[brightstep]

Would you still have, if you knew the strings that would come attached? Tracking your every move? Enabling governments to surreptitiously snoop on your audio and camera? Constant exposure to experiences designed to addict and immiserate you?

[codeulike]

I think it's good that people are aware of the downsides to everyone-has-a-smartphone and I'm glad there are people like Snowden who have made us all very aware of that. And I think it's good people are trying to find ways to avoid the downsides.

But I also think it's easy to take all the incredible benefits for-granted and only see the downsides. I remember what it was like 30 years ago and I much prefer now. Do you remember having to go to a physical location (library or town hall) to look things up? Basically no-one bothered and we all blundered around believing whatever some bloke in the pub had told us about.

We all have the world in our pocket now and it's amazing.

(Yes we have the problem of bubbles and misinformation but I still think information abundance wins out over information drought)

[Spivak]

The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes.

Also no one snoops on your audio or camera despite the paranoia around it, there's no need to. You can get all the info you need much more efficiently and accurately other ways.

[Jenda_]

> The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes.

Maybe they have no other real choice? This discussion is full of such cases.

[Jenda_]

So, maybe, the washing machine could have a... web page? No proprietary app store (where the app disappears when not updated to support the new OS version), no installation, usable from any device?