The issue is societal lockin - aka network effects. People can't afford to "not buy one" because then they are "the one without".
Banking apps, delivery apps, public transport apps, utilities apps, insurance - so many services have been captured by the big two phone oligopoly that modern life revolves around your phone. The assumption is that you will have one.
Sure, you could decide not to, but you are instantly a societal pariah as every business finds it s so much harder to deal with you - and you don't have enough time in the day to deal with the secondary processes these businesses employ, for every aspect of your life.
Maybe it's country specific - here in Canada I don't feel like I need a smart phone for anything crucial. There is a trend where people including zoomers such as myself switch to dumb phones for a "digital detox". So it seems perfectly feasible to do so.
I was called a luddite for not wanting to follow the "official" schoool Whatsapp group. Online banking is practicably unusable without the bank's own 2FA app.
Many things can still be done in a web browser, but the rest of society is going the smartphone route and it's increasingly difficult to avoid it.
Any non-digital options are aimed at elderly and handicapped individuals; not people who don't want smartphones.
Some people can do it. I'd also ditch my smartphone if I was living in the woods, or had a personal assistant handling my daily needs, or lived in an Amish community etc.
But I don't see the vast majority of people to be able to ditch their smartphone, that's just not a reasonable proposition.
But 30 years ago there were also no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
Nothing has changed, there are no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
The issue is societal lockin - aka network effects. People can't afford to "not buy one" because then they are "the one without".
Banking apps, delivery apps, public transport apps, utilities apps, insurance - so many services have been captured by the big two phone oligopoly that modern life revolves around your phone. The assumption is that you will have one.
Sure, you could decide not to, but you are instantly a societal pariah as every business finds it s so much harder to deal with you - and you don't have enough time in the day to deal with the secondary processes these businesses employ, for every aspect of your life.
Maybe it's country specific - here in Canada I don't feel like I need a smart phone for anything crucial. There is a trend where people including zoomers such as myself switch to dumb phones for a "digital detox". So it seems perfectly feasible to do so.
I'm not sure how I'd manage tbh (in Finland).
I was called a luddite for not wanting to follow the "official" schoool Whatsapp group. Online banking is practicably unusable without the bank's own 2FA app.
Many things can still be done in a web browser, but the rest of society is going the smartphone route and it's increasingly difficult to avoid it.
Any non-digital options are aimed at elderly and handicapped individuals; not people who don't want smartphones.
Some people can do it. I'd also ditch my smartphone if I was living in the woods, or had a personal assistant handling my daily needs, or lived in an Amish community etc.
But I don't see the vast majority of people to be able to ditch their smartphone, that's just not a reasonable proposition.
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Thirty years ago no one was buying smartphones from a major brand. No one was buying any smartphones at all.
But 30 years ago there were also no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
Nothing has changed, there are no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
5 replies →