Getting interested in ham radio is difficult when you have a smartphone and internet. "I can just talk to the world from my phone... what's the point of this?"

Getting interested in ham radio is difficult when you have a smartphone and internet. "I can just talk to the world from my phone... what's the point of this?" What really got me hooked is the fact that modern information infrastructure is so massive, expensive, and pervasive, and we just take it for granted. Ham radio lets you replicate some functional aspects of modern communication with literally nothing but $50 worth of parts and a long wire. No cell towers, no fiber, no undersea cables, no comcast, no google, no facebook, no internet servers/protocols/routers/hardware/etc... It's amazing how much of this you can just collapse into a hobby project.