This community collects stories, cases and situations where people without smartphones are excluded from society.
Rules/culture:
① If the post is not a specific instance of smartphones being imposed on people but generally about this topic, please consider prefixing the title with something like “(philosophy)” or “(advocacy)”, or the like.
② If the post is about this forum itself (e.g. about moderation or something), please consider prefixing the title with “(metapost)”.
③ Please consider prefixing titles with a region if the post is region-specific.
Somewhat related:
From loyalty cards, to restaurant meal deals or simply parking your car – it is harder and harder to get by without signing up to a multitude of apps
The store is trialing a feature to let customers unlock cabinets with their phone.
Are internet security and internet privacy incompatible goals?
SMS 2.0 (RCS) only available exclusively to Google patrons -- at least in my area.
Mobile carriers in [many countries](http://www.arkaye.com/IntlEmail-SMSGateways60809.htm) provide a free email→SMS gateway service, so if you have no SMS capability or credit, or you are outside the country you can still get an SMS to someone using just email....
RCS seems to be replacing email-SMS gateways. RCS is supposedly an open standard, but apparently if you do not have Android 8.1 or newer, you cannot use RCS to send an SMS in Belgium.
In principle, iiuc, you should be able to use a desktop app or browser to send an RCS msg. But for some reason it’s a shitshow.
(Europe) Bank shut down its website and forced everyone to use its app
The closed-source app is exclusively available in these places:
The app will only run on quite recent phones. So anyone who does not keep their OS up to date (which implies periodically buying new hardware for the shitshow platforms people much choose between) are locked out of their account. Also:
The app requires SMS 2fa, so non-phone or landphone users: don’t even think about trying to use an android emulator.
If you want to close your account to escape this shitshow, you have 2 options:
AXS Ticketing will not honor a refund when their smartphone app fails to load ticket, denying you entrance to event.
Happened a while back to me. I own an Android phone, but when I went to use my $200 in tickets to a local event, the app wouldn't display them. Contacted AXS support and they were explicit in denying any recourse or access to a paper ticket.
Wifi4EU makes a network of public-funded Wi-Fi APs exclusive, only for Playstore and Apple store patrons I was wrong!
prerequisites for using public-financed wifi in the EU:...
