[alpaca128]

> you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all

You have to choose among Google or Apple though, and both could just randomly ban you over night and make all your data inaccessible. If Google banned me I wouldn't be able to use my bank account without buying an iPhone/Mac or reinstalling Windows. And at this rate Windows will soon also be only usable with an account.

This kind of limitation is bad and will cause a lot of unnecessary, expensive problems before regulations catch up.

[b112]

You have to choose among Google or Apple though

You do?

If you just want a phone with SMS, a web browser and email, an android device can easily be nonGoogle.

And Samsung, for example, has its own app store, as do others.

We aren't quite locked into two options. Not yet.

[lynndotpy]

Huge parts of social life are gated behind smart-phone services and the workarounds are burdens.

> an android device can easily be nonGoogle.

But I don't think "Easily" is true here. I do it, and it's easy for me, and presumably for you, but presumably because we have the time and skills to make it work. And even the most ideal "non-Google" phone takes hefty compromises.

KaiOS used to be the only real alternative someone might have, since it had some apps like WhatsApp, etc. But as of Sept 2021, that's no longer available.

[disiplus]

my bank does not offer the banking app on the Samsung market. my mobile token is there.

[threeseed]

Then use a bank that does have a mobile website or non-Samsung specific app.

Companies will not change behaviour unless you vote with your wallet.

[th3typh00n]

The point is that avoiding Apple and Google, while it may be technically and theoretically possible, is going to make your life extraordinarily complicated and is completely unrealistic for the average person in our modern society.

[smoldesu]

I don't think your "let the markets handle it" solution will work (at least, it hasn't worked for the past 20 years, has it?). America screwed up. We let a duopoly control our technology, and there's no point in defending these powers like Apple, Facebook and Google who repeatedly attempt to undermine our sovereignty and privacy. As much as I'd love for everyone on this earth to use Nextcloud and Linux, we both know that's not a reasonable expectation.

Everyone knows it, there's bipartisan support behind Big Tech regulation right now in America. Regulation is inevitable, the real question is how long we have until the lobbying money runs out...

[TremendousJudge]

> a phone with SMS, a web browser and email

really hasn't been enough for communicating with most people for at least 5 years. the messaging app of choice of your social group (wpp, telegram, signal, or god forbid fb messanger) is needed as well.

[tcfhgj]

Telegram isn't really any better than FB Messenger

[ASalazarMX]

If that's the deal, ¿porqué no los dos? I use an iPhone, but sync my pictures with Google Photos in case any one of them becomes aggro. I also keep my passwords in a password manager, so Apple and Google only have access to the bare essentials. My docs are in Google Drive, SyncThing, Dropbox, and an external hard drive, and so on.

[Schroedingersat]

Open android builds, postmarket os, ubuntu touch and sailfish still exist (if just barely) for now.

Please use them before we lose free communication and access to banking and government services without signing over your life to one of two companies forever.

[prmoustache]

you are kind of forced to use somehow google backed products/services, but you are not forced to own and use a google account.

Bank apps are accessible through the aurora store for example and many work well with microg instead of google play services.

[b112]

Installing a bank app seems like the ultimate horror story to me. The unholy tracking must be insane.

You cannot just log in via a web browser? If so, why not?

[prmoustache]

Well in europe regulations have kind of forced 2FA (which is not bad in itself). At the beginning most banks were relying on sms but most of them are phasing it out.

Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck.

No idea about other continents but my MX girlfriend is locked out of her own MX bank account until she go there to sort this out because she do not have her original mx phone number anymore.

[b112]

Wait you need a smartphone to login?! How bizarre.

Paypal has recently locked me out of my account, because I don't have a mobile phone number. Why would I?

I have a landline phone, and, I have terrestrial high speed internet.

So I have an Android tablet with wifi. It works at home, and worked when I used to goto office. I have voip too.

However, there is no mobile service in my area. I'm very rural, so it's fine a few miles from my home, but not anywhere on my land.

Paypal has my landline number, but recently insists I add a mobile phone for SMS auth.

It is unclear to me how this could possibly help.

Should I decide to spend cash on a mobile phone, just and only just for paypal, I'd have to try to login, drive a few kms to town, get the SMS code, then return.

Surely, a timeout would happen by then. Not to mention the entire idea is absurd and smacks of ineptness on Paypal's part.

Talking to paypal results in support personalle who literally do nothing but search a database and respond with circular, broken logic. I was even told repeatedly to login, to open a ticket, about not being able to login.

And this was not just one support person either.

Any push to speak to a supervisor results in a disconnect on transfer.

I have been with paypal almost 20 years. It appears that will soon end.

Bah.

[bombcar]

As an aside some (most? All?) iPhones and carriers seem to support "WIFI calling" which lets you get calls and texts when you're on WIFI (and even outside of cell signal) - I get Ting calls and texts when I'm deep in my basement where no cell signal is available, as long as I have WIFI on.

I assume something similar exists for other carriers and phones (Republic Wireless is build around it).

There are also some land-lines that can get texts, but I don't know how they do it (I suspect they're actually a cell line disguised as one).

[buzer]

> Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck.

As far as I understood from the news the reason was that regulators (or the regulation itself) told banks that the 2nd factor could not be easily cloned. Before this regulation most Finnish banks were using one time pads (actual physical paper), but because it was possible to make a copy of it they had to phase out the usage.