 Incredible how just in a few years, the smartphone went from "a device that's nice to have and allows you to contact people, access your calendar, play games and look up bus schedules on the go" to "a device you're absolutely required to own and have access to at all times because if you don't, you don't get a bank account, health insurance, public transit, or basically any online service required for enrollment in a school or an employment contract" 24 comments
 @schratze (funny enough, I can find more info on the author and book in German (Satellit auf falscher Bahn) than in English… can we call that The Hooters phenomenon? @schratze The Hooters (band, not the boobs restaurant) are a lot more successful in Europe, Germany especially, than at home.   Yes! While still somehow being "a luxury device that if you're poor you shouldn't have, and shows that you aren't one of the Good Poors."  I've watched as cell phone tech leapfrogged copper in rural Africa and Central America. You don't see it much anymore, but there used to be a brisk trade in phone charging. An old lady would buy a truck battery, keep it charged up and charge some nominal amount to charge up your phone.  Passenger, not any more. There exist sub-$100 phones. They are as crappy as you would expect, but they do still grant you access to all the things you might need.
[DATA EXPUNGED]
I think that's the crucial point I was trying to make: while cheap and secondhand phones are very affordable, there's still a perception by wealthier people that a phone is a luxury that the impoverished don't need. Like most perceptions of the poor by the rich, this is false and exists to support preexisting biases. [Here I trail off into a long screed talking about Graeber and how power creates information asymmetries.]  @schratze @willjesko Remember how when the iPhone first came out the advice was to keep it in your pocket and not use it out in the open, in case you turned yourself into a mugging target? @NewtonMark @schratze Back in the day I was happily using a blackberry. I really miss the tactile keyboard. A high end phone cost around AUD $500. Now I am just another slave to Google. @schratze @janet Another reason for the smartphone to be ‘a device you’re absolutely required to own and have access at all times’ is surveillance. Not carrying a mobile phone is suspicious. I wrote about it a few years ago: https://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/2009/04/voluntary_electronic_tagging.html    we need an update to the first: freedom of and from tech Business and Congress shall make no law respecting a mobile device. Another thought: it's interesting how quickly we went from people going meh when you give them a mobile number to most not even having a landline at home. |
Gregory's Server
@schratze there's a 70s SF novel called Gravitor (Hugh Darrington) that, among other things, is about how all of society has to wear a wristband (much like a smartwatch) that's connected to their bank account, and all public amenities (houses, phones, internet terminals) require a symbolic payment of 1 credit, and the protagonist has his forcibly taken from him, which permanently exiles him from society.
Seems a little more real every day.