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Comment by arpa | Hacker News Reader

Surprisingly many, as market for dumbphones and burners show. You can still buy a dumbphone.

Well, you can, but only 2G dumb phones. So they'll stop working wherever 2G networks get shut off for good. If you want a more future-proof 4G phone, even the "dumb" phones are actually pretty smart. Most of them come with Linux-based KaiOS [1] which even includes an app store out of the box.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS

Nope, you can buy LTE capable dumb phones. My local Walmart has them.

Can you please provide some more information regarding these phones? I skimmed through Walmart's online store, but couldn't find any dumb 4G phones there. I'd be really interested to learn if they sell 4G capable feature phones not running KaiOS.

It's been a while ago but I think it was either a Kyocera, or one of those Samsung dumb phones.

Otherwise there's also the 3310 refresh, although that's 3G.

3G phones are unfortunately no better choice than 2G phones, because the 3G networks of most operators will be not running much longer than their 2G networks. Here in Europe operators often even plan to shut down their 3G networks prior to their 2G networks.

Kyocera indeed seems to have some 4G "dumb" feature phones: https://www.kyoceramobile.com/phones/?filter=type:basic#

That's quite interesting. Thanks for the pointers.

I sort of wonder how dumbphone sales split out between:

- I don't need/want to pay for/know how to use a computer in my pocket. A phone is all I need.

- My kid just needs a phone for emergencies. A smartphone will be a distraction

- An actual burner phone for whatever purpose.

Also the too poor crowd. I think the only reason they still exist is because 3rd world countries use them. Although even 3rd world countries are getting upgraded to smart phones as cheap low level ones enter the market. I give it maybe 3 years until they're no longer being offered.

I'm not sure I'd bet against you but, so long as they remain the best way to communicate by voice/text more or less anonymously (in a world where pay phones are mostly no longer an option), I expect they'll remain as a niche for illegal, quasi-legal, etc. use at least.

I suppose that smartphones can in principle be equivalently anonymous but, in practice, it's probably harder and there are more opportunities to leak identity.

The market for 'dumbphones' is living on borrowed time; once all the remaining CSP's have Refarmed 2G/3G spectrum and allocated it for other uses such as IoT/M2M and diversified into adjacent digital services, it will disappear sooner than you think. Next up, 4G ─ whose demise will be far more easier to orchestrate.

https://1ot.mobi/resources/blog/a-complete-overview-of-2g-3g...

81% of American adults own a smartphone. Not surprisingly the 50+ demographic is least likely to own one. You’re correct that the non-smart phone market currently exists but pretty soon it’s going to be down to one or two choices at most.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

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