We can boycot banks that mandate android/ ios apps, we can put phones in faraday cages, we can form new cell operator companies, we can form unions and increase their political power and whilst the republican seats of power atrophy we can guide them by active participation into compassionate forms so they dont become a source of backlash. We can support companies like pinephone and librem for small handhelds if we want, we cant support risc-v, we can use gnu guix and bolster its usability to verify the validity of the software stack.

I would be happy with a Nokia 3310 with Signal and Matrix support.

It really cracked me up 15-20 years ago when there was a fair amount of panic about the government / world order microchiping people at more or less the same time that everyone was starting to pay to carry around GPS devices that listen to you.

This is exactly what Orwell feared TVs would become when he envisioned telescreens. Took a little longer for it to come to fruition. What’s fascinating about the novel that people over look is that the older generation in 1984 tend not to own them because they’re resistant to new technology just like today. So they aren’t really mandatory. Like smartphones.

The number of places that expect you to download their app to do business with them, or sign up with them, is beyond disturbing.

I now actively try to make their life difficult. I’ll ring up,.or try to order at the counter. I had a table at one place, and rang up and ordered pick up. Better service than I was getting lol

And then I pull out my wallet and try to pay with cash and all hell breaks loose 🤣

When the subject comes up I have often said that cell phones are what we avoided in the PC space when the IBM BIOS was reverse engineered.

It has been a disappointment to me that so many smart otherwise tech literate people have seemed to not be able to see the tech industry, and others, putting the digital noose around out necks with smart phones.

We are not too far away from entire brick and mortar businesses being off limits to someone whose only smart phone is not an iPhone and does not pass Googles Play Services Safetynet checks for an app and the only method to pay they have being cash or a physical credit card. That is wild, and something that should worry nearly everyone that has a vested interest in being able to live their lives without being under the thumbs of private corporate interests if they so choose.

And that is before even getting into the even more concerning parts of modern phones which take all of the above and make it scary by replacing private corporate interests with governments.

Nothing good ever comes from getting in a position where you have to interact with, or obey, another party and they get to set all of the terms.

not my fault your phone isnt cool

I was watching a show the other day where the wealthy protagonist got his phone thrown to the grown and smashed by someone and he freaked out because it was a $200 phone. I think the episode is like 10 years old or so. Phones used to be cheap to own as well as cool.

Hopefully, I will someday be able to buy a Linux smartphone that is truly controlled by me.

I have my blue and grey Nokia still.

When I was on my way home from work on the subway, I just tried to fill the screen with a snake the whole time.

I still hope for a cool game to be included when I buy a new phone. Spoiler: there is no cool game included

Yes! I remember being obsessed with Samsung Note phones because they were for power users and had so many cool features. The Note 9 was the last smart phone I actually was excited about and I kept that thing for 5 years. I got the S22 Ultra and it was cool but by that point Samsung had removed all the cool hardware features from their phones (thermometer, barometer, iris scanner, finger proximity sensor [could do really cool mouse like actions by hovering your finger above the screen], and a bunch of other cool features).

Now I have the Pixel 8 pro and slapped GrapheneOS on it. The OS is really cool and so technically amazing but I could care so little about the actual device it’s loaded on.

I was probably one of the last to hold onto a dumbphone because all I then needed was text messaging. But then the phone was starting to fall apart due to age, and it wasn’t easy having it, a sketchy digital camera, and a beat-up Shuffle and my clients were inching up the tech tree.

15 years later I keep two separate personas: one for the smartphone because you have the fucking suits expecting the face of a compliant lemming, with nothing incriminating whatsoever; the other is only on my computer, the one having more freedom to express dissent. Neither device are to be connected together in any way.

And should to join any form of general civil disobedience, better carry a dumbphone and a digital camera.

You can’t exist without a smart phone now. I went to a baseball game and refused to install their app for the ticket (which couldn’t be purchased with cash). They said they can text a link to a QR code. Printing it wasn’t an option.

I should have asked what I could do if I didn’t have a phone but I suspect their head would explode.

Technology makes me want to retch these days.

I would buy my Xperia Play again in a heart beat if it had even midrange modern specs.