Smartphones Are a New Tax on the Poor
wired.com
wired.com
But, Smartphones are "Tax on the Poor" in a totally different way, it's a Cognitive tax. There are people in my country (India) who are already in poverty and would have to work a lot more than the elites to break away from poverty gap. But all these apps, that monger on attention are taking any hope of them getting out of poverty and making them stay in there. It's almost impossible to break people away from the phones, Most of their waking hours is spent on the Screen.
As someone who comes from a family of farmers and having a lot of my childhood friends and relatives stuck in poverty. The negative effects are alarmingly high. I hope there comes some regulation on these apps.
I can pay cash for a car quite easily. That may be harder for a plane ticket, but not out of the question. My point is there isn't even an option in the parking lot.
On a side note, I do agree forcing people to use an app to pay for parking is complete BS.
You don’t need the app.
The big one is that your boss can easily throw around your zero-hours "contract" when everyone has a leash. Before mobile phones that wasn't quite so easy. If you were out with your family you couldn't get called and threatened into taking another shift.
For example, Instagram pushing/peer-pressuring people to travel/buy/share more feels fine to me when it is an average household with with some level of stability. This is not true everywhere.
I'm talking about families whose total monthly earning is about 150 dollars. Families where the easier choice was to not go to the hospital for leukemia and let them be, than go to a hospital. Where a second Girl child is as close to a bad news as it gets. And yet and yet almost everybody with a smartphone within these community, scrolls through infinite feeds of tik-tok like content, for hours on end.
The way I see it, these social media are very similar to alcohol/other drugs. An infinite cage, from which There is little to no escape. Facebook is as close to a quicksand as it gets. Progressively pulling people in and keeping them where they are, not letting them go where they could be.
Even though I make very good money, I'm very strict about how much I spend on my phones. I use mint sim and for two lines I pay about $40 a month, I have 10 gigs per line.
I only buy my phone's cash, and while recently I have treated myself to a new pixel 6, I was doing just fine with a $300 phone. And that's closer to the high end, but I've definitely seen people walk to T-Mobile and buy three or four iPhones, then get into really nasty loud arguments when they can't make their $300 a month bill.
As a side note, I absolutely hate how everything needs to be a social justice issue. Saying that companies like DoorDash expect you to have a working cell phone, and this is extremely oppressive doesn't do anyone any favors.
But then we run into Wired's incentives. They need clicks, writing nonsense gets them that.
Poor mass transit is a huge burden for the poor.
One thing I noticed about America after moving there was that they don't allow you to tether to your phone's internet from your computer. Phone data is only allowed to be used from your phone -- you have to pay for a separate internet connection if you want to check email on your computer. I found this to be pretty disgusting.
In fact, between my spouse, my dad and I, we have 4 lines with Mint Mobile, and they do not prevent us from tethering or using our data as hotspots.
The 3 smartphone only plans are $15/month, unlimited talk/text, 4GB data. the 4th plan is $20/month, 10GB data, and sits in an LTE hotspot, handling his modest home internet needs.
Where he lives (very rural), he'd have to pay thousands to get cable internet (or worse, DSL) run to his house, so this is a great alternative. But just a few years ago, this kind of thing was harder to find, harder to set up, more expensive, slower, with lower data caps. Competition helps, but the situation isn't perfect.
The lack of compassion and ability to imagine being poor are really alarming. The time those people will turn against you will come as the divide is growing. You should really try to understand and articles like that are there to help you. It's not a target to attack based upon your privileged reality. Especially because the digital age many of you build for wealthy customers are part of the problem.
More prevalent use of dual sim phones would also help - I get all the data from my work sim, but most of my calls are made on the personal one.
The federal government also subsidizes service for low income households: https://www.fcc.gov/lifeline-consumers
I bought a used iPhone 7 literally two days ago for $65. Prior to this I've been using iPhone SE that I purchased for about $100 over 3 years ago. Works great.
There is absolutely no reason you have to spend a lot of money on a phone.
I wonder how well it works when updated to the highest iOS version available for it.
While $200 is a lot of money for many people, there are options where you can go even lower and get a decent phone if you sacrifice some functionality (like not having a good camera)
[1] Poco X3 for example, during sale goes well under 250$. Note: it does have privacy concerns associated with it.
[2] https://imgur.com/a/d1lkYcc - £2 per month for 1GB data, 200 mins for calls
Countries like Romania has even cheaper plans. Why is this still an issue for world richiest country?
Most people use their phone for angry political rants and maybe finding dinner.
If your poor your you can get a huawei phone used for $59 and you’re good.
You can get a cell/SMS plan (no data) for less, but then you're relying on public wifi for internet access (and none at home, unless you buy a wired connection).
Personally, I just use the cheapie plan because between home and work, the vast majority of my data usage is covered by WiFi so I never use 5GB just by streaming audio and looking stuff up when I'm out and about.
Not saying it's as good as some other markets, but it can still be reasonably affordable if you just need to handle work-related things as outlined in the article. Budget and mid-range smartphones are incredibly cheap and run circles around the old PocketPCs and Android phones I was using to browse the web and stream media 10-15 years ago.
Poor people don't always have in-home wifi. They can barely afford a phone, let alone a phone PLUS wired internet. And if they're work is physical, they probably don't have the luxury of using work wireless either.
And even at your lower $25/month plan, that's still 3-4 hours of work at minimum wage. For somebody who likely has trouble meeting basic needs like food and shelter. And heaven help them if they get sick.
I currently use them as my mobile carrier and they have options for 5.5GB-"unlimited" data for $25-50/month.
Nothing more was implied.
T-mobile's post paid plans are a much better deal with multiple lines of service, though (the $60/month plan for 1 line is only $90/month for 3 lines, for example).
Far too much of the modern world including our societal systems require a smartphone. Wether its a QR code showing COVID vax status, checking email, engaging with your local bank via the app, connecting with friends, etc.
We have built a world that is so reliant on the apps ecosystem (at least in the US) so it's unhelpful to say "flip phone can get text messages".
I don't really disagree that we're moving to a place where a smartphone is universally needed because of apps but I'm not sure we're universally there today.
So no, it’s not food and water level necessary but it’s pretty damn important.
A smartphone just happens to be the easiest way to get phone/SMS & internet. As noted elsewhere, a massive number of Americans (and people worldwide) use their phone as their only means of internet access.
OK so you need a printer, ink, probably a PC… (Or at least access to one, which would be a fine requirement, if the US had good public transport and libraries...)
I won't disagree that these things are massively inconvenient compared to doing it all though a smartphone, but it's far from impossible.
I suppose it didn't need to be an activated phone though. You could probably get buy with cheap android phone you buy at CVS and use the school's wifi.
And for what? Understanding and accessing government services, particularly for those trying to escape homelessness. Most of this is done online. The only other realistic option is a public library, but the hours are limited, and they’re geographically inaccessible to lots of folks.
And that is a luxury device - I am sure there are Android phones that are much cheaper.
Sounds alot like Captain Vimes' boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness. Some people are just too poor to be able to buy a pair of good boots.
The iPhone 6s is still receiving update, though it may not be long for this world, the iPhone 7 and 8 are still one and two years newer than said 6s - as such would likely receive updates a year and two years additional. That would put the iPhone 8 End-of-Life at 2024. That's 2 years out, and the 6s hasn't even finished receiving updates, so closer to 3 years out.
> According to 2020 numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, those in the lowest 20 percent of income earners spent $150 more a year on their cell phones than they did in 2016.
I spend $180/y for unlimited talk/text with 5 GB data per month using Verizon's network through US Mobile. It's a prepaid monthly plan, no credit, no contract. You also have the option to use T-Mobile's GSM network if your existing phone is incompatible or coverage is better in your area. For phones there are plenty of options in the $200 range, both used like GP mentions and new. On the new side I recently picked up 2 Galaxy A12 for the niece/nephew, $170 each. They started on Android 10 but have gotten 11 and are due to get 12 year (and a few patches after that but not likely 13).
So for <$240 a year folks should be able to be connected to decent new phones and service yet in the last 4 years people in the lowest 20% income bracket have been led to spend 2/3 of that more in addition to what they were already paying. I'm not sure where the exact numbers are in the linked source but I'd be curious if these folks are being led to spend more than I am on my high end phone and phone plan.
For that price these folks are getting a lot of value and I don't think that's a problem in itself more than fulfilling any other modern life need is a problem for low income folks. I think the real problem is a combination of predatory tactics from the market as described in the article and lack of knowledge of alternatives amongst low income people. It's hard to learn where you can get a quality phone and plan when you don't have internet and the local T-Mobile store's $0 up front plan is the only way you will have a phone for work next week.
I got fed up with replacing my phone, so I've started getting those rugged phones marketed at construction workers. They're pretty amazing. I've submerged mine in water, dropped it in all sorts of surfaces (including concrete, gravel), gotten snow on it, gotten mud on it. The screen is immaculate. I've owned it for a few years and it still has something like 40h+ battery life. Best phone I've ever bought.
Some downsides is that it's pretty heavy and comes with bundle-ware from John Deere (easy enough to uninstall). It's not a fast or pretty phone by any standard, but my phone use is very basic so for me it matters more that it lasts than bells and whistles.