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Comment by kernal | Hacker News Reader

The lengths people go to for a horrible Ui/UX and app experience is bewildering. I guess they justify it by not caving into Google or Apple. Of course, all of their privacy concerns and safeguards go away when the credit cards, utilities and services they use all circumvent their precious Linux phone. But hey, at least you’re running Linux on your phone, right?

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Can you provide more information on your claim? If I use a credit card in app A, what privacy-violating info can app B get?

It is unclear to me what alternative you are proposing, apart from bending to Google and Apple?

There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have verified that all of the utilities and services you consume are not laundering your data then you’re just wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS experience.

The perfection fallacy?

I don't use GNU/Linux on my phone for "privacy". It's an added benefit, but not the point.

I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.

You are right to remind that other service providers such as banks or any online shop do routinely collect and sell an amount of personal data that should also concern us, but a phone in your pocket that is used for virtually everything and that's controlled by a third party raises more concern than just privacy of consumer data.

Digital privacy is futile predicated on paying your electricity bill by credit card? Absolutist fatalism is not helpful.

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