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Comment by rhines | Hacker News Reader

We've reached the point where people without devices or common online services are so rare that society no longer accommodates them. It's similar to how we need legislation to ensure that disabled people have accessible infrastructure, except I doubt there will ever be legislation mandating offline/off-app accessibility.

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File it under faulty assumptions organizations make about their clients or customers. If you live in a rural area in the United States it is still quite possible to have:

  * No cellular service
  * No landline service
  * No postal delivery to your property, and a physical address that isn't in any database
  * No public utilities

It can be very frustrating to deal with services that assume you have the ability to receive SMS messages, and almost anything requiring identity these days demands a phone number.

I don't think its unreasonable for private companies not to bother to offer their services to these people. Why should they have to? Many services require nearby physical infrastructure. Electing to live in the woods is not really a disability. Plus you can just get internet out there if you want and thereby receive SMS.

You're right, it's not a disability. However, it's also not always elective. Sure, a private business has no requirement to serve people outside of the market they want to serve, but what if that business is providing a service that is de-facto required in order to access government services?

It's the government's role to serve everyone generally, so they should provide reasonable accommodations for people. I suspect there are such accommodations, but it's hard to say without looking at a specific, real scenario.

Also, not always elective? I'm not so sure about that. You decide where you live. If you're a minor, your parents decide where you live. That's elective in a meaningful sense. You might have reasons you are personally weighing that make sense for you to live in a certain place, but accessibility of services should be part of that calculation, and ultimately it is still up to you.

The government isn't obligated to pay for your gas or provide you a car to get to the nearest post office to pay your taxes, for example. If you choose to live in such a way where it is difficult or impossible for you to comply with the law, there is not much the government can or should do about it.

But further up this thread you're responding to it says:

> the school says "use an app or you won't get your kids" and then also say they will "call CPS and have your kids seized if you don't get them in time"

Is it reasonable for a school to "call CPS and have your kids seized" because the school couldn't "bother to offer their services to these people"?

I think this highlights the two extremes. The grey area requires human interaction, such as, talking to the school leadership and explaining your phone-less situation. I guarantee they will accommodate some other solution. Like, “pickup for you is 3:15 every day” and just get used to your face. It’s a rare situation they likely didn’t consider, but it by no means is insinuating that if you don’t own a phone then your kids will go to CPS. It’s saying if you fail to pick them up they will, but if you fail to show up just because you can’t check in via app, that’s absolutely your failure and you’ve been warned about the consequences.

Maybe. Is it a public or a private school? Is this something they could or should have reasonably known? What is their duty to accommodate you? Is OP accurately describing the situation?

Let's say they let you fill it out with pen and paper, but you have a moral objection to using pen and paper. Perhaps you don't like the environmental cost of paper or the policies of all the existing pen companies. Is this reasonable? Where is the line on what should be accommodated? The government really only has an obligation here under ADA. Private firms have no real obligation. Not wanting to use a certain technology is not a disability, it is a preference. If you want your preference to become the law, there is a mechanism to do it, but it involves convincing a large number of people that you are correct.

Yes, but to me there is a very big difference between being forced to adopt a class of technologies (online services in general) along with the rest of society and being forced to contract with a handful of specific companies that impose extremely one-sided contractual terms on everybody, touching almost every aspect of life.

Yes, but both permutations of digital coercion suck, right? ^^D

General technological progress may well suck in some cases, but it's not coercion.

This is how it happens that the appearance of a new option, which you are free to voluntarily choose or refuse (eg. buy a smartphone and an internet connection, maintain a Google account, accept everyone's ToS contract) gradually morphs into something mandatory if enough other people choose it.

Well, many areas have banned app-only payment requirements (along with card-only) so it’s possible we’ll get some mandated alternatives.

This is not even about having a device but about forcing you into the duopoly with no choice, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45092669

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