[WaitWaitWha]

> Now, increasingly, cellphones are *day-to-day life*. Far from the literal “pocket telephones” envisioned a century ago, they’ve worked their way into nearly every aspect of human existence, including those Haselden could never have considered.

It is now essential to be considered part of the society, to the point that someone who does not want to or cannot carry a cell phone is sneered at. Anecdotally, I was in the USA and during a few day lay-over, I wanted to get a hair cut. I was refused service at a hair cutting chain because I did not have a cell phone with me (it was in the hotel, did not want spam, would not get there and back on time, etc.). I offered credit card or cash, but was rejected, and explicitly told I have to have cell phone.

I am not angry, just sad.

As @nonrandomstring noted, "absurdity of reality is escaping parody".

[Buttons840]

I've wondered, as wealth inequality grows, perhaps the poorest among us simple won't have enough money to exchange for goods. "Sorry, you don't have enough money to make a haircut worth my time, but if you let me invade your privacy and show you ads until the end of time, that will be valuable enough to exchange for a haircut. Read and sign this 200 page contract and I'll go get a chair ready."

See also essential software that cannot be purchased, only rented. Many of the most essential apps today are not paid for with money, occasionally people talk about how they want to pay for these apps (in exchange for better customer service, etc), but no, they don't want our money, our money is worth less than the data we give.

[dotnet00]

But the practical necessity of having a smartphone and some internet access has only resulted in cheaper devices and services that fit the needs of the poor. It was a pretty big thing during Covid lockdowns in rural parts of India for instance, where extremely cheap smartphones and internet access made it possible for some amount of remote education to be pursued entirely remotely.

[lrvick]

How do you define essential? I only use open source software and do not own a cell phone and I get along just fine.

[Buttons840]

Important community events being organized on Facebook is quite common, for example. I've had interviews want me to use Google Calendar.

[lrvick]

Google calendar invites contain attachments in standard formats you can use in Thunderbird or almost anything else.

Facebook events can do the same, but it does require you to have a Facebook account which is over the ethical line for me as I do not accept their terms of service. I always let community event organizers know this, and explain how to export events into a standard calendar format that can be emailed.

[enedil]

I doubt that if somebody cannot afford a haircut, their data would be that pricey.

[Buttons840]

I'm thinking more on a macro level.

Someone at Google has said "people want to pay us money to have better support and be treated like customers instead of products", and the response was "no, not worth it". On a macro scale Google was not interested in the money of individuals.

Facebook / Meta is one of the richest companies in the world, and they didn't make their money by taking money from individuals.

Politicians aren't swayed by the donations of common people, but by the donation of wealthy special interest groups and wealthy individuals.

The poorest 50% of the United States controls 1.2% of the wealth. One day they'll look around and collectively ask "what can we do with our money?", and the answer will be "buy cheap consumer goods, pay rent, and not much else". More and more companies don't want the little money they have, instead they want their attention, their votes, and their time and labor. Going after their money alone just isn't worth it.

[Buttons840]

Oh. Another great example of this is how many companies focus more attention on getting VC money than on getting paying customers. Again, average people don't have enough wealth for it to be a focus for the biggest companies.

[lrvick]

Rich/poor does not matter all that much to surveillance capitalists and atdech companies.

If they or their friends have the ability to vote someone will always be willing to for their data to have an advantage in swaying said votes.

[alistairSH]

Wow, that's a new one for me (only app payments accepted). In the US, at least.

[warner25]

I haven't encountered that yet, but I'm starting to encounter mobile apps as required proof of membership for things. My family got a membership to a children's museum a few weeks ago, and the expectation is that my wife and I have their app on our phones to get inside. For our second visit, I brought our printed receipt, but my wife had to stand there downloading and installing their app so that we could use our guest passes. The person at the front desk didn't seem to have any other way to do it. Similarly, my neighborhood's community pool and fitness center requires the Brivo Mobile Pass app to get through the front door (and it's unattended, so there's nobody who can just look you up in the system and let you in).

[abeppu]

I think the worst part of this is businesses that do this all have different crappy apps. My gym has their own app that must be scanned upon entry. But their app is often slow and unresponsive, and unpredictably logs out. Often at the entry, a person will be stuck trying to reload the app, possibly hindered by their phone having switched to the gym's questionable wifi. Multiple other people will be stuck behind them, having preemptively loaded the app and QR code while walking to the door.

This replaced keychain fobs with a barcode, which had none of these annoyances.

[glowingly]

Better than a gym I turned down: that one required a fingerprint, then handprint scan. WTF? I didn't buy any of the excuses for it.

[_carbyau_]

> businesses that do this all have different crappy apps.

I want "app containers" on my phone to limit these apps and feed them fake data as needed.

[_piif]

On Android you should be able to create new user accounts on the phone which are completely separated and can be quickly switched between. I used to create one with just WhatsApp installed for instance.

Alternatively if you are rooted Xprivacy[0] does what you asked, allowing you to grant apps permissions but then feeding them fake data as configured.

No idea about iOS though.

EDIT: There seems to be an app called Insular[1] which also works like Xprivacy, but doesn't require root at all and comes with a couple of extra features like the ability to have multiple instances of an app installed. Haven't tried this one though and I have no idea if it even runs on newer versions of Android.

[0] https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua

[1] https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/

[_carbyau_]

Multiple worthy suggestions? Which I could upvote more than once. Thank you.

Insular seems to rely on the inbuilt managed profiles to "run as" another user. Seems straightforward. I'll try it out!

[lrvick]

As someone that does not own a phone I have had to explain I cannot install apps many times. Normally when I bring up the word discrimination, they always find a backup path they do not advertise.

[mixmastamyk]

Ticketmaster using monopoly power to force use of app to attend concerts. Can’t even print ticket any longer.

[gffrd]

As a: CONCERTGOER

I want to: USE THE TICKETMASTER™ APP FOR MY TICKET, AND NOT HAVE ANY OTHER WAY TO HAVE IT—DEFINITELY NOT PDF.

So that: I CAN HAVE THE CONCERT EXPERIENCE OF THE FUTURE©

<Product Owner puts leans back from keyboard and breathes deeply>

"That's it. I've just written the perfect product brief."

<Stands and moves toward CEO's office>

[lrvick]

I do not own a cell phone and have attended many Ticketmaster events in recent years. If you explain you do not have a compatible device, and sometimes use the word discrimination, they will take a credit card by phone and have paper tickets waiting for you at the box office. It annoys them, but not my problem. Prepaid credit cards are recommended for privacy.

[ev1]

I have not installed the TM app - you can add a ticket to Apple Wallet from the website, and every order I've seen has "don't have a phone? go to the box office for tickets when you arrive" somewhere

[mixmastamyk]

> go to the box office for tickets

They're not allowing that in general any longer. I wasn't allowed to log in to their site this summer without phone text verification.

However, I believe they still have a ticket printer for emergencies, such as when you show up at the window saying you broke your phone, but just happened to print a receipt before leaving.

Still prevents any sort of anonymous attendance.

[LinuxBender]

Up until recently I had a flip phone and often left it at home. Nobody ever sneered at me for a lack of a phone. I've never been anywhere that required one. Why are people allowing anything like you describe to exist?

[quickthrower2]

Joined a gym and they me to install an app and did a walkthrough. They way they asked was as if they were just asking me to pose for a photo, as if it was barely a request. I wonder what theyd say if I refused or said I had no phone.

Also during covid scares the inconvenience of not having SMS and QR would have been insane.

[lrvick]

I always say I have no phone, because I do not. They always have some alternative path so as not to end up with edge case discrimination lawsuits, though it is often only known to managers.

[lrvick]

I run a b2b tech company and do not own a cell phone. It started as a month long detox and I found I was happier and never went back. All the 90s ways of doing things still work fine.

[bombolo]

In sweden in most train stations you can't buy a train ticket without having a phone.

Major stations will at best have a couple of ticket machines. All the other ones will have none.

[Animats]

What, they wanted you to install some app for a haircut?

[hinkley]

In some ways the smart phone is replacing the car, and I think I'm okay with that. As long as they don't get as expensive as cars.

[josefresco]

> I was refused service at a hair cutting chain because I did not have a cell phone

I don't believe this.

[majormajor]

I wouldn't be shocked. QR code to payment website instead of on-site card processing hardware. A new small shop may be trying to run things super minimally.

I'm skeptical of the "chain" aspect - a chain is more likely to have hardware and support other methods - but a visitor may not know what is/isn't a chain anyway.

OR a particular employ is new or lazy and just didn't want to drag out the hardware. ;)

[colonelxc]

I actually had a similar problem trying to park in a parking garage. I talked to some people working there (they were moving 'event day price' signs around). I asked if there was a kiosk or any other way to pay (other than by phone). They said there was not and said I just had to leave and find street parking.

This happened when I was trying to park near a place to get my phone fixed!

[CadmiumYellow]

Over the past year all of the paid parking lots in my city have removed their kiosks and replaced them with QR codes that open a website with a very unwieldy form. Very annoying if your phone happens to be dead or broken or you run out of data or something!