The author loved technology when it worked for him, now he toils in its service. Previously, it was additive, only giving and not taking; now it narrows options to only one: the app.
Obviously, we shouldn't let this happen. Keep paper tickets, physical menus, cash, etc. These things are human, made by and for humans. They make sense across the intelligence spectrum as they connect to us in the physicality of the real (which everyone understands).
Of course, the individual doesn't get to decide if all his government and city services app-ify themselves. What to do in that case? I guess this guy's chosen the path of minimal leashing: wearing the digital yoke as little as possible. That's just harm minimization though.
Perhaps it'll help someone to say this: It is possible to live without a smartphone. I do it. There's times when you can't use a service. QR codes are meaningless. You might occasionally be bored. I've always found an alternative or workaround to these issues. Yes, that's inconvenient sometimes (usually not though, surprisingly), but is that worse than being a slave to glass slab?
> Previously, it was additive, only giving and not taking; now it narrows options to only one: the app
This seems a bit dramatic. The issue is who is making the decisions. People have stopped being intentional about their decision-making, in a variety of ways, and tend to simply go with whatever the company providing the software recommends. This is the thing that we need to change. Using these services and using a smartphone are fine. We need to find a way to do it on our own terms, though.
For an example from my own life (technically less relevant because if it comes down to it I'm fortunate and stubborn enough to win the lawsuit if that's what it comes down to, but swap me for any of their other million customers and the story still applies), my HSA has unilaterally made owning a sufficiently modern smartphone (<3yrs practically speaking, though it depends a bit on the manufacturer) with all the secure enclave bells and whistles mandatory to access my money I voluntarily placed into their system under a completely set of rules. Customer service has gone nowhere. If I couldn't afford the lawsuit, what options would I have? The employer offering the HSA a decade ago was just trying (and succeeding) to provide a nice benefit. I would've been insane to turn down a bunch of free money from my employer when the only stipulation was that it went through a third party taking a <<1% cut. The fuck-the-customer mentality happened later, and suddenly enough I couldn't do anything about it. If some family caves to their demands to access their own money, I'm not going to be the one to blame them for not being intentional about their decision making.
bm3719 · · focus · HN ↗
Obviously, we shouldn't let this happen. Keep paper tickets, physical menus, cash, etc. These things are human, made by and for humans. They make sense across the intelligence spectrum as they connect to us in the physicality of the real (which everyone understands).
Of course, the individual doesn't get to decide if all his government and city services app-ify themselves. What to do in that case? I guess this guy's chosen the path of minimal leashing: wearing the digital yoke as little as possible. That's just harm minimization though.
Perhaps it'll help someone to say this: It is possible to live without a smartphone. I do it. There's times when you can't use a service. QR codes are meaningless. You might occasionally be bored. I've always found an alternative or workaround to these issues. Yes, that's inconvenient sometimes (usually not though, surprisingly), but is that worse than being a slave to glass slab?
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
This seems a bit dramatic. The issue is who is making the decisions. People have stopped being intentional about their decision-making, in a variety of ways, and tend to simply go with whatever the company providing the software recommends. This is the thing that we need to change. Using these services and using a smartphone are fine. We need to find a way to do it on our own terms, though.
hansvm · · focus · HN ↗
rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗