[O1111OOO]

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

Is it the phone or just the mobile operating system? I do most of my phone stuff on a tablet that I keep at home - where it's safer. I am currently using an Android phone (without an account) for GPS, phone calls (contacts), internet, games, email (alternatives to google), etc...

But for those critical and sensitive apps (banking, etc)... I consider those to be too dangerous to be walking around with.

So any phone will serve (I can wait to get home to check email for example).

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

That doesn't solve for services that by definition need to be accessed on the go, e.g. public transit, parcel pickup, luggage lockers, rental bikes, restaurant menus, paying for parking, etc. (some of these may not mandate phones in your area yet or may allow mobile web alternatives, these are just examples where I've seen strong pushes towards apps or at leas in many places).

[Insimwytim]

  > restaurant menus

Well, that's easy to deal with - don't go the restaurants that openly disrespect you.

Out of all the examples you have presented everything had worked somehow without phones not so long ago.

Maybe, with the exception of online public transit status streaming. And public transit still works without it.

[abc123abc123]

This is the way. Don't go, or if you don't know, ask for a menu, if that does not exist, ask for a phone from the staff. Have used all of these methods with excellent results. The restaurants wants to sell, they will find you a menu or a phone.

[jjav]

Yes, absolutely!

On the occasions where I've been to a restaurant that tries to pull off the QR nonsense, I just ask for a menu, I tell them I don't have a phone.

I've yet to see one where they can't find me an actual menu. If it ever happens, I'll walk out and be very annoyingly loud at letting them know why they lost my business.

Pushing for your rights isn't always pleasant, but it's important.

[azangru]

> everything had worked somehow without phones not so long ago

This is called change :-) Slowly boiling the frogs.

[eightysixfour]

I hate when people respond like this, I recently did three months with a dumb phone to attempt to get away from iOS/Android in a major US city and it was impossible. All of the things that made it impossible used to be possible without a smart phone, but they aren’t anymore and they’re not magically back when you try and navigate life without one.

Things like paid surface parking lots. Used to you could pay at a machine or a lot attendant, well there aren’t attendants anymore and few people use the machines so there isn’t enough incentive to fix them when they’re vandalized.

Some restaurants have printed backup menus but some straight up don’t. Printing menus costs money, why spend it if they don’t have to?

Digital signage that tells you how far away transit is, whether there are currently adjusted times, etc. is a lower priority now that everyone has maps in their pocket that track the transit in real time.

Showing up to a concert early to convince the ticket window to give you a physical ticket for a digital only event, and then they want email proof or to visibly see an app on the smartphone that is glitching is ridiculous.

The list of tiny cuts goes on and on. All of them worked without smartphones but the incentives flipped and now you can’t escape and you don’t realize the backups are gone until you try it for a while. It sucks.

[bombcar]

Maybe living in the “big city” sucks harder than I thought.

I can and have gone days without a phone in “semirural” areas (not even Amish) and have been fine.

Restaurants without printed menus are just not places I’ll go.

[thewebguyd]

We'd need regulation for that. Either a mandate that the digital option is optional, and services must have an alternative means, or a mandate that any app based service also has an equally viable mobile web option, making the app optional.

Tbh I see no reason why all of that couldn't just be a website instead of a native app. Menus should just be a website, transit should still be offering physical metro cards, the lockers & bikes could just as easily be a website.

Folks on HN won't like this ida but quite frankly I'd go a step further and have a mandate that services like these must offer an API for the public to use in order to bring their own app/solution. It'd be nice to not be limited to exclusively first party options. How ridiculous is it that there are so many different pay for parking apps, when if all of them just offered an API I could roll my one all in one parking web app, etc.

I'd even pay a subscription, like many of these services offer already, for API access instead.