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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

Interesting the resistance to this given its inevitability based on the direction of the last decade and a half.

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games..and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree."

Those of us pushing back are in such a minority that our voices will not be heard over those of the significant majority clamoring for their $3 savings at the checkout for giving away $300 worth of their data and an incalculable value of their privacy.

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The difference between a phone lock screen and a bus, ball game, movies etc. is that we own our phone.

Milk cartons and magazines are interesting examples. It really depends on the magazine and the subscriber, but speaking for myself the one type of magazine I still subscribe to is a trade magazine and I subscribe to it in part because of the ads. Yes I read the columns and the content is important, but because it's a trade magazine I'm actually curious about new products and the magazine is a completely opt-in way to get that information delivered to me. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Milk cartons are disposable packaging so who cares?

My phone lock screen though? I don't much like the idea that some remote server somewhere can push something in my face in a way that I can't choose to ignore it, throw it away, opt out .. and, oh yeah, it's on something I paid hundreds of dollars for.

I think that's the difference.

Not only that but milk carton ads are still static and can be easily ignored. Imagine you opened your fridge and dozens of little disposable screens started flashing at you, soapbars had a new biotech state of art disposable speakers and pestered you with ads and jingles when you use it or even when it detects any slight movement.

But for now the advertising industry’s main goal is to gobble up any remaining surface of electronic displays, idle or not

Milk carton ads are so easy to ignore, I've never actually seen one in real life.

You don’t own the phone. Right now you’re only able to have a phone that’s not completely user-hostile because one big company (Apple) currently uses privacy as a selling point.

In Android-land the only way to regain control mostly relies on security vulnerabilities.

You can’t really build your own either; most apps (including for government services) require either iOS or Android (with Google Play services) and neither can be licensed.

You can’t build your own clients either - copyright law has successfully been used to sue developers of third-party clients despite displaying content the user is authorized to view (and can view in the official client).

The government services apps concerns me. Other than that, I opt out. I'm currently using GrapheneOS which is a security and privacy hardened open-source Android fork and I only install FOSS apps using f-droid. Ideally I'd like to live a completely smart-phone-free life but I have to admit there are some conveniences that are hard to live without.

I only write this because I don't quite agree with you that you can't regain control of your phone presently. Though if governments start to force you to use their apps then society is in trouble. I hope that activists can shut that down, even if it's just on the basis that a minority of the population doesn't / can't own smart phones.

Edited to fix typo

Most people own their phone but not the software running on it

I think we really only own our phones if we're able to install a custom ROM like Lineage on them. Otherwise we pay to have bloat and ads shoved in our faces.

It would be ideal if all devices we buy were unlockable, but sadly that's not the case. For cable modems and smart TVs and most things that have same RF capability, "regulations" are used as an excuse to lock them down.

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