this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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I know you mean well but this is kind of a privileged take. Not everyone who wants to disconnect can afford to. It's kind of like how many people can't afford to just not use the internet, without it they will likely lose access to many essential resources.
"Just" not using a smartphone is viable for an increasingly vanishing portion of the population, in the US at least.
No, you just have to do what everyone did back then. Which is buy and mail checks, balance your checkbook, and go in person to buy things, go to the bank, or get service.
There's that "just" again. :)
It's simply unrealistic to expect your average American to add all of this (and much more) to their routine and expect the benefit of ditching the smartphone to somehow outweigh the additional time and energy investment. Going in-person for anything in an average American city these days is far more of a hassle than it was "back then". This is at least partially due to the fact that our cities are built with cars in mind and not people, but that's a rant for another day.
Basically any form of two-factor authentication which is becoming increasingly more common and necessary for the average user to access anything from banking to employee services. Sure there are desktop 2FA programs that you can use in certain scenarios, but using these is often bad practice and defeats the purpose of even having 2FA in the first place.
Certain food or delivery services require you to use a mobile app to interact with them. Whether or not these services are essential or not depends entirely on the needs and circumstances of the individual.
Sorry, using "just" pisses me off too. It's a really arrogant way of saying things, I agree. And yes, it would be a major pain in the ass. That is the kind of thing housewives did while their husbands were at work, which is honestly how it was able to work. And yeah, traffic and cities are much more crowded and sprawled now. I was pointing out it is possible though. And a dumb cell phone can be used for two factor auth. But overall I agree with everything you said. I was being pedantic and technically correct.
Small town life colors my view as well. Things are a lot different than in the cities.