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Comment by eddieroger | Hacker News Reader

> Do you really believe you chose to opt in?

Yes, in that I am of free enough will to choose not to use something or do my homework before making purchases. I'm also not saying that you shouldn't be able to walk around without a smartphone, but choices, like speech, aren't without consequence. If you want to pay for something at a location that only takes cash, but you won't carry cash because it's easily stolen or lost, that doesn't mean they have to accommodate you, it means you're not eating their food. Should they take card? Sure, and you should be able to walk around cashless, but the same choice you get to make, they do as well.

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I've run into bizarre situations where smartphones were required. Went to Royale in Boston, and it's bad enough I have to use an app to pay for tickets, but at least I knew that ahead of time and accepted it. But then they wanted me to install another app to use the coat check when I got inside. How would one anticipate the latter ahead of time? Complete lunacy.

Ultimately I declined to use the app and hid my coat under a chair lol and I will not return to the venue.

Turning this around a bit: Businesses should be required to accept cash. We shouldn't need to have a relationship with a bank just to buy food or gas or what have you.

My daughter took a 4 hour train home. She brought money for food. But apparently you can no longer buy food without a bank card on Canadian trains.

You missed out the parts about "extremely painful" and "basically required", as well as "privacy destroying" and "makes huge corporations that much richer".

So, for the analogy, let's say lots and lots of businesses and public utilities are cash only, and carrying the cash exploits you for Google's profit somehow. Or we could stick to the idea that carrying cash is a theft risk, but let's say the businesses are indirectly in cahoots with the pickpockets through a chain of corruption and that's why everybody requires you to carry cash and be vulnerable.

You can choose not to do it, and your choice is not without consequences that are morally wrong, and you'd be right to complain about that. Otherwise if "not without consequence" implies that you shouldn't complain, then you're offering a viewpoint of it being a dog-eat-dog world, and that's just the way it is, if you resist you'll suffer and you're a fool, so take the easy path and don't worry about the morality. Resignation.

My smart phone is essentially bricked, allowing only text and voice. I have not in the least found it "extremely painful" or "basically required" to have phone connectivity as I only use my laptop for connected activity.

I realize, however, that having both a phone and a home computer may be a privilege that others may not share. That's the rub. Users with only phones for connectivity are made more vulnerable by an exploitative digital system. In that, the author is correct. It's a terrible ecosystem and it begs legislative intervention but I haven't a clue how that is to be accomplished.

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