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Comment by viktorcode | Hacker News Reader

To become dystopia people must be forced to use locked down smartphones. In reality you buy the one that suits your needs and do not enforce your design decisions on the smartphones other people use.

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Where is that free choice that you see "in reality"? This post is about the opposite of that getting put in place. The actual reality is that almost every service provider is converging on supporting a few extremely restrictive options. From every private service you can think of, to key government services. They all are saying "to interact with us, you must use one of these two types of devices, with all the attestation and security measures intact". It's impossible for people to make their own design decisions or choose for themselves, because other options do not have the corporate/government blessing.

It's ridiculous that you look at all of us being forced into a government-protected duopoly, and then say "Don't you dare force your decisions on us!" to anyone suggesting that this should not be the default. Rules for us, but not them.

> They all are saying "to interact with us, you must use one of these two types of devices, with all the attestation and security measures intact"

Are you claiming that this is the only way of interacting with particular government services, with the other ways that existed before the app no longer being available? To make situation „dystopian“ this must be the case.

That is clearly the direction, yes.

First it's new and optional, then it's mature but equal, then as adoption grows further, the old way of doing things gets deprioritized and neglected, then you're a 2nd tier citizen until they finally remove it altogether.

See: Essential businesses like grocery stores going cashless

Businesses are not government services and free to do whatever allowed by the law. For a country to be dystopian the government in your example must prohibit businesses to take cash.

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