Comment by TheRealPomax
4 months ago
You're thinking about your own situation - that's normal, but not enough: there are still loads of folks who don't have a computer but are expected to interface with their governments (municipal, county, state) using a computer, and have had to pay disproportionately more being in the least affluent and/or most vulnerable demographic.
It's not about losing access to laptops, it's about guaranteeing the right to even have access to the same tools that folks like us think everyone already has access to.
That seems like something different though. My understanding is that this is not about the government handing out free laptops, the same way the second amendment is not about the government handing out free guns. Rather, this is saying people have the right to own general purpose computers.
As far as government expecting you to interface with them using a computer, I loathe this trend. And of course it's infinitely worse if they require a specific proprietary platform like iOS or Android. But I don't think this is about that.
I'm totally with you as far as requiring a proprietary platform, but at some point we do just have to cut off obsolete methods of communication. We can't just keep supporting them forever.
Methods of communication like "face to face" or "mail" are not obsolete. Yes you can support them forever if that's literally your job as the government. And it should be.
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