I think people have been brain washed to believe they can no longer live life without being enslaved by a surveillance device.
Lost? Ask for directions. Need a map? Go to a hotel or a tourist center, or print one in advance.
So, the solution is not to suggest that people should not use a smartphone. That ship has sailed. I agree that it should still be possible to do things without for people that do not want to use one. But you are not going to convince more than a small percentage of the population to abandon smartphones.
Instead we should focus on making alternative smartphone ecosystems (AOSP can be a starting point) and getting technology that is used to shut out competition (e.g. Google Play Strong Integrity) banned.
It’s just the typical HN humble brag thread about being present and owning no technology.
Awesome that these folks don’t own a phone and give their landline to businesses. I love that for them.
But I like my smartphone, GPS directions, digital wallets, streaming music, etc. I just don’t want it to be controlled by two companies. I want there to be a healthy market of multiple options including open source alternatives.
This for me has been achieved on my desktop and laptop but not yet on my smartphone.
I really have the impression that using a smartphone makes a lot people much more dumb with respect to seeing obvious solutions for their problems.
You can print the boarding pass at the airline kiosk at the airport, at least in any US airport I've been to. I always do this.
As noted in a peer post I try very hard to do everything without a phone. I do have a phone but don't want to depend on it.
Boarding passes in particular seem very unreliable on a phone. I always have the paper boarding pass printed at the airport but for curiosity I check the phone app boarding pass. More than 50% of the time the phone app boarding pass hangs from bad connectivity while standing at the gate and I can't retrieve it. Fortunately I always have the printed boarding pass so that always works. Paper does not rely on internet connectivity so it will always be infinitely more reliable.
So that is half of 1%.
Now try in any one of the other 194 countries in the world.
I, sadly, live in a small island and fly a lot. I haven't been able to do this in years.
Also luggage check-in counters will print a boarding pass.
