> This looks like a loser's move, but if your bank has no other options except for mobile app, you can…

…switch banks.

I think it's easier just to buy a shitty iPhone...

Why would you stick with such a bad or incompetent bank? I just don’t understand that mentality.

In my country, creating a new bank used to require presidential approval. That was the status quo until only a few years ago. Things only started to improve after that requirement went away, and they certainly haven't improved enough.

It's hard to describe just how deeply entrenched institutions like banks are. Normal people see all of this stuff and they do not even react at all. It's all just mindless bureaucracy that they have to put up with. Nothing can be done about it. Can't be helped, so they just accept it.

So it's not wise to treat banks like normal corporations which compete with each other on the open market. They are directly legally and financially incentivized to do everything we are fighting against.

For example, our banks still require us to install "security modules" on our computers in order to log into our accounts. Once upon a time I tried to reverse engineer one of those things to see why they made the computer so unusably slow. I caught it intercepting every single network connection. Told me all I needed to know.

At some point society has to simply determine that it's immoral and make it illegal. It doesn't matter how much money they lose to fraud of whatever, just write it off as a business expense or something.

I’ve lived in Africa, Europe, and the US, but I’ve never experienced a situation where I couldn’t just switch to a different bank if I wanted to. That’s the context for my comment. All I’m saying is that if you’re in a situation where a bank’s services are overly restrictive, and switching to a different bank will solve that, it makes sense to switch. I can’t speak to places where such choices aren’t available.

I take the same position on countries - it’s why I no longer live in Africa, where I grew up. And why I soon won’t be living in the US any more. Life is too short to waste it having other people’s mistakes inflicted on you.

> I take the same position on countries - it’s why I no longer live in Africa, where I grew up. And why I soon won’t be living in the US any more. Life is too short to waste it having other people’s mistakes inflicted on you.

You have my applause. But that certainly looks like you are in for a lot of moving around, going forward. I guess it is not an option for everyone.

Looking at immigration and refugee numbers around the world, more people take it as an option than you might imagine.

For many of those that don't, that's a choice. Keep in mind that emigrating doesn't necessarily mean adhering to all the bureaucratic procedures involved, all the time.

I lived in my home country and then Botswana for nearly 30 years. I've been in the US for over 30 years. I don't anticipate many more moves.

At around 4% of the world’s population, it is a tiny fraction that hardly matters.

4% is huge. That’s one in every 25 people, about 325 million people in total. The United States contains around 4% of the world’s population, for example.

It’s more than the combined population of the top ten megacities (pop. > 20 million) in the world.

In addition to that, immigrants and refugees are having an outsized influence on politics, and on who gets elected, in many countries around the world.

It’s denying reality to say it “hardly matters”.

> I don't anticipate many more moves.

Why do you think so? Most developed and democratic countries are in trouble, lately. Instability is everywhere. T

It takes time for a solidly democratic country to screw itself up quite as badly as the US has done.

Also, the US situation was exacerbated by a number of factors unique to the US: "corporations are people", "money is speech", the two-party, first past the post voting system, the electoral college, and the specifics of the representation system, are all huge disadvantages for achieving good democratic outcomes.

Plus, I think there's a good chance that the more progressive European countries will learn from, and be inoculated by, the US mistakes. I didn't leave Europe for political reasons, I left for business reasons, so I don't have any serious concerns about returning.

Finally, I don't have very many decades left.

This is indeed a way to cope. But why should we have to merely cope? Why do we accept the world getting objectively worse? The necessary technology is cheaper, better and more abundant than ever – so why are we letting a few megacorps and some power-hungry politicians decide how we use it?