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You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. In fact, a favorite pastime of HN is recommending all of the alternatives to use. Another example, you

You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. In fact, a favorite pastime of HN is recommending all of the alternatives to use. Another example, you don't have to buy an Amazon Echo or Google Assistant. If you find cloud connected microphones in your home creepy, don't do it. Why is that not sufficient? Or do the people who are creeped out want to make the choice for other people and remove products from the market they'd like to use?

Silhouette 8y ago
You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. Sure, but it is increasingly the case that by doing so you are excluded from normal daily activities, because in some cases these technologies are now how our society communicates. For example, you can no longer park legally in many UK streets or public car parks without using a smartphone app, which means working with Apple or Google (Android) technology for the device, and working with a mobile network operator for the data connection. In theory, you can usually call or text from a feature phone instead, which means you only have to deal with the mobile network, but typically those facilities are among the worst user experience you will ever encounter, and taking upwards of 15 minutes to make a simple payment is not unusual, if you can even pay successfully at all. You no longer have any option to pay quickly, reliably and anonymously in cash the way we used to.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  In situations where you have no choice, I agree. This has long been an issue with credit card payments too. But IMHO, the government could fix this by simply having their own payment mechanism. I mean, every store has their own rewards card, why can I just buy a parking card for the whole city that I top-off once in a while and just at the meters?
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    But IMHO, the government could fix this by simply having their own payment mechanism. Honestly not sure if you're joking here... The government in my country has a somewhat well-established payment mechanism, which relies on small metallic or paper-plastic tokens to represent value, and that is what we used to pay for parking until these new-fangled things came along.
    - cromwellian 8y ago
      I'm not joking, physical coins and tokens are irritating and inconvenient to carry. Cash has other portability annoyances. A cash card that can be refilled electronically is more convenient than having to hit ATMs constantly or deal with merchants having exact change. If you tell me to give up credit cards or mobile payments, I won't. I'd rather credit cards and mobile payments be made secure and private, but in the worse case, I'll trade convenience for marginal loss of privacy, since in decades of walking this earth, I've yet to have been harmed by it. I'd be more concerned if I lived in a country with a more fascist authoritarian government, but the cost/benefit tradeoff for me, personally, it well worth it. Other people have the choice of not doing so, they just have to suffer the irritation of cash and loss of convenience.
      - Silhouette 8y ago
        Well, that's fair enough, if you're choosing to accept that trade-off. My concern here is that often it is no longer a meaningful choice, and everyone else is being forced to accept the same trade-off whether they favour their privacy and security or not. In that particular case, with a simple payment card or the like, perhaps it's not such a big deal. However, when something like your phone, your home or your car is compromised, the potential harm is more significant.

Silhouette 8y ago

You have the choice not to use the major tech companies. Sure, but it is increasingly the case that by doing so you are excluded from normal daily activities, because in some cases these technologies are now how our society communicates. For example, you can no longer park legally in many UK streets or public car parks without using a smartphone app, which means working with Apple or Google (Android) technology for the device, and working with a mobile network operator for the data connection. In theory, you can usually call or text from a feature phone instead, which means you only have to deal with the mobile network, but typically those facilities are among the worst user experience you will ever encounter, and taking upwards of 15 minutes to make a simple payment is not unusual, if you can even pay successfully at all. You no longer have any option to pay quickly, reliably and anonymously in cash the way we used to.

cromwellian 8y ago
In situations where you have no choice, I agree. This has long been an issue with credit card payments too. But IMHO, the government could fix this by simply having their own payment mechanism. I mean, every store has their own rewards card, why can I just buy a parking card for the whole city that I top-off once in a while and just at the meters?
- Silhouette 8y ago
  But IMHO, the government could fix this by simply having their own payment mechanism. Honestly not sure if you're joking here... The government in my country has a somewhat well-established payment mechanism, which relies on small metallic or paper-plastic tokens to represent value, and that is what we used to pay for parking until these new-fangled things came along.
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    I'm not joking, physical coins and tokens are irritating and inconvenient to carry. Cash has other portability annoyances. A cash card that can be refilled electronically is more convenient than having to hit ATMs constantly or deal with merchants having exact change. If you tell me to give up credit cards or mobile payments, I won't. I'd rather credit cards and mobile payments be made secure and private, but in the worse case, I'll trade convenience for marginal loss of privacy, since in decades of walking this earth, I've yet to have been harmed by it. I'd be more concerned if I lived in a country with a more fascist authoritarian government, but the cost/benefit tradeoff for me, personally, it well worth it. Other people have the choice of not doing so, they just have to suffer the irritation of cash and loss of convenience.
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      Well, that's fair enough, if you're choosing to accept that trade-off. My concern here is that often it is no longer a meaningful choice, and everyone else is being forced to accept the same trade-off whether they favour their privacy and security or not. In that particular case, with a simple payment card or the like, perhaps it's not such a big deal. However, when something like your phone, your home or your car is compromised, the potential harm is more significant.