Not everyone can afford a smartphone.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin
I, too, deplore the phonification of the Internet. However, it isn't simple.Some people can't afford anything. They have two options:
1. Use library (or friends', or other publicly available)
computers.
2. Apply for a free Lifeline phone .
IMO phones give prople a false sense of freedom and ease of use. Computers also require a separtat internet connection and maintenance, and msy br scarier than fewns, partly because fyewwns are visible everywhere.
Discord 🤮
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin And with the current pricing crisis surrounding memory and flash storage, it's only going to get worse.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin "or you can apply for a hardware token," they said.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin@mastodon.social borrowing from the language and ideas of Achille Mbembe and the theory of Necropolitics, doing stuff like this is a form of choosing who gets to be served and who doesn't. When that service includes public medical, financial, and housing material, developers are quite literally choosing who is allowed to die from hazards that these services are supposed to prevent.
Even if it doesn't go that far, it creates a really hard limit on how I as a digital services volunteer can help people in need. If you've got a smartphone-reliant service, I can't help a person get access to that using library/public computers. The only scheme I know about (in where I live) that provides free devices for people in this position can take months to provide relief. And yet people treat smartphones like they're naturally occurring and you can just pick them off of trees smh my head -
@Rastal @anon_opin I'm not going to be the one to tell them what to do with their lives. I'm just stating a fact. Poor people are more likely to have smartphones than laptops. Make mobile friendly web sites if you want them to read your content.
@zenia @Rastal @anon_opin the web is the most portable format (aside from plain text). Designed decently it works everywhere. The browser should facilitate accessibility. Be device agnostic.
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Yes!
And it's not just money. Imagine trying to use a smartphone if you had Parkinson's, or age-related macular degeneration, or mild cognitive impairment. Imagine using one if you lived with an abusive partner who demanded your Pin and punished anything he saw and didn't like. Imagine needing to get rid of your smartphone to help beat your online gambling addiction, and then finding you were locked out of modern society.
We think too easily of new and shiny things, and we forget the people who don't fit the mould, who get left to fend for themselves.
@CppGuy @anon_opin 100%. If your service is online, it should be possible to conduct through a website with an app as an *option*. And if the website is harder to use then you are Doing It Wrong.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin For me it's when Facebook is their only access point.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin the smartphones are cheap argument doesn't negate "computers".
https://www.walmart.com/ip/13333803592?sid=800631c8-5ff8-4bdc-bca2-b8d76a1d6261&conditionGroupCode=3
But also smart phones are computers. They just have a different primary input. Yes, their original design was consumption focused, but that hasn't been the case for a while now unless you let it be. See attached. Lots gets created on phones you just wouldn't know.
That said the web is the most portable format, when designed with even the smallest consideration, scales pretty well to all devices.
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@zenia @anon_opin Yeah, garbage Androids are basically free, and it's nearly impossible to get a "non-smart" phone anymore. The same conclusions apply but "can't afford" isn't the reason.
@dalias @zenia @anon_opin but garbage Androids are much less secure than dumbphones…
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@anon_opin "or you can apply for a hardware token," they said.
@danamcfarland a what?
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@anon_opin the poor people I know have no laptops, but they all have smartphones. In fact, it is their only personal computer.
@zenia @anon_opin There should be options that don't involve computers.
@drahardja -
Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin
too late for that. Better everyone stop shamming poorer people who own smartphones for frivolous spending, when they are now essential for modern living. -
@anon_opin For me it's when Facebook is their only access point.
@ariaflame @anon_opin This doesn't get talked about enough. Any conversation about the evils of Google and Apple should also include Facebook. Facebook doesn't make a phone, so it gets treated differently even though its business practices are just as sketchy, if not worse.
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin There are those who cannot (or will not if you insist) learn how to use one too. Also - those "services" are only available for the two major OS's. Free coercion for apple and google.
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