3 ms·

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).

amunozo 6mo ago
I disagree. You cannot even book appointments in a lot of banks today, a thing you could do in the 90s. Like that, a lot of services are unavailable without a smartphone and its non-smartphone equivalent is not available anymore.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  Not my experience. I'm in the USA, and there are still bank branches everywhere, I'd say as many as ever and new ones are being built. In fact within a mile of my house the finishing touches on the latest new one (full remodel of a former restaurant building) are just about done.
  - aembleton 6mo ago
    > I'd say as many as ever and new ones are being built. That's an amazing difference compared to the UK. My local town had 5 bank branches ten years ago, now there are none. Until 2 weeks ago we didn't even have a cash machine; fortunately there is one now. It is something that has rapidly changed in the last 15 years.
- bdangubic 6mo ago
  Why does this permeate the HN all the time. You can 100% function without a fucking smartphone. My Dad doesn’t have one, he has zero-to-no trouble going to the bank and paying his bills and just about every other imaginable thing. If there was something he could not do and there were repercussions for it he’d be calling an attorney to rectify the situation. It is crazy to keep reading this over and over on HN, so weird
  - willio58 6mo ago
    Yep, many older people right now don’t have a smart phone and never will. As long as some younger people stay that course we should be fine. Hopefully we’ll see an increase of dumb phone adoption in a growing cohort younger adults. But the FUD spread in threads like this actually spreads misinformation and makes that less likely to happen
    - brewdad 6mo ago
      And those older people frequently have to ask someone in their life who has a smartphone to assist them. They still need a smartphone to manage modern life they just don’t happen to own the phone they need.
  - pjmlp 6mo ago
    In Portugal you have to do that at the bank terminals, otherwise going to the counter implies paying a services tax, depending on the kind of customer one happens to be.
  - spankibalt 6mo ago
    > "Why does this permeate the HN all the time." It's a bias, an in-bubble illiteracy effect, concerning the perception and analysis of realities (e. g. experiences) outside that bubble, mirroring an in-group's projections about an out-group. It is, in my decades of experience, a very common phenomenon in the IT sector. > "My Dad doesn’t have one, he has zero-to-no trouble going to the bank and paying his bills and just about every other imaginable thing." So far, that holds true for me as well (Germany). > "If there was something he could not do and there were repercussions for it he’d be calling an attorney to rectify the situation." The crux: the increasing friction brought on by rising technological entry barriers. In Germany you have at least the non-exclusion principle of Teilhabe (lit.: participation) which gives certain guarantees. But such achievements of democracy are continually under fire.
    - amunozo 6mo ago
      Well, no surprise that it works in Germany, but I am not so sure it will in the Nordic countries for example.
- gib444 6mo ago
  I walked into my bank the other day and sorted out something, without an appointment. Just joined an informal queue (no digital queueing system! The humans used their eyes and brain to remember who next ) Handed over my physical debit card so they could locate my account. What digital hellscape do you live in? UK here
- epolanski 6mo ago
  This. 1. My bank doesn't allow to go in person without an in-app taken appointment. 2. My nephew can't play football in his team, because the team has an app to book/signal your availability. No other way. 3. Half of restaurants in my area do not have non-QR code menus, they just don't. 4. McDonald's will make me pay the scam pricing you get without the app. 5. My doctor gives documentation only and exclusively in digital form, on a special application that doesn't even have a desktop equivalent. 6. My fiance's office badges are smartphone-based. You cannot enter otherwise. 7. All the software she uses at work requires frequent Google/Apple/third party authentication. 8. Increasingly more European airlines exclusively accept in-app check in and documentation. You cannot print it. Ryanair's one of them. I could go on for longer.
  - ssttoo 6mo ago
    I recently skipped a concert at the YouTube theater in LA because my phone is too old for Ticketmaster or Hollywood Park apps. Even though you can go and buy a ticket at the box office they have to send you the ticket to the app. No option to print it or any non-app way.
    - epolanski 6mo ago
      Oh that true! I've been in multiple clubs/events that you can enter exclusively after having downloaded the app.
  - troyvit 6mo ago
    > 3. Half of restaurants in my area do not have non-QR code menus, they just don't. Not knocking this list, the shit is real. But I just had a lovely imaginary conversation with a server asking them what they would recommend and then trying something brand new.
    - chias 6mo ago
      I've had this conversation for real. The server's recommendation was that I scan the QR code. That was my last time going to that restaurant.
- svl 6mo ago
  This might be country specific? Specifically dependent on laws in the fields of consumer-protection and keeping things universally accessible. I don't own a smartphone. I have never owned a smartphone. There are inconveniences, and big organizations definitely try to push you toward the way of doing things which has the lowest costs for them - but there are no actual blockers. There is always a path involving actual humans, and regular phone calls (or emails or paper forms). Reactions tend to be wistful variations of "I wish I could" or "but how do you?" - and it's really always about the most trivial inconveniences.
  - amunozo 6mo ago
    To be honest, I never tried, but I see for example the removal of more and more procedures in person. In Spain where I'm from or Switzerland where I live it can be still manageable, but in the Nordic countries for example everything is digital and even cash is barely existent. A lot of payments are made by phone apps only.
    - usr1106 6mo ago
      I am from Nordic country. I did not use any cash, had no wallet for several years. It's not needed. After the US government acting like it does I mostly stopped using cards. Like with phone OSes a US-controlled duopoly. Cash does not to need to be used anywere, but cards can be avoided for weeks until I need to use it again. Most can be handled by cash or bank transfer without problems. For phones I have not any Google Android or iOS until a year ago. Nowdays I have a Google work phone, but it's always in flight mode except when a pay my lunch subsidized by employer. I type this comment on my Sailfish device and I use a degoogled Android. Can cause minor inconvenienance occasionally, but rarely enough to turn on my work phone.
      - deaux 6mo ago
        > Cash does not to need to be used anywere, but cards can be avoided for weeks until I need to use it again. Your experience sounds interesting but I can't infer what this sentence means.
- seb1204 6mo ago
  You should be able to do all that from a computer at home right? The times I needed to do serious banking on the go are limited. Yes convenient, but replaceable with a 10 minute session at home using my Firefox or similar on Linux.
everyone 6mo ago
I dont have a personal smartphone (I do have a pile of them in my office for testing software I make) but I dont use one myself. Its fine, I can do my banking and whatever. I live in Ireland.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6mo ago
> as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s That's not true, because in the 1990s there was no presumption that everyone has a major-vendor smartphone. Now, the ways to do things without a smartphone are often disappearing, so things are more inconvenient. For example, ticket machines and printed schedules for public transit are going away in many places.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  I don't have any usable public transit where I live but the place where I'm familiar with it is Chicago and all the train stations have ticket machines. Bus stops no, but you can pay on the bus with a payment card, transit card, or an app. Cash fares are no longer accepted for some time. I miss the old tokens they used to use. So simple, anonymous, easy to share with traveling companions, though could be annoying when you ran out.
abc123abc123 6mo ago
Inconvenient? My life is super convenient. No stress, deep thinking and deep work, super focus and concentration. What I would find inconvenient is to be like the smartphone zombies around me, adicted to their phones, restlessly doomscrolling with dead eyes, feeling empty inside. Print some stuff from time to time or arguing my way through tickets offices is a small price to pay for not being enslaved to the IT-machine.

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).

amunozo 6mo ago

I disagree. You cannot even book appointments in a lot of banks today, a thing you could do in the 90s. Like that, a lot of services are unavailable without a smartphone and its non-smartphone equivalent is not available anymore.

SoftTalker 6mo ago
Not my experience. I'm in the USA, and there are still bank branches everywhere, I'd say as many as ever and new ones are being built. In fact within a mile of my house the finishing touches on the latest new one (full remodel of a former restaurant building) are just about done.
- aembleton 6mo ago
  > I'd say as many as ever and new ones are being built. That's an amazing difference compared to the UK. My local town had 5 bank branches ten years ago, now there are none. Until 2 weeks ago we didn't even have a cash machine; fortunately there is one now. It is something that has rapidly changed in the last 15 years.
bdangubic 6mo ago
Why does this permeate the HN all the time. You can 100% function without a fucking smartphone. My Dad doesn’t have one, he has zero-to-no trouble going to the bank and paying his bills and just about every other imaginable thing. If there was something he could not do and there were repercussions for it he’d be calling an attorney to rectify the situation. It is crazy to keep reading this over and over on HN, so weird
- willio58 6mo ago
  Yep, many older people right now don’t have a smart phone and never will. As long as some younger people stay that course we should be fine. Hopefully we’ll see an increase of dumb phone adoption in a growing cohort younger adults. But the FUD spread in threads like this actually spreads misinformation and makes that less likely to happen
  - brewdad 6mo ago
    And those older people frequently have to ask someone in their life who has a smartphone to assist them. They still need a smartphone to manage modern life they just don’t happen to own the phone they need.
- pjmlp 6mo ago
  In Portugal you have to do that at the bank terminals, otherwise going to the counter implies paying a services tax, depending on the kind of customer one happens to be.
- spankibalt 6mo ago
  > "Why does this permeate the HN all the time." It's a bias, an in-bubble illiteracy effect, concerning the perception and analysis of realities (e. g. experiences) outside that bubble, mirroring an in-group's projections about an out-group. It is, in my decades of experience, a very common phenomenon in the IT sector. > "My Dad doesn’t have one, he has zero-to-no trouble going to the bank and paying his bills and just about every other imaginable thing." So far, that holds true for me as well (Germany). > "If there was something he could not do and there were repercussions for it he’d be calling an attorney to rectify the situation." The crux: the increasing friction brought on by rising technological entry barriers. In Germany you have at least the non-exclusion principle of Teilhabe (lit.: participation) which gives certain guarantees. But such achievements of democracy are continually under fire.
  - amunozo 6mo ago
    Well, no surprise that it works in Germany, but I am not so sure it will in the Nordic countries for example.
gib444 6mo ago
I walked into my bank the other day and sorted out something, without an appointment. Just joined an informal queue (no digital queueing system! The humans used their eyes and brain to remember who next ) Handed over my physical debit card so they could locate my account. What digital hellscape do you live in? UK here
epolanski 6mo ago
This. 1. My bank doesn't allow to go in person without an in-app taken appointment. 2. My nephew can't play football in his team, because the team has an app to book/signal your availability. No other way. 3. Half of restaurants in my area do not have non-QR code menus, they just don't. 4. McDonald's will make me pay the scam pricing you get without the app. 5. My doctor gives documentation only and exclusively in digital form, on a special application that doesn't even have a desktop equivalent. 6. My fiance's office badges are smartphone-based. You cannot enter otherwise. 7. All the software she uses at work requires frequent Google/Apple/third party authentication. 8. Increasingly more European airlines exclusively accept in-app check in and documentation. You cannot print it. Ryanair's one of them. I could go on for longer.
- ssttoo 6mo ago
  I recently skipped a concert at the YouTube theater in LA because my phone is too old for Ticketmaster or Hollywood Park apps. Even though you can go and buy a ticket at the box office they have to send you the ticket to the app. No option to print it or any non-app way.
  - epolanski 6mo ago
    Oh that true! I've been in multiple clubs/events that you can enter exclusively after having downloaded the app.
- troyvit 6mo ago
  > 3. Half of restaurants in my area do not have non-QR code menus, they just don't. Not knocking this list, the shit is real. But I just had a lovely imaginary conversation with a server asking them what they would recommend and then trying something brand new.
  - chias 6mo ago
    I've had this conversation for real. The server's recommendation was that I scan the QR code. That was my last time going to that restaurant.
svl 6mo ago
This might be country specific? Specifically dependent on laws in the fields of consumer-protection and keeping things universally accessible. I don't own a smartphone. I have never owned a smartphone. There are inconveniences, and big organizations definitely try to push you toward the way of doing things which has the lowest costs for them - but there are no actual blockers. There is always a path involving actual humans, and regular phone calls (or emails or paper forms). Reactions tend to be wistful variations of "I wish I could" or "but how do you?" - and it's really always about the most trivial inconveniences.
- amunozo 6mo ago
  To be honest, I never tried, but I see for example the removal of more and more procedures in person. In Spain where I'm from or Switzerland where I live it can be still manageable, but in the Nordic countries for example everything is digital and even cash is barely existent. A lot of payments are made by phone apps only.
  - usr1106 6mo ago
    I am from Nordic country. I did not use any cash, had no wallet for several years. It's not needed. After the US government acting like it does I mostly stopped using cards. Like with phone OSes a US-controlled duopoly. Cash does not to need to be used anywere, but cards can be avoided for weeks until I need to use it again. Most can be handled by cash or bank transfer without problems. For phones I have not any Google Android or iOS until a year ago. Nowdays I have a Google work phone, but it's always in flight mode except when a pay my lunch subsidized by employer. I type this comment on my Sailfish device and I use a degoogled Android. Can cause minor inconvenienance occasionally, but rarely enough to turn on my work phone.
    - deaux 6mo ago
      > Cash does not to need to be used anywere, but cards can be avoided for weeks until I need to use it again. Your experience sounds interesting but I can't infer what this sentence means.
seb1204 6mo ago
You should be able to do all that from a computer at home right? The times I needed to do serious banking on the go are limited. Yes convenient, but replaceable with a 10 minute session at home using my Firefox or similar on Linux.

everyone 6mo ago

I dont have a personal smartphone (I do have a pile of them in my office for testing software I make) but I dont use one myself. Its fine, I can do my banking and whatever. I live in Ireland.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6mo ago

> as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s That's not true, because in the 1990s there was no presumption that everyone has a major-vendor smartphone. Now, the ways to do things without a smartphone are often disappearing, so things are more inconvenient. For example, ticket machines and printed schedules for public transit are going away in many places.

SoftTalker 6mo ago
I don't have any usable public transit where I live but the place where I'm familiar with it is Chicago and all the train stations have ticket machines. Bus stops no, but you can pay on the bus with a payment card, transit card, or an app. Cash fares are no longer accepted for some time. I miss the old tokens they used to use. So simple, anonymous, easy to share with traveling companions, though could be annoying when you ran out.

abc123abc123 6mo ago

Inconvenient? My life is super convenient. No stress, deep thinking and deep work, super focus and concentration. What I would find inconvenient is to be like the smartphone zombies around me, adicted to their phones, restlessly doomscrolling with dead eyes, feeling empty inside. Print some stuff from time to time or arguing my way through tickets offices is a small price to pay for not being enslaved to the IT-machine.