Of course, rms himself doesn't even use any cell phone at all, so if you are as concerned as he is, you may be out of luck.
I read my email in a terminal, and often browse the web from one too. Hell, I also code in terminals! I am sure plenty of people, probably even most people, consider all of those nutty. Am I out of touch?
This might be okay if you're not targeting the general population, but there's a danger of forgetting just how out of touch you are. There's a danger that, like RMS and PG, you may create a website that is visually abominable, and convince yourself that it doesn't hamper the flow of information.
Before you answer, I will make this clear again: RMS does not expect anybody to follow the example of his personal computing habits. Neither do I. When I make recommendations to others, I make those recommendations with what I know of that person and what they will like, not with what I like. I know perfectly well that my preferences are eccentric, but this eccentricity is not the product of any sort of ignorance and I assert it does not induce any sort of ignorance.
(Just to real quick head you off because I sense where you are going with the PG reference: HN is actually one site that works poorly in elinks, due to how it nests comments. It is best used in a modern browser, and for it I use a modern browser)
It's false by definition: you are ignorant of the modern experience of using the web because you have literally opted out of that exact experience.
I am not, and I haven't. I often do use modern browsers, such as with HN (and other sites that require it), as I have already mentioned. My frequent use of elinks does not somehow make me unfamiliar with modern browsers in any way. Elinks does not induce brain damage.
If you want to talk about mail clients, where I use a terminal based client as my primary client, rather than just a frequent client, there might be more substance there. However I certainly do not consider myself unfamiliar with GUI desktop clients (particularly outlook) or web clients (particularly gmail), or GUI phone clients (particularly gmail, again). I know how to use those, just as I am sure many regular outlook users know how to use gmail and how many gmail users know how to use mutt. My personal choice, while an unusual and eccentric choice, does not render me particularly incapable of being aware and familiar with other choices. Furthermore, I consider myself perfectly capable of offering others advice. If my mother asked me what client to use, I would tell her to stick with the gmail web app and phone app. If a coworker asked me what they should use, I would recommend that they continue to use Outlook, unless I knew they were receptive to and interested in using mutt. I really don't see how using mutt could be impeding my ability to make sound mail client recommendations.
Using mutt to compose and read email does not make me out of touch and ignorant of Outlook anymore than using Windows Phone 8 makes somebody out of touch and ignorant of iOS.
Shoot, another example with some actual evidence: I use a Chromebook with Debian on it. I enjoy this setup immensely, but if you search through my comment history you will see that I am very critical of it when talking about it with others. This is because, despite my eccentric setup, I am not out of touch with how most users use their computers, and with what most users expect from their computers. I understand that the setup I enjoy is not for everybody. In fact, rather few people would find it acceptable.
He spends most of his waking time running GNU, the FSF and answering people who have questions about free software. When he's not doing that, he's giving talks or getting a little bit of sleep. He spends a lot of time on a plane.
Other than working through mail in batches, including offline copies of webpages, would you suggest he get this same amount of work done in the time he has?
The much more likely hypothesis is that he simply is not good at design, or he has unconventional tastes in design and doesn't care that some people don't like it (and perhaps even considered it a shit filter...), or that he simply doesn't give a shit at all...
> Though the YC portfolio is typically on the bleeding edge of tech trends, focused on mobile and web apps, Graham doesn't even use a web browser unless he needs to. "I find the web distracting," says Graham. His solution? A custom-coded program that downloads web pages, formats them for offline reading, and sends them to him via email. "I spend a lot of time responding to email, so this fits in with my existing workflow, and I can keep track of it like anything else in my inbox."
If pg is a bad example, pick literally any other well-known hacker.
And yet, every time the FSF or RMS are mentioned, this is thrown up as a sign RMS is "out of touch" or "anti-technology." No, RMS is a hacker, who didn't like the user experience of the web and hacked a solution.
In particular, you are wrong, since you're incapable of separating RMS's political stance on software freedom from his political stance on surveillance. If Paul Graham didn't use a cell phone, would that make Y Combinator any worse?