computers, the Internet, popular applications, and instruction on how to use them.
2. You still haven't given any evidence on why you need a smartphone.
2. Yes, society changes, and as part of those changes you need access to new tools. When I was a kid in the 80s in the US, you needed to have a car and you needed to have a phone.
At this point, PCs have been commonplace for nearly 40 years. I'm not saying that change is easy, but this idea that people are helpless and there aren't avenues to get access to the tools they need is BS in my opinion.
Perhaps, but I don't agree with you. It's an expression of frustration about my own personal experiences.
> At least where I leave, local libraries provide a ton of support for people who need help using a computer
That's a good point. I haven't (yet) looked at my local libraries to see how functional they are. I'll do that within the next month though.
> You still haven't given any evidence on why you need a smartphone.
I shouldn't need evidence for why you need a smartphone when I am arguing that you shouldn't need a smartphone. But ok: try signing up for any service with SMS-based 2FA required; banks come to mind, many other online services. Guess you "need" a smartphone unless you don't want to do online banking. It's further crazy that SMS-based 2FA actually decreases security.
> Yes, society changes, and as part of those changes you need access to new tools. When I was a kid in the 80s in the US, you needed to have a car and you needed to have a phone.
Changes in society should not require you to follow those changes yourself.
The requirement for a car is strictly a negative aspect of society, and very much a USA-based problem induced by not fostering public transit while also fostering sprawling urban/suburban environments. And that requirement is also a self-reinforcing lock-in: if you don't have a car then you can't afford to get a good job and without a good job you can't afford to move somewhere that a car is not required. Today it's very much still that way, with the exception of remote work which is very much in danger of being destroyed by oligarchs.
And for phone; well I distinctly recall many homes had phones shared by the whole family. You didn't need a phone per-se, you could easily borrow your own, or your neighbor's/friend's phone number and they'd take messages for you. Still can today, except that there's a lot more assumption about one-phone-to-one-real-person today.
> I'm not saying that change is easy, but this idea that people are helpless and there aren't avenues to get access to the tools they need is BS in my opinion.
I'm not saying people are helpless and there aren't avenues to get access to the tools they need. I'm saying the tools they need have been perverted beyond belief so that someone who has different morals no longer feels safe using the tools they need.
You can't say the same about cars in the 80s. Yes you might have actually needed a car, but the car was yours and didn't spy on you. Yes you might have actually needed a personal phone number and you could count on it being monitored by the government or with a warrant, but your conversations weren't data mined by and sold to third parties who you've never even heard of let alone done business with.
I literally wrote in the first comment you replied to "But that just requires any cellphone that can text, and cell phones have been common for 25 years. Are there some specific examples of where you have to have a smartphone?" - and then you just give another example that just requires texting...
I did read what you said. You're clearly not reading what I am saying. Here, let me repeat it for you:
Try.
Signing.
Up.
To.
Anything.
Without.
A.
Phone.
I fully understand you need to a phone that accepts text messages. You don't seem to understand that phones that can accept text messages existed long before smartphones, you can still buy them, and they aren't the same thing.
That computer only needs a browser. Surely as an HN commenter you know the solution for having a computer that you don’t want to run software by BigTech on it.
I know older people who will still walk into the various government offices and utility offices when needed
> Surely as an HN commenter you know the solution for having a computer that you don’t want to run software by BigTech on it.
Yup. I speak from experience. See my other reply [0] to you.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42879665
> I know older people who will still walk into the various government offices and utility offices when needed
Yup. I speak from experience.
Government services and private utilities in Texas require email addresses. They require phone numbers.
If you don't have a computer, you're definitely not going to get the emails in a timely fashion. If you don't have a phone, you're not going to receive phone calls or texts. Good luck to homeless!
When you do have a computer, the government services offload your information to a private third party. You are required to do this to enroll in government services, and that private entity has its own license agreement whose jurisdiction is not even in Texas. If you have a disagreement, good luck getting to Idaho to file a dispute when you can't afford groceries. And all of your private information is made available to the lowest bidder.
They require home phone numbers.
And you are talking about owning a phone - not a smart phone.
Here is a feature phone for you
So? I mean bully for them I guess, but why should anyone else care?
Not yet, perhaps.
But try getting a job without a linkedin account.
Try getting fair prices without an email address. For that matter, try getting email without a large-block mail provider and without getting your email server blocked or spammed.
Try filing for unemployment without a SMS-capable phone or email address or signing away your rights to a non-government entity.
And there are plenty of non smart phones that can receive text messages.
You wanna put some money where your mouth is?
In other Hacker News...
Linux troubles:
- [0.a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42839502 "Facebook ban on discussing Linux"
- (bonus comment} [0.a.b] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848523 "Linux users are extremists according to the NSA (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extrem...)"
- [0.b] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4063236 "Microsoft Bans Linux/Android Dual-Booting on Windows 8 ARM Devices"
- [0.c] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224887 "Apple Is Blocking Linux User-Agent on appleid.apple.com"
- [0.d] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36197401 "Tell HN: Cloudflare is locking out Linux users"
Firefox troubles:
- [1.a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34952279 "Ask HN: Is your Firefox blocked by Cloudflare in recent weeks? (e.g., Gitlab)"
- [1.b] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31459258 "Firefox appears to be flagged as suspicious by Cloudflare"
- [1.c] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42719865 "Google.com search now refusing to search for FF esr 128 without JavaScript"
- [1.d] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29938521 "Reddit Blocks Firefox"
- [1.e] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33269391 "Firefox Private Mode blocked by T-Mobile"
I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say that yes you are right you "can" get such a computer. But there are very strong indications that won't always be true, and even having such a computer does not guarantee that you can access the services that you require.
> And there are plenty of non smart phones that can receive text messages.
What you mean is that there are plenty of non-smart phones that enable receiving of massive amounts of spam indistinguishable from spearphishing, and you even pay for that privilege.
No. I do not accept the concept of being required to pay for that "service".
It misses 2 main points:
1. The system we have seems to have done a pretty good job, since people are choosing its products, rather than products created by another system.
2. A lot of people will rarely make a larger sacrifice than maybe quitting Twitter for a while despite spending a huge amount of time trying to preach to other people about how important their cause is. Which makes it seem like the noises they make are often just posturing.
That's a weird phrase for "people do not have a choice about the products they use"
> A lot of people will rarely make a larger sacrifice than maybe quitting Twitter for a while despite spending a huge amount of time trying to preach to other people
Speak for yourself. I know plenty of people who want to disconnect but literally cannot because the services they're required to use also require connectivity.
> Which makes it seem like the noises they make are often just posturing.
Yes, that's the real evil isn't it? When you lack choices or recourse then talk is cheap.
Take climate change, something I suspect we agree on. People won't take individual action, and so it's no shock that they also won't vote for a politician who will promise to force them to take action, unless they are convinced that the costs to them will be small. Also, a hot take - climate change denial is partly virtue signalling by people who'd just rather have other people solve the problem but don't want to admit that. Yeah, big oil propaganda and a hostility between creationists and scientists is also a factor.
I talk with elderly people who do not have smartphones, and they tell me how difficult it is to navigate the modern world without them - doctor offices who want to send a text or MFA or the like. That we have a Google/Apple monopoly (or any nationwide Verizon/AT&T monopoly, with maybe one or two smaller players) is not much of a gotcha. I have more faith in the wisdom of the youth than your neoclassical theories of political economy.
Of course virtually everything is an oligopoly nowadays. UMG, Sony, Warner own at least 65% of global music. Media, accounting, advertising, breakfast cereals, go down the list - most commodities are sold by an oligopoly of four or less companies. A theory of political economy where somehow consumers are "choosing" this system is what is bankruptcy, not the understanding of the working youth who resent this.