It's never popular when I post this, but I'm just going to do it again:<p>"No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible."<p>We've done this to ourselves, and we're terrified at even the most minor inconvenience. It's something I can't wrap my head around, but people cannot bear to just wait until they get home to query something on the internet. They MUST have access ALL THE TIME, no matter the downside. It's baffling.
<i>They MUST have access ALL THE TIME, no matter the downside.</i><p>The problem is that the downside is incredibly small (government isn't interested in most citizens) until it's suddenly massive (government is interested in <i>you</i>.) That makes it very difficult for people to build a mental model of why it's a problem: because in all seriousness it genuinely <i>isn't</i> unless you're either fighting the system, you're a criminal, or you have a level of perception where you can understand that other people are a threat to the government and you have empathy for them or you can see that the government might see you as a threat to in the future. Most people can't or won't understand about that.<p>You can't really blame them. Mobile devices are useful beyond 'looking stuff up'. Maps, communication, banking, etc are huge upsides to counter the probably <i>very</i> small (if you ignore empathy) downside for most people.
Im probably to last person to defend the entire stack that is the smart phone but this feels a little reductionist.<p>I use mine as a phone, messaging, podcast player, camera, a banking device, a little email and occastionally the web. Thats it. Some convience is good, too much is very bad. No social media or whatever millions of apps they constantly try to push in your store of (enforced) choice.<p>In someways we have done this ourselves but also there is a deeper societal issue. As Ellule and Kacsynski both pointed out, technology is voluntary to a point. But when it becomes a tool that you are practially forced to use to merely keep up with others, it is no longer a choice unless you can figure a way without it at your own peril.<p>For instance my bank has become entirely dependent of their app as the glue between all their functions and authorisation. I can try to avoid this but it becomes very difficult, it goes beyond just convenience at that point. I do not like that at all, I think it is very short term thinking, but here we are.<p>I try to avoid a lot of various technologies were I can make it work, I do not have a car for that reason, but smartphones have unfortunately become very ingrained in societies expectations at a blinding pace. Try to limit their use were you can, maybe others will follow.
It's a false dichotomy. Citizens can have useful smartphones while not being tracked by unwanted actors.
For whom are you speaking? It certainly isn't me. My phone plan shares 3 lines on a single 2gb of data/month. I'd have to pay more for even the current base plan, but I don't feel like it. This is because the mobile experience is worse in almost every way.<p>But that's a moot point, because advertisers will still track you on any device you use.
I have access ALL THE TIME…<p>…to a Field Notes book in my wallet (and a pen).
You act like looking random facts up is the only thing we do on phones. My phone is a personal computer, I use it to navigate through the world, work, access my bank accounts and other personal information, and communicate with others. And yes, sometimes these can't wait the 10–15 hours I might not be at home.
I think many people don't know about the issue at hand; and many also don't care.<p>The more tragic thing is that those who care about it, can not do much about it.
You are worried about THAT?<p>How about we carry a device with multiple cameras, multiple microphones, and 24x7 connection to the internet that is running an operating system made by an Ad Company, to the most private of places?
There's also the possibility that we, as consumers, demand that the political system solves this issue with robust privacy legilsation that prohibits any entity from tracking our phones.
Not all political systems respond to consumer demand.
Democratic ones do. But for 95% of causes it's hard to become so loud that they are forced to respond.<p>That's exactly why orgs like EFF exist. Most laws also aren't passed because of overwhelming consumer feedback. It's lobbied by special interests. Which sadly took a negative connotation over the last few decades, but lobbies can be for the people too.
Studies show if 0% of the American population support a bill, it's 30% likely to be passed, and if 100% of the American population support it, it's 30% likely to be passed. Is America democratic?
I'm getting to the point where I believe representative democracy on the scale of hundreds of millions of people just doesn't work all that well. I've never been one of those "states' rights" people, but these days I am becoming convinced that the US should have a <i>much</i> smaller federal government, and states, counties, cities, and towns should have more autonomy in deciding their fates.<p>This is not an easy problem to solve. Certainly I want more things at the federal level than the authors of the constitution envisioned (currency, international diplomacy, military, etc.): some things really need to be done at the national level (like environmental regulation).<p>Anyway. Sure, those figures may be true for the US Congress (or not, I haven't verified), but I bet you those figures aren't even close to true for town and city councils and county government. And perhaps not even state government as well.
We could also demand that the government doesn't use the location data from private companies without a warrant, but elections aren't often granular enough to satisfy individual requirements. Better to figure out a way to create and use a competitor that doesn't do this to you.
Why don't you "demand" a pony while you're at it?
>There's also the possibility that we, as consumers, demand that the political system solves this issue<p>This will never happen, but good luck.
I agree with you, but at the same time: we shouldn't have to worry about this. We should be able to have nice things. We should be able to live our lives how we want (within reason) and not have to worry about our own government spying on us and tracking our every movement.<p>The response to revelations about this sort of tracking should not be to roll our eyes at people who carry their phones everywhere. It should be to get angry at our government for treating us all like potential criminals, and vote out shitheads who support this sort of thing. (Which I know feels damn-near impossible most of the time...)
> It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up,<p>It's not popular because this is very reductive and dismissive of the problem almost to the point of dishonesty. Many modern functions need an application and there is little or no alternative.<p>Some examples:<p>QR codes - lots of restaurants don't have a physical menu and need a QR code scan. This behavior extends well beyond restaurants as well.<p>Keys - Lots of cars support lock/unlock and put a ton of features behind an app. While not strictly necessary, it's incredibly convenient if you're in the inevitable (and sometimes very expensive/difficult to remediate) situation everyone eventually faces when you lose your keys, or lock them in the car. Some garages and apartment complexes only support getting in by app, and I've seen this in hotels as well.<p>Banking - doing many things at banks nowadays requires confirming you are you via push notification to your phone. Lots of MFA is app-based as well. I could not do my job without a phone.<p>Navigation - I don't always carry a garmin or thomas guide around with me when I'm walking around an unfamiliar city, and it would be pretty ridiculous of me to do so.<p>Probably could come up with a lot of other things. Without a phone it's not really possible to function in much of the modern world. There is more to the app ecosystem than tiktok, maybe that's the miss here.
>QR codes<p>Those restaurants are worthless<p>>Keys<p>Carrying your car key does not count as inconvenient<p>>Banking<p>Agreed, and this is a problem, but you can just do your banking at home without carrying around your smart phone. This is a case where the industry is forcing a choice on consumers. I'm considering joining a local credit union for this reason.<p>> Navigation<p>How did people manage this prior to 2007?
> > Navigation<p>> How did people manage this prior to 2007?<p>We had a map for each county. My wife would switch them when we crossed county boundaries and would give directions. We still got lost. It was romantic.
> How did people manage this prior to 2007?<p>You just looked at a map. People used to be good at looking at maps, and remembering cardinal directions prior to GPS units. We have unfortunately lost that sense of natural direction.<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32545974" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32545974</a>
> <i>How did people manage this prior to 2007?</i><p>Paper maps. Or even (in the earlier 00s) looking up directions on MapQuest or whatever, and then printing those directions out. I don't want to keep printing out directions; what a huge waste of paper that would be. Paper maps are doable, but awkward to use, and can easily become out of date. You need to have addresses (or at least nearby landmarks or cross-streets) for everywhere you want to go, because paper maps have a very limited set of points-of-interest on them.<p>> <i>Those restaurants are worthless</i><p>That's just, like, your opinion, man. Your criticisms seem to mostly amount to "people should just abandon the various conveniences and niceties that smartphones provide, because there are alternatives, even in cases where those alternatives are incredibly inconvenient".<p>Yes, it's idiotic that we're subjected to so much tracking when we carry our phones around. But the response shouldn't be "let's just become a luddite and not take advantage of modern technology". It should be "wow, this makes me fucking angry; we need to fix our laws so this sort of thing doesn't happen".
> How did people manage this prior to 2007?<p>MapQuest? It sucked.<p>Google Maps does allow you to download areas to your device that can be used offline, too.
Paper maps before that. If you were in AAA you could get a "trip map" that was a complete route with turn by turn directions and a spiral bound, printed map that you paged through as you traveled, but paper maps worked well. Not as convenient as a phone but not terrible either.
This is goalpost shifting and ignored much of the point of my post. this same thinking can be applied recursively to “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.”<p>And you’re flat out wrong about banking, there are things and situations that require you physically entering one. And yes it is a situation where society is forcing the decision, that’s my entire point - I as an individual cannot apply the non remedy of “just do everything on your computer, ldo” because society has stripped that choice from me. unless the prescription you’re giving is to withdraw from society - which is only proving my point.<p>I’d also hardly describe my job as a minor inconvenience.<p>I see these types of arguments a lot on this site and I am very confused where they are coming from. It’s almost like the implication is you have no right to complain about the privacy nightmare if you participate in using things that are necessary to participate in society. You can have reasonable privacy and these tools at the same time, it’s not an impossibility.
I appreciate the response, and I would argue that in at least some cases “well, if you cant do that, it’s just dumb anyway.” is totally valid.<p>With regard to the job, and the banking, I agree. I need to have OTP on my phone and I haven't tried to bank in person for a while. We have two young kids, and once things calm down I'm going to see if we can swap to a local credit union. The decision will be predicated on whether I can do everything in person.<p>With regard to the phone, I think the softer version of my argument would be that you can install the bare minimum number of apps, and otherwise just set the phone on a table and not carry it around with you. If you're worried about government tracking, power your phone off when you drive to work. Your work itself (and all your logins) will reveal your location, so it's not really as if powering your phone back on once you get to work is much of a detriment. The same is true for banking. Even if you must use the smartphone, just leave the phone off / or in airplane mode and then just do the banking at your desk at home.<p>In fairness to you, I'm pretty sure I failed a job interview once because I asked if I needed a smartphone for the job. I think my point would be that with the way things are going, it's becoming more and more important to figure out how to avoid as much of the smartphone as possible.
> <i>The decision will be predicated on whether I can do everything in person.</i><p>I don't <i>want</i> to do everything in person. It's frankly amazing that I can deposit a check on my phone, from my home, and don't have to go to a bank branch to deposit it anymore. For close to 20 years now, my primary banking has been through banks that don't have a physical presence <i>at all</i>, let alone in my city. And I don't mind it that way at all; in fact I <i>like</i> it, because these banks focus harder on making things more convenient for me.<p>Your attitude here seems to be that if other people's preferred method for doing something doesn't conform to <i>your</i> preferred method, then the other people must be wrong somehow. That's not a reasonable way to be looking at this.
My credit union still offers walk-in or drive-thru in-person service for everything.
Just one more example here, which I think is a big one for some people - chat apps. Without Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal, I can't really use my phone as telecommunications tool with friends and colleagues, because everyone is on them. The group chats are where a lot of discussion happens, so I can't just switch to SMS/calls.
This is funny because one of my major gripes with everyone having phones is they don't really use them for meaningful information seeking. They'll sit in conversation and speculate and invent nonsense, accept the smartest/most convenient sounding nonsense at the table, and move on as if they did not have the ability to look it up on the spot. Then later they quote the nonsense to someone else as if it were something they learned as opposed to made up with one of their social circles.
> It's never popular when I post this<p>That's because you're coming off holier than thou and condescending. Anyone who understands gadgets will say phones are highly trackable and will have told anyone that well over 10+ years ago. It's a trade off of value. Corporations/gov can track me while I have my phone, but turn by turn directions, maps and a camera while wandering around are useful. We could legislate that traceability away in the US to an extent, but that would require our gov be working and right now it is not.
I'm probably going to delete my HN account soon. I'm so disenfranchised with the direction technology is going that I'm finding it really heard to be civil and constructive here. I'm not trying to be sanctimonious, but I am quite angry and perplexed at why people have have backed themselves into this corner.
I hope you don't go! It's clearly a minority position you hold, but that doesn't mean it's a bad one. Or wrong. I've been perplexed by this and many other related issues. I wonder and hope every year, every step in the wrong direction that gets attention, we'll get to that magic 3% that stands up and corrects things for citizen good. No matter how your up or down votes end up in a few hours, know you aren't alone or wrong. At least from my point of view.
People could've done a lot of things to make their lives better. Unfortunately they prefer to get "managed" with all the consequences. No matter what you cancel and where you would go you will find all the same. The fact that one know how how to write b-tree from the scratch means zilch in this department
So print off map quest and carry a disposable like in the 90s. If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low. I feel we peaked at mobile phones which could call and text.
>If you don't use social media, the value proposition of a smart phone is incredibly low.<p>Sorry but what are you using your device for? There are many, many tools I use my smartphone for and I currently don't have Insta, reddit, Facebook, typical social media, etc on my device. Dismissing a pocket sized computer with far reaching access to the internet as a low value proposition is misguided. If all you use your device for is social media, call and text that's really too bad and a complete misunderstanding of what those devices are capable of.
Encrypted messaging like Signal and Briar is <i>so much more accessible</i> thanks to smartphones. People who would've never touched GPG can get a lot of its benefits thanks to smartphone apps.<p>(Which doesn't mean we have to give in to big corporations. Gotta love GrapheneOS!)
Not me so much as my work and the crappy job search requiring you to be responsive at all times. Add in family if you have one.
I don't think this is right. Most people are just not that curious, so there's no drive to be able to look things up.<p>People don't want to be bored, so a phone with all the apps provides a reliable source of distraction/entertainment.