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Comment by ThinkingGuy | Hacker News Reader

On a trip to California last year, my wife and I rented a house in which the washing machine required a mobile app to start. I don't have a cell phone. Fortunately my wife has an iPhone, so we were able to install the app on her phone, connect it to my credit card, and charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall). I'll never use that specific app again, so we deleted it, meaning the app company got to keep most of the money.

Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck).

I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.

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I think that thanks to your valiant efforts to remain cell phone free you seem to have missed the memo that the "not too distant future" you described arrived like a decade ago lol. We're well into the "smartphones are a human right" era

Oh, it hasn't taken any effort on my part. I've just always been fortunate enough to have: -Always lived in a house with a phone -Always worked at a business with a phone -Never been important enough that anyone needed to reach me when I wasn't at home or at work

Honest question: how do you stay in touch with friends?

I'm not the OP, but for me it's email, phone calls, instant messaging, paper mail sometimes.

Surely your pocket computer isn't your only computer? Like, you do own a computer with a physical keyboard, right?

Pre-COVID, when I made plans to go out with folks, we arranged a time and place to meet, and, like, arrived at that place roughly around that time. It's pretty easy, really.

>Surely your pocket computer isn't your only computer? Like, you do own a computer with a physical keyboard, right?

More and more people, particularly the younger generations, don't have anything besides their smartphone because what's the point? It's additional expense, additional maintenance, additional clutter, additional mess.

They can do everything they need on their phone.

I know they're out there, hell my wife doesn't turn her laptop on from one week to the next, but I still find it hard to fathom.

This is the gulf UX design is supposed to cross, I guess. Designing for people who engage with tech in utterly different ways to me.

There certainly is a gulf.

On the one hand, I rarely use my smartphone at home because I have computers.

On the other hand, I hear stories from parents at work whose kids don't want a computer because "Why would I need one? My phone works fine."

> More and more people, particularly the younger generations, don't have anything besides their smartphone because what's the point? It's additional expense, additional maintenance, additional clutter, additional mess.

I’m 40 and if I wasn’t a software engineer I wouldn’t own a desktop / laptop computer. As you say, what’s the point? Everything except for software development can be done on a smartphone. Why even bother installing an instant messaging application on the computer when you can just take the phone out of the pocket instead of walking to the room where the computer happens to be? Even when I’m working at the computer I use the phone for music, messaging and news.

> Everything except for software development can be done on a smartphone.

That sounds like a little too broad a generalization.

A typical office worker who creates or consumes documents, presentations, accesses corporate apps (half of them still 90s tech with lipstick), submit proposals to clients, review others' work, attending multiple hours long zoom calls with screenshare, etc ... are still using at least 13" laptop screens to do a lot of their day to day work.

Sure a sales executive or a senior manager might get away by just typing one liner commands to minions on their smartphone, hitting approve buttons on expense apps, and just listening into team calls, etc. -- but lower in the hierarchy where the real numbers and usage are ... we still have physical keyboards and mice, and decent sized screens (often multiple monitors) to help us stay productive.

Wait until you’re fifty and you can barely see the stupid thing.

I'd be far more inclined to assume someone didn't have a computer--or at least ready access to one--than didn't have a smartphone.

I know several households which don't have a traditional laptop or desktop computer. Smartphones and maybe a tablet. Maybe a work-issued laptop, but usually that stays at the office and isn't for personal use.

e-mail and my work phone. I'm a married man, so my wife does most of the social arrangements anyway. Recently I got a JMP.chat number so I could send and receive text messages, and have been very happy with it. When I leave my job and have to give up the work number, I'll probably break down and buy either a Pinephone or Librem (maybe there'll be other options by then).

As you got to experience, smart phones aren't mainly phones, they're mobile computers with a phone app. They have Bluetooth that let's them connect to bikes close by, biometrics that let's them be used for relatively secure payment, modems that allows them to communicate with servers, GPS that makes it easy to see that you're not riding or parking the bike where you're not allowed, etc. If one person was able to unlock multiple bikes who is responsible for how the bike is used? A while back someone on a rented scooter hit an elderly man and then left the scene. He was found and convicted, because the scooter was personally rented by him.

Don't expect to be able to use modern services if you don't want to meet the providers where they operate. It's like refusing to use a card and demanding everyone to use cash, you're going to limit yourself and it's your choice if you think it's worth it.

I think limiting your goods and services to people with devices that have been available for more than two decades and are basically ubiquitous is a reasonable thing to do, considering the benefits that comes with it.

Personally i very rarely talk on the phone, that's never been why I've used mobile phones. I listen to music and use offline maps with GPS far more, but I also use it for payment, camera, text messages, etc.

In the same vein I think that people were making jokes about how it is even possible to use smart phones to make phone calls like 5 years ago lol. Wouldnt be shocked if some folks had not made a single phone call in the past 3 or 4 years. Smartphones are small mobile internet connected computer plus camera hybrids first, and also if you really want you could use them to make phone calls too I guess but you could drop that feature and the other 99% of the use vases people actually use smartphones for (work, reddit, YouTube, slack and other chat, internet browsing, apps, ordering food through delovery apps, etc) would be unaffected

The only outgoing phone call I've made within the past 12 months is to the taxi company when their app said there were no cars available. The person on the phone said the same thing, so the call was just a waste of time and money.

I have gotten incoming phone calls, mostly from daycare when a kid has been sick.

on the contrary, they are a decade ahead in insisting on their "freedom from technology"

And they still want to use things like washing machines and electric scooters?

To hell with mobile app only washing machines, dude. If that's the price of admission into the glorious future, I don't want no part of it.

I went back to candy bar phone more than a decade ago and I barely use it.

Do you have any friends?

I imagine they would hate next time you need to organise a trip and you can't join their group chat for coordination.

Or are you one of these people who calls everyone for basically no reason when a message could suffice?

bro this may shock you but there's a whole contingent of people out there who still pick up the phone when their friends call

and IME cats don't self organize into a herd, it's usually one person figuring out a time and place that works for everyone, unless you're one of those insufferable people who sends out a "when are you free" survey of checkboxes ;P

>there's a whole contingent of people out there who still pick up the phone when their friends call

That's increasingly rare. My elderly dad still uses voice calling pretty much exclusively and there's a friend who I'll exchange voice calls with. But I don't think there's a single other person who would call me out of the blue socially absent an emergency--and at least some of these are people I would have regularly called 25 years or so ago.

For that matter, no one at work would just call me on the phone either.

Seems the correct etiquette these days is to arrange a call days in advance at a time that will be mutually convenient. My younger self would never have believed this would be the case yet here we are?

The prevalence of messaging probably has a lot to do with it. "We still on for tomorrow night?" works fine as just a text. "Have time to chat on phone later?" seems to work pretty well too.

In any case, the goalposts for calling someone out of the blue have moved for a lot of people.

It used to be the only time you could make a call when someone was at work or at home.

Now you can call them literally 24/7 no matter where they are in the world. There is no recluse.

Interrupting people in the middle of what they're doing whenever, wherever is quite rude and fixing that etiquette is a GOOD thing.

>> be me

>> 30, elderly

Ah, yeah, the evil technology. Irrigation and its consequences…

Even if you have a smartphone and you carry it around with you, you're going to be blocked out from some services if you don't have access to either Apple's App Store or Google Play.

I've had to shut down my accounts in two banks because of surprise app requirements (that weren't in the contract) for basic account functionality. Their apps are only available trough App Store and Google Play, no .apk alternative. And even if you install the apps using Aurora store, the app instantly crashes, I suppose because they implement Google's SafetyNet, or whatever it's called now.

So, unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons, I'm limited to only using one bank, the only one in my country that still doesn't require an app for the type of account I want. I've thought of buying a phone just for the apps, but after that, who knows with what other bullshit they may come up with (your device is too old, it doesn't have a phone number associated, etc), so I just give up.

If you're in the EU, Bunq's app works perfectly installed from Aurora Store on GrapheneOS without Google Play Services.

>unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons

Owning a separate, dedicated piece of hardware for sensitive and critical activities (eg: banking) is a very good idea because it isolates them from all your other mundane, potentially risky activities.

Most people don't do this because of the various inconveniences and expenses involved, but if you can tolerate them it's about as safe as digital activities can get.

It doesn’t take much effort to remain relatively safe on the internet so you don’t have to resort to dedicated hardware just for banking. Don’t install sketchy apps that you don’t need and stop clicking on every link that you see – that’s pretty much it. I found that this basic internet hygiene has a nice side benefit as well – it forms a habit of avoiding superfluous and/or crappy content altogether.

"Relatively" is itself a relative term.

You might be fine having apps as closely tied to your real identity as your banking app on a device that's constantly collecting location and other data about you, but privacy is important to some other people.

I did get a dedicated device specifically for banking apps. I installed GrapheneOS with sandboxes Google Play Services.

The banking apps still won't work. They insist on some signal from a SIM card "for my security," and I'm not willing to put a SIM card in a device that won't ever leave my house.

Yeah, you could get an iPhone or android and use either as a dedicated banking phone.

The banks are creating their own requirements for how to access their app.

Just like some users are creating their own requirements.

Both parties seem to be content to be apart of the problem and blame the other.

I don't understand, what's the point of having a dedicated mobile device to access banking services at home?

Why not a computer?

Because sometimes you want to check banking services on the go. Or you get a notification on your email and want to open the app to check. Or it's much quicker to log in with fingerprint. Or so you can quickly zelle someone on the go. Or because why do you want to go and pull out our computer and turn it on and log in and waste all that time when you have mobile computer in your pocket that's always on and always connected and not in your backpack in the corner somewhere. I know a lot of people who only have a work laptop and use their phone for everything else.

Some banking feature are only accessible via mobile phone - e.g. check deposit.

That's the only one I know of at my bank that's mobile only. (And for how frequently I deposit checks, going to an ATM wouldn't be a big deal.) I realize other banks may have more de-featured web sites.

My bank (or Zelle) removed the ability to send money to an individual from the web interface. You have to use the smartphone app.

A device with required connectivity to network, built in eavesdropping and tracking - that hardly qualifies as dedicated to sensitive and critical actities.

It is even better idea if it is not a smartphone at all but a dedicated simple security device! Smartphones are a constant security risk alone!!

I had multitudes of non-smartphone based security devices in my life, cheap and dedicated small secure things, but those are endangered species now regrettably.

my local app MANDATES LOCATION access for "security", WTF

That's relatively logical. Banks have to issue payments on your behalf, and the most common signal of scams is attempts to make purchases from random new locations.

no other app does this with far greater number of users so i don't see how this is relevant. so i cannot use my banking app because i am on a vpn? nice

> so i cannot use my banking app because i am on a vpn? nice

Bank's goal is to prevent access by people other than account owner. When it comes to the VPN usage, there are a few risk factors:

- Concealment of connection. Malicious actor will likely use a measure to hide the request origin.

- Accessing from another country or region, human factor (a common use case of VPNs). Instant thousand miles away teleportation is usually a sign of access attempt with stolen information. While you may be smart, a lot of people aren't and will gladly tell all the info to "bank security agent calling to ask for some information to prevent your account from being suspended".

- Accessing from another country or region, legal factor. Banks in some countries may even legally require a notice in advance before using its cards or services abroad.

- Usage of known publicly available service. Multiple users using the same address makes it harder to tell genuine and malicious users apart, so it's better to not leave it to the chance.

the thing is, these apps at least in india are TIED to your SIM and phone.

if you remove your bank linked sim card from your phone, the app wont work. if you change your phone, the app has to be re-registered so its like that.

what i am saying is, the threat model of concealment and another region or another person is already dependent upon the owner owing their phone. if its stolen, the first thing to do is to disable access

Exactly!!!

How common is it for financial institutions to require the use of a mobile app? In the US, none of mine do and, in fact, I use the mobile apps quite rarely. (The main thing I do once in a blue moon is to deposit checks using my bank's app on my phone.)

> How common is it for financial institutions to require the use of a mobile app?

In .cz, about third of banks require a smartphone app, about third allows SMS authorization at an extra fee and about third has SMS authorization free. However, this all happened in the last few years and every few months some bank announces it's moving towards the app group.

The spicy part is that most banks use the app as the only factor, not as a second factor (as it was with the SMS, where you had password for web banking + SMS authorization as a 2FA). You therefore cannot use a noname-brand Android with vendor-provided crapware, as your security depends on it. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have an employer-provided iPhone.

How do they do it? For example, there is no "authorization" app, only a full-blown mobile banking with full permissions that has the "authorization" as one of the features. Or there is no password for the web banking (wtf!), only a username which is your national identity number and therefore widely known.

The even spicier part is that many banks give you pre-approved loans which are impossible to reject, and therefore if someone hacks your account, not only they steal your balance, but even overdraw.

"Husband depends on wife to organize his life because of bullheadedness" isn't a particularly smartphone-era phenomenon either.

That's also very true lol but if it works for them it works I guess

That's why it's so frustrating when people point at homeless people having smartphones and snarkily say oh they aren't really poor, why would they have a smartphone if "allegedly" they can't afford food.

Well the answer is that in modern life it's literally impossible to access basic infrastructure of many places without a smartphone. It's an absolute necessity unless you want to be a nomad and live in the wilderness.

Yep, that is common argument against refugees. "They come on foot with smartphones, they are not poor". They keep translator app, map, documents, priceless memories as photos, contacts with relatives - it is all they own apart of backpack of cloths. I wouldn't step onto another country's soil without that.

I don't have a phone, I don't live as a nomad in the wilderness. Well, in London, which is a bit of a wilderness.

I mean, cool? Fortunately in the UK a lot of services are still available offline, but it's rapidly changing.

Wasn't it 5-10 years ago that people said that? I think it's understood these days that smartphones are important to have (for better or for worse) and dirt cheap if you just need a smartphone, any smartphone.

It was 10 years ago they were upset poor people had refrigerators.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/fox-cites-ownership-...

Is this a European thing? Or maybe a recent big city thing? I am in the US and I have no apps on my phone. I use it for texting and phone calls, nothing more. Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone. For context a couple of years ago I had to take BART into SF to visit some overpriced lawyers. Paid cash for my BART ticket at the ticket machine. I stopped at a coffee shop and bought a coffee, paid with cash.

The reason I ask is that I am concerned. Anything Europeans do eventually parts of the US will mimic.

>Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone.

I think it's a few things.

- Integration of stuff like GPS that can be done on a dedicated device but are easily done better on a phone through an app.

- Ready access to information on the go. (Much of which wan't really available on the go until the 2000s.) There's a lot you could do once the smartphone came out that you didn't have access to before. But there's a lot in general I can do today that I couldn't in the 1970s/80s.

- And yes, there are apps for things like parking, public transit, rideshare, airline notifications etc. that are more generally relevant if you're traveling and in cities.

That's not so bad. I still use dedicated GPS. I suppose the downside is that a couple times a year I have to pull down map updates for it. All of the other things you mention don't sound like requirements but rather additive data or interaction but not strictly required. Nice to have's I suppose.

As someone else mentioned, it's probably also true in Europe that a lot of people would see having WhatsApp as close to essential. But, in the US, SMS is pretty universal and certainly for any service you need.

I honestly can not think of any service I need that I must use my phone with. Plenty of things use SMS 2FA but I can also talk to people, face-to-face in most cases. Probably the closest would be the IRS if I have questions because calling them means being on hold for a few hours, otherwise I have to use snail mail which I have done.

> As someone else mentioned, it's probably also true in Europe that a lot of people would see having WhatsApp as close to essential.

What are you referring to? While it may be the most popular messaging app, it's not in any way, shape, or form essential. SMS is also universal, mostly unlimited, and much less weirder than it is in the US.

I only know what Europeans tell me. I assume different people have different takes on what is essential. And my understanding is SMS can still be pricey. (Not sure what's weird about SMS in the US? It's on my phone. I use it. It can piggyback on iMessage but that's not necessary and is transparent, bubble color notwithstanding.)

>And my understanding is SMS can still be pricey.

It hasn't been for like 15+ years since pretty much every subscription has either unlimited*/or more than you can reasonably use minutes/SMS.

>Not sure what's weird about SMS in the US?

Don't you get (or used to) charged for incoming SMS?

Both outgoing and incoming SMS used to have charges but (AFAIK) all the major plans now include unlimited SMS. I think the US went to mostly "free" SMS before much of Europe did which probably explains WhatsApp becoming the most common thing. (The only people I use WhatsApp with from the US are international.)

>Anything Europeans do eventually parts of the US will mimic.

Examples?

Nb I have closed a bank account because I refuse[d] to install WhatsApp.

Examples?

Some cities have been installing concrete filled pipes to close of what used to be access streets into parts of cities forcing them to be "foot traffic only". This started in the EU and became trendy. Now its spreading in the US in big cities. I am not complaining. In some places this actually works out. In some places it hurts business. I guess that is a matter of city planning. Even the really old town I grew up in is doing this now in the part of town that has a bunch of small businesses to encourage more foot traffic.

Another example is roundabouts. Some of the small cities are putting these in new developments. I think it's still somewhat experimental in the US as not every small city is doing this.

> concrete filled pipes

I believe the word you're looking for is 'bollard'.

Fancy [1]. I wish they were that decorative. I've only seen pipes filled with concrete. I think we lack the artistic influence at least in some cities here. I suppose they are a "make-shift bollard". Redneck bollard? I'll go with redneck bollard. But you taught me a word, thank-you!

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollard

> Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone.

In the 1990s, I remember payphones being conveniently available, but now I need to keep an eye on my battery if I'm going to phone home.

In 2010, I could log into any of my accounts with just WiFi and a password, now I need 2FA and often SMS is the only supported option. Sometimes a phone call. So in order to, say, check my bank account, I now need data and cell signal. That combination can be hard to get in a concrete building or while traveling abroad.

In a sense, they are right. Survival is about meeting your immediate essential needs.

Of course, they are also very wrong. Opportunities to escape poverty are lost when you are only trying to fulfill your immediate needs, then there are the psychological ramifications of being vulnerable and in constant need for aid from others.

There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place.

"There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place."

"We" haven't built anything. A group of very powerful people planned this locked-down, dystopian world we currently live in and worked on achieving that plan.

You and I are simply living in the world they envisioned.

It's been going on since at least Enclosure, and probably since the dawn of agriculture.

I've read that they have to be reachable in order to get any kind of state benefits, and being unreachable leads to automatic disqualification - which is a big problem as homeless people often lose their phones or have them stolen.

As far as smartphones being a necessity goes, I have never owned a smartphone myself, and do not carry any phone at all most of the time. I have just gone on living like I did before smartphones, though I am aware that I am locked out of more and more things. I am beginning to resent things like parking that requires a smartphone. I don't understand the lack of back up options.

Rather than insisting on 'smartphones as a human right', I'd rather see 'opting out' as a human right.

A/K/A "Maslow's Smartphone": <https://web.archive.org/web/20230603005201/https://old.reddi...>.

> We're well into the "smartphones are a human right" era

My government has to respect free speech but it doesn't mean I have to speak up. Just because something is a human right doesn't mean I have to execute it.

I very much appreciate those people who live without smartphones. As a society, we need these people. It's not only about people with disabilities and other marginalized groups. It's about everyone.

Last year, the smartphone of a friend of mine was stolen. Luckily, it was well protected. But still it was gone with all the 2F apps. This friend had to learn by example that those apps actually second factors. Also luckily, this person didn't enable 2F for Gmail. Otherwise it would have been much more trouble.

Lots of us probably come to rely too much on our smartphones. I still carry a little cash (and a few other things in a small wallet) and usually do things like print out trip itineraries but, even so, But, even so, I know if I lost/had stolen my smartphone on a trip there's still a lot more information I probably would wish I had with me.

I was robbed once in Spain, lost my laptop, tablet and passport. Thankfully, I retained my smartphone which made everything a lot easier to deal with. For instance, the local consulate was super helpful in getting me issued a temporary passport but I would have had a hell of a time even finding her without my phone.

So no network, no power, lost your phone, not battery, broke your phone, lock out of your phone, and you are not a human anymore?

I don't think you understand what a human right is. If you don't have freedom of speech, you're not suddenly not human lol. The point is that if you're human you should have access to your rights, not the other way around which wouldn't make any sense

What about people who buy the phone but don't want to participate in the contracts of adhesion that are the ToS of Apple or Google?

Apple is making it harder and harder to use an Apple ID (required for the App Store) without using iCloud. iCloud is a privacy nightmare.

We shouldn't have to give up our rights to privacy to participate in society.

> We shouldn't have to give up our rights to privacy to participate in society.

Betrays fundamental misunderstanding of both.

It is not society that wants you to give up privacy, it is a few rech giants, and all the small wannabes, that want you to. And they are basically able to, since those tech giants control all online aspects of modern society.

Society so could step in via elected governments and stop this behaviour through laws. Not that I am holding my breath on this.

When are you going to understand that many people go into government to get power over others, not out of generosity? I don't mean civil servants (although some of them do chase power at the upper levels) but politicians, many of whom are as psychopathic as any corporate raider.

Nobody ever accused me of liking politians. The alternative to the various forms of democracy so is oligarchies, totalotarian rwgimes and even more rampant, exploitative capitalism than we see now. I know what I prefer.

Can you elaborate on iCloud’s privacy situation?

Most of iCloud is, by default, not end to end encrypted. The e2ee is opt in and approximately nobody uses it.

Apple can and does read most of the data in iCloud (due to it lacking e2ee by default) including all your iMessages, all your iMessage attachments/photos, all your iCloud photos, all your call logs, all your iCloud files, all your contacts, calendars, etc. iMessage's e2ee is effectively backdoored by all the iMessage sync keys being backed up in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup.

Apple turns over user data (including all of the aforementioned) for 17,000+ user accounts to the US government without a search warrant under the FISA (aka PRISM) system. They turn over even more user data on top of that each year when provided with actual search warrants - the 17k users figure is just the ones without search warrants!

They don't protect most of the data in iCloud from themselves, and Apple is forced to spy for their national government thanks to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA702), which allows the US to read anything in iCloud without probable cause or a search warrant - point and click access.

> "smartphones are a human right"

This works out as "You are required to carry your surveillance device at all times"

Thanks to everyone who didn't care forcing the rest of us into being part of your turnkey facist dystopia. Who do you think will be turning that key? How long? 3 years? 5? 10?

And increasingly attempts to resist the surveillance are being treated as suspicious and leading to access being blocked. Using a VPN is becoming increasingly difficult, with a lot of websites outright blocking you rather than giving a CAPTCHA, and more Android apps are requiring SafetyNet verification

Not having a smartphone is a human right.

Some scooter rental apps allow getting more than one scooter at a time.

A surprising number of things also breaks down when you don't have mobile data — and that happens every time you travel internationally and don't have or want a sim card for that country.

And as a Russian, I also have to mention how terrible it is to travel when you don't have an internationally working debit card. There's so much stuff you simply can't use without one because there's no cash option. Those same scooter rentals are one example.

Have you tried using apps like Revolut? Even if you can't link a credit card of your own you could find someone with an international credit card that will top up your account if you give them cash.

Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id

> Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id

You definitely can't. You used to be able to sign up for Vivid, a similar app, with a Russian passport and by telling them that you live in Germany with no proof required, but I heard they cracked down on this since.

This is where digital money comes in. You can buy an anonymous card with digital money on it and you can buy it with cash money. Then you have your debit card.

Got a legitimate link for that? Because gift cards mostly do not work.

And risk running afouls of most KYC requirements. The provider, not the user that is.

How do you pay abroad at the moment, using ATM's? Or can other credit cards work?

You bring cash. Russian cards are useless* abroad.

People who travel or shop online often, or have to receive payments from abroad, have all got themselves accounts and cards in foreign banks. I did, too. In some countries (Kazakhstan, Georgia, Indonesia, Turkey) some banks would open an account and issue a card for you even if you're not a resident.

* except several "friendly" countries that still accept Mir cards, like Armenia. Russian Visa and MC are truly useless abroad though.

That's crazy. It basically cuts off Russian tourism.

> running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS

And specifically a non-rooted, locked bootloader, remotely attested version. Running your own code on your own device is suspicious behavior you know! This is already somewhat the case with banking apps, but luckily it's usually possible to hide root for now

And, yes, I get there are legitimate worries about malware and that does kind of solve them, but we've managed with desktop web banking (though not if Google's proposal succeeds). AFAIK most financial scams are executed by social engineering. 2FA (which is now mandated in the EU) is a more effective protection than locking down one endpoint

Barclay's was doing 2FA via an offline code generator (looks like a calculator) where you put in your card and entered a PIN since what feels like at least 10 years ago. I know most users would prefer mobile 2FA, but I wish they'd kept that as an option, whereas AFAIK they're phasing it out

In any case, de facto saying "you must pay dues to either Apple or Google to bank on the go" is quite bad for free competition

> Running your own code on your own device is suspicious behavior you know!

Loss of TAM by excluding rooted device: less than 1%

Ratio of problems per rooted device vs problems per non-rooted device: More than 100%

It's not YOUR fault that it's one of the most meaningful heuristics, but that also doesn't stop it from being a meaningful heuristic.

> Ratio of problems per rooted device vs problems per non-rooted device: More than 100%

What problems would those be?

You're the embodiment of "laggard" in the theory of Diffusion of innovation which IMHO is quite rare on HN, mainly used by innovators and early adopters.

Laggard only start using an innovation because they're forced by external factors.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

Having to use an app to use a washing machine does not count as "innovation" to me.

It's using technology to go a step backward in usability.

I’d certainly prefer to use an app rather than having to hunt for quarters. If the app didn’t exist, I’d probably have to go to a bank to get quarters or an ATM to withdraw cash and beg the closest convenience store to give me change.

Granted, there are probably better solutions that require neither quarters nor a mobile app, but between those two, the mobile app wins for me.

The problem is that it's not an either-or.

Adding app operation alongside coin operation would have been an improvement in useability. Replacing coins with apps is just making it suck in a different way.

But then you have two problems: keeping the app going AND dealing with cash

It is an either or for some businesses. Coins in the USA are in a massive shortage the last few years. Change machines aren’t cheap and repairs can be costly. It makes financial sense to switch to these apps or people wouldn’t do it.

From the consumer perspective, probably. But from a laundromat's perspective, even if only a fraction of users use coins, they still need to deal with coins.

Once you're below some use threshold, a lot of places would prefer to ditch cash entirely.

It reminds me of the cycle of enshittification: once you have a captive audience, you start bumping the profits at the cost of the user experience.

It looks like something similar is in effect here: instead of meeting the different customers where the customers alrady are, it's the company's preferred way or the highway.

There is an in between. Our buildings laundry has a payment machine that takes credit cards and either gives you a credit card sized laundry card or recharges it. You tap the card to start that machine. You can also use the smart phone app, but I don’t think it’s used by many.

It works pretty well.

Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route. I use one locally but when I travel it’s usually not the same network so its figure out how to do it.. (website, payment kiosk, another app…)

>when I travel it’s usually not the same network

Apps tend to be a pretty good solution for regular local users. They're less good when you're dealing with different apps/kiosks/etc., with different interfaces, and different ways of storing value in different cities.

'Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route.'

Gone that way already in the UK, ironically in lots of places where there is very patchy or no mobile signal at all.

Yeah, getting quarters is a real problem, especially when all of the banks in your area are only open during business hours and not on weekends. That said, I'd personally prefer quarters over an app, since quarters are much more fail-safe. The system that I'd prefer overall though would be some kind of prepaid account and an NFC card. UCLA had this system when I was a grad student there and it was really easy to use. You just tap your card on the reader by the door and select what machine to use. Everything ran smoothly.

Agreed. I lived somewhere that switched from a credit card reader on the machines, to an app.

The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your laundry, swipe your card, and that was it. Instantly started.

They switched to an app by the same service company, and now there were a bunch more steps involved. Put in your laundry, find the app, open it, scroll through their “what’s new in laundry!” news that nobody cares about, click a bunch of buttons until you find the machine number that matches yours, go through the menus to pick washer settings, then pay there, and still need to push the start button on the machine itself.

So much worse, and also more error prone — I would regularly get errors when a machine disconnected from the internet.

Why people think it’s better, I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that credit card fees are cheaper on a $20 transaction compared to 20 $1 transactions

I guess the value to the user is a notification when the wash completes?

Credit card fees are exactly the reason why the switch happened. Do you really think the washing machine companies would bother building an app when they could continue charging without any investment whatsoever?

If I use a CC to pay in app, there’s still a fee. Is an IAP considered lower risk, so lower fee than a physical card at a terminal?

The cost for a vendor processing CCs is something like (iirc) 3% of purchase price + $0.10. The benefit to vendor of selling you credits (aside from the fact that you might not use them all), is that they only have to pay the $0.10 portion of the fee once for every, say, $20 worth of washes instead of paying the flat part of the fee every single wash.

intermediation. they get a chance to have their own laundry bucks currency. they get better tracking. they get to show you ads, and have marketing touch points with you every time you need to do laundry.

Sidestep I’d say as we’ve never seen that before. Sidestep into hell, but still a side.

Using the app is not the only problem. But the lack of freedom and privacy in obtaining the app.

I'm not sure this is laggard behaviour. Laggards are defined as having no thought leadership qualities, they are literally late to the party.

There's an argument that this is quite the reverse: it's innovative behaviour since it demonstrates comparative rarity, leadership (pointing the way), novelty (we should do things differently), etc.

Frankly, I think this thread points to some of the weaknesses in the Diffusion of Innovations theory (which on the whole I quite like). It doesn't neatly model 'luddites', those who are exposed to 'innovations' and understand them, yet reject them for whatever reason.

Yeah. If you look at a list of technical innovations I expect that there is a whole list of often perfectly rational reasons why some inventions took longer to hit high penetrations levels than others. It's not just "I hate change."

I certainly don't think I'm a luddite in general but there are a lot of things that I'm just "Meh. Don't need it."

I'm the "meh don't need it type" but whatever the feelings I have, I can't rent a car or buy a plane ticket without a credit card.

Some shops don't even accept cash anymore. Don't get me started about the worst recent innovation : a Friggin 21" monitor for the "infotainment" in a car.

But I know that if I have to change my current car, it would be almost impossible to have a car without a television on the console. Unless I buy an old car which pollutes too much.

I think that "meh don't need it" is the first step to "I'm gettin too old for this shit"

You can buy a Honda Civic and rip out the head unit. But yeah, infotainment screen is nice for the first week but is good as useless.

Gotta disagree that it's rare on HN. There's a strong privacy contingent, but there's also the natural conservatism about technology you develop as an experienced engineer ("how is this gonna break and bite me in the ass?")

It's definitely way more common to be anti-technology here than in the real world, because of the number of weirdos here that are hyper paranoid about security, and because of the number of "If I could set screen modes manually in X86config then it's good enough for you!" stuck-in-the-muds.

And if google's automated algorithms score a false positive and ban you, you're also out of luck.

>(I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck)

Check the TOS, children are, generally, not allowed to use the e-scooter rentals. Preventing this situation seems very deliberate.

For example, Lime-

https://help.li.me/hc/en-us/articles/115004915588-How-old-do...

You must be the legal age to enter into binding contracts. For most countries, this means you need to be 18 years or older to ride Lime scooters or e-bikes. In most countries, you can be 16 years or older for our non-electrical bikes. Before signing up for Lime, make sure to review the User Agreement for your country, which states age requirements

>those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.

Considering that Google is already incorporating Web Environment Integrity API into Chrome, soon we won't be on the internet either, and that's a much more pressing concern imho.

I am not an accountant, but I believe that such unused balance can not be treated by the company as an asset, and instead as liability. And I believe there are laws in every state where such money eventually should be returned to you or to the state's "unclaimed property", if they can't contact you. Search for "unclaimed property <state>" and see if you can locate anything there.

On the other hand, I have no idea how that is enforced. So it is quite possible that liability stays on books indefinitely. Or worse - not recorded as liability in the first place..

Nah these pretend money things have an expiry date exactly for that reason. Check any kind of gift card, voucher, reward scheme etc.

Companies don't want never-expiring liabilities and they also want to make money from people not spending account balances.

“Like regular money but more fun!”: <https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/08/like-regular-money-but-more...>

Gift card balances cannot legally expire in California. Further, if the balance is <$10 it must be redeemable for cash.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/taco-bell-fined-for-violati...

> charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall)

Living in one of the highest density areas on Earth, stuff like this blows my mind. Public washing machines are everywhere for those that don't have their own.

I guess the extreme lease costs driven by entirely artificial commercial RE prices put a full stop to it existing in the west.

There are still some launderettes around, but it isn't the cost of running them that matters, it's the inconvenience. Having your own washing machine is dramatically more convenient (and cheaper). The only reason not to have one is if you are extremely short on space.

At that point I'd wash my clothes in the sink/tub and hang to dry, techniques learned from my backpacking days.

Sometimes the traditional ways are best.

It’s interesting you mention scooters, because Lyft allows a single user to unlock two bicycles, at least in Chicago, but not two scooters. I wonder if the risk profile is somehow different?

I mean, or they were different teams and the product person on the bike team was like sure, two bikes, while the scooter team was like let's unlock one scooter, and there was no reasoning of any sort of communicating and sometimes stuff is just inconsistent because people don't talk and don't care about things they think don't matter

Bird let's you unlike 2 scooters so I imagine there really isn't a good reason for Lyfts one scooter limitation

> I wonder if the risk profile is somehow different?

A bike does not require a minimum age but an e-scooter does. The app probably knows the age of the user, but has no way to determine the age of the user of additional scooters.

It could cross-reference data from social media accounts, and if all friends of the user fullfil the required minimum age then offer additional scooters.

Can't they just... ask the user?

If a simple yes/no prompt is good enough for porn, I guess it's good enough for a scooter too.

An underage user can die from using a scooter but not from watching porn.

A parent can unlock a scooter for their underage kid if they don’t unlock one for themselves.

I’m sure you can find a lot of edge cases and work around but at some point you get to “we don’t need passwords because someone can crack them anyway”.

The fact is that there’s nothing potentially dangerous about minor watching porn where there is about minimum age requirements for electric scooters.

Depends on who you ask - some people are really anti porn. Some might say silly things like underage driving may threaten the body, but porn threatens the immortal soul.

Worse, due to regulations on security, this is the case for banking in EU.

A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.

While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!

And of course, none of the banking apps will work without Google or Apple account, because if you try to run them on deGoogled Android they just refuse to work.

It will soon be impossible to be part of society without having Google or Apple account. Maybe it is already the case.

None of the big Dutch consumer banks are smartphone-first. I have the app for mine but I could easily do everything on a computer instead.

ING customer: I can't access my online shit on my desktop without going to my phone for verification

Yes, but if you don’t want to use your phone, you can ask them to send you a physical 2FA device instead: https://www.ing.nl/particulier/digitaal-bankieren/mijn-ing/s...

> A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.

Which "classic" banks don't have online banking?

> While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!

I'm reasonably sure at least with most major Scandinavian banks you can use plain old OTP tokens.

This is a constant issue for me when I travel.

I always need another app or another account, and those are often impossible to use without a local phone number and an internet connection.

There were also periods of time where I had no active phone number, or no smartphone. Sometimes it was just for a few hours because I ran out of battery. Sometimes it was for a few days because I dropped my phone in a lake.

In the later case I could no longer make bank transfers, and if I wasn't well-prepared I could not log into many websites.

My big trouble is that my bank account is reacahable remotely either by mobile app or receiving a security code to my mobile. Essentially my fragile to physical impacts, constantly outdating (about every 6 weeks I have to update the app, just to have changes in the UI making me lost or adding features never missed), non-waterproof, expensive enogh (still on the cheaper side compared to average) to be attractive to thives, can go out of signal range (the cell companies provide the bare minimum of towers making inside reception unreliable), may have account troubles (carrier locks out by mistake, it happens to others), depletes without proper charging cable or possibilities, have no access to foreign carriers abroad, ...who knows if I miss some other limiting or risk factors, so this single point of multiple potential failures is the sole key to my bank account (remotely). I am genuinly paranoid about my mobile. I am living for it, not it for me this way. I want to live like you, without degrading quality infalting priced smartphones, but it was quite difficult and in many cases impossible. I am not happy about technology, not at all, it is holding me hostage! Instead of helping me.

Those preload things are a scourge. Just charge me what I owe.

Sounds like your "I don't have a cell phone" routine just means "I make my wife do everything"

Ha! I used that at work!

"Sorry I don't have <admin privilieges> so someone else will have to help you with <mundane adminstrative task>"

Scooter workaround: Have multiple apps for multiple providers on one phone. I've done this plenty of times e.g. when one of us has a dead phone.

Obviously only works if your city has multiple scooter providers :)

Two clarifications to your comment.

1. That money will go through a thing called "escheatment" and end up with the California government on your behalf where it will be held for you.

2. I use the Lyft e-bikes and from recently onwards you can rent one for a friend. It doesn't apply your subscription benefits but I suppose that's life.

That's cool and all, but what if something happens to your wife and you're unable to do anything about because of your purity spiral? Do you want to be telling people 'yeah I couldn't call 911 because I refuse to own a mobile device due to my philosophical principles.'

Good point. Now do the same argument for a gun.

Don't some states have laws that require businesses to accept cash?

you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private")

but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently

> you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private")

Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.

Yes, it does. That is the definition of "legal tender". Usually there are some restrictions on the amount and the denominations, so you don't have to accept a truck full of 1 cent coins.

As I understand it as a layman, if:

* The seller does not state they do not take cash before the transaction happens,

* And the buyer attempts to pay for the transaction after the fact with cash in good faith,

* And the sold goods cannot be returned to their original condition prior to sale,

Then the buyer is okay (FSVO okay) to leave and go about his day because the seller refused to take money that was presented in good faith by the buyer. Because cash, at least in the US, is "legal tender for all debts public and private" and a transaction to which you owe money is a form of debt.

Obligatory not a lawyer and not an accountant disclaimer. I'm way too lazy to go and properly research and cite this.

This was definitely a meme going around during covid as more places were going cashless

In real life there's not a lot of cases where someone gives you goods before you pay, and anywhere i've been to that don't accept cash clearly posts "this is a cashless business" (sweetgreen and the like, SF/NYC, YMMV) so good luck making the argument that you're entitled to your free salad

Yeah, as I said if the buyer makes a good faith payment in cash and if the seller didn't inform him beforehand they don't take cash then the onus is presumably on the seller to take it or leave it because the buyer is willing to do his part and make the pie whole.

Usually this isn't a problem because "We don't take cash." signs are prominently posted, but we are speaking in the hypothetical after all.

Yes, it seems like a lot of misunderstandings here hinge on not paying attention to or making incorrect assumptions about the word "debt". You cannot refuse cash payments for an existing debt, but you can make non cash payment a condition for engaging in a transaction at all.

You do for debts, but paying for a good or service isn't a debt.

In some states, yes, you have to accept it.

The minimum sounds like a scam by the home owner to collect the breakage on their end.

Then go get a phone

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