[hpdigidrifter]

Pardon my skepticism but I find it hard to believe you can actually participate in western society without choosing to have a government mandated tracking device?

Maybe you live somewhere this is possible but it's definitely not in the developed world

[taurath]

Runs 2 tech companies - the basic promise of the US is when you're rich you can do whatever the hell you want because you can pay people to handle stuff for you.

But also, one doesn't always need a phone - phones can die, signal is not gauranteed. What are your "must have" things that require one to have a smart phone to participate? Assume the poster has a home phone, laptop, and credit card.

[lrvick]

Small companies that are 100% FOSS with no VC investment, where everyone has to pull their own weight. I do not have a personal assistant or anything like that and navigate the real world, travel, etc, very often alone.

[fragmede]

The failure mode isn't as a tech company CEO. As you point out, if you're the CEO, you have the luxury of defining yourself unavailable as CEO whenever the hell you please. If the website is down out if business hours and you haven't made it someone else's problem that you're paying for it to stay up, it can just be down. No, the issue is as a father/mother/husband/wife/son/daughter to someone's you love dearly enough to consider them family, biological or otherwise.

It's rather dramatic, but the phone call/conversation I could never forgive myself for missing, is the last words of a loved one before they die, whether due to car crash or some other calamity (9/11). Or missing the opportunity to take the very next flight out to see them before they pass. You are free to treat your family, biological or chosen, as you see fit, I just know there are some phone calls I'd rather be woken up in the middle of the night for than miss. Reaching me via cellphone is more direct than trying to find whatever hotel I'm at since I'm on the road as CEO and talking to customers and vendors in person on the road as CEO, so calling my house phone doesn't help.

[lrvick]

I gave up my phone as a lead security engineer at a vc funded company, and continued this when I quit to run my consulting firm full time as single proprietorship. Now we are a team of five running a consulting firm and a PaaS.

I spent most of my career as an infrastructure engineer so high redundancy, self healing you can trust, infrastructure-as-code, and follow-the-sun shifts, are healthier for everyone than expecting people to be available to work 24/7.

[nasmorn]

OTOH I could see my loved ones an extra 20h a week that I now use my phone. I am not sure they gonna say something vastly more interesting in this hypothetical scenario

[wongarsu]

Phones are required, insering a SIM isn't. Your work and home probably have wifi, and services meant to be used on the go are commonly built with offline use in mind. Especially those you actually need in society

A burner phone left at home just for the ability to receive SMS would be helpful for account registrations though

[GTP]

> services meant to be used on the go are commonly built with offline use in mind.

I'm not sure about this. With everyone moving to the cloud and web applications, this seems to not have been the case for a while to me. There surely are what are now called "local-first" alternatives to the main services (in the past those would just be called desktop applications), but if someone is using Office 365, does it have an offline mode? (Sincerely asking since I never tried this, plus, you should still get to load the web application before losing connection, right?)

[lrvick]

> Phones are required

Depends on how you define a phone. Cell phones are not required but SMS capable phone numbers kind of are.

I ported my cell phone number to a voip provider and get SMS and can even take calls from my desktop, or laptop, or simple voip capable DECT phones around my home as needed.

[epsylon]

many services that require SMS 2FA outright won't work on VOIP providers

[lrvick]

Not once have I been unable to sign up for something. Likely because I ported a number that once belonged to a real cell phone carrier.

Mandatory SMS 2FA is always a red flag on a product anyway as SMS is wildly insecure. FIDO2 or GTFO.

[DeathArrow]

>Maybe you live somewhere this is possible but it's definitely not in the developed world

Since the whole world is covered by satellites, living in the undeveloped doesn't guarantee privacy.

[lrvick]

I am a security engineer and I live and work in Silicon Valley with an active social life. None of these things require a phone.

[mattmaroon]

I’m old enough to remember when nobody had a cell phone and we all worked and had social lives. I love it when people think you cant possibly live without something that didn’t exist a short time ago.

That said I’d be lost in five minutes if I tried to drive somewhere without gps

[lrvick]

> That said I’d be lost in five minutes if I tried to drive somewhere without gps

I used to be that way, but MRI brain scan studies have proven that regular use of GPS actually atrophies the parts of your brain responsible for navigation. You likely need a GPS because you make too much use of a GPS.

I weaned myself off by regularly printing directions or writing them down before I leave. Eventually I finally learned to navigate the san francisco bay area on my own but I always keep a map in the car just in case, though I almost never use it.

[mattmaroon]

Oh yeah I’m sure that’s the case. I was directionally challenged even before, but could then (and I’m sure could still) print and drive. The good old days of AAA and Mapquest!

[dotancohen]

Though I do have a phone, I do not use WhatsApp. I get the same responses you are getting - people absolutely can not believe that we function in society.

[jll29]

I do not use WhatsApp, Instagram, or FB.

You pay a price (we miss many party invitations, only one friend consistently emails us and FB everyone else), but it's worth it.

Recently spoke to a colleague in Italy that told me he hates WhatsApp, but is forced to use it because the school of his kids in Rome use it as sole means to communicate, despite this being a legal violation (public organizations in Europe must use GDRR-compliant tools).

[lrvick]

If a school tried to demand me or my kid have a cell phone or use any proprietary software, or accept the terms of service of a private corporation like meta or google, I would absolutely sue them and turn it into a media shit storm if needed.

Many have done this and won around the world. People just need to stop being cowards.

[PlatoIsADisease]

I bought into something like this, removed all social media for 2-3 years.

I lost so many connections to people and it seemed to set me back multiple years on my goals. I thought it would make me more productive, instead my userbase got cut in half.

I'm never doing that again. Huge mistake.

[lrvick]

If your entire social graph only exists on proprietary platforms then cutting that all at once is going to be brutal. I had to be a loud advocate for open solutions, and had to lead by example organizing IRL events myself with oldschool email .ical invites that still work just fine.

Many of the most talented people in the world only exist on free open source platforms. Social media is not the enemy. Proprietary centralized stock price driven social media is the enemy.

Come hang out on #!:matrix.org or other great tech communities on Matrix, and/or get invested in networks like Mastodon.

[dotancohen]

I've lost connections with "internet friends" but I see my real friends more often than does the average person my age. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[lrvick]

Hear hear. The types of people that would stop being friends with you for not using proprietary software and platforms are the type of people that would stop being friends with someone for not eating meat, or some other ethical stance.

These are shitty shallow people, not real friends. Real friends will support, or at least tolerate, your honest ethics based lifestyle choices. Smart people often -prefer- being around people that think differently from them, and being different can even be an asset in making more smart friends.

[microtonal]

I can understand that in some social contexts it is possible. For me personally it would be very hard. E.g. most school-related stuff of our daughter is coordinated through WhatsApp, same with birthday parties, playdates, etc.

[lrvick]

Simply say it is against your unspecified religion. No one ever questions that.