Here, I’m talking FinTech specifically, but this applies to most other industries, too…
There’s a (very large, publicly-owned) transaction platform and online payment provider shutting down in Australia, next month. It started in 2006, and was useful because it allowed you to avoid card surcharges and bank fees. It was particularly useful for large, instant payments like for flights.
Why is it shutting down? Not because of a security breach, or any issues within the product itself, but because the Big 4 banks here want to kill off their competition, and have forcibly removed the ability for their customers to use the service. They then followed this up with relentless paid propaganda around “security” and how the system is “outdated, so use our in-house product instead”.
I encountered something similar from my bank, recently, while looking at overseas travel cards…
Yet millennials and zoomers lap up the propaganda, just like they do against cash, and think that anyone who still uses these products is a “tech illiterate boomer”. They actively called for the banning of the service I mention, because their banks told them “It bad. Trust us instead.”
Yet these same stupid fucks will happily sign all their private info and banking over to social media companies and shitty crypto exchanges, because “tech”, and shiny new thing, so must be good…
The Kool Aid sure is strong, with my generation and younger, smh… 😑
Can’t wait until we all get de-banked for not being woke enough, and then have no alternatives because we allowed them to develop monopolies on our finances, lol…
Meanwhile I'm over here as a millenial ass deep in technology as my goddamn profession and the only reason I jettisoned my original flip phone for a stripped down flip phone that can't access the internet is because they literally took away the 3G network.
New technology is shit on a number of levels. I was discussing this with my coworker today and he was telling me how people actually seek out farm equipment that's 40 years old because it runs better and lasts longer than anything you can buy brand new on the market right now. I'm sure that problem is more widespread than we're aware of and it doesn't sit well with me.
I've said this in another post but my grandfather still uses the Farmall tractor his father bought in the 50's. There is absolutely incredible stuff to be found at farm auctions these days, mostly stuff from a, sadly, bygone age.
I'm also a millennial ass deep in technology as my goddamn profession and agree. Tech sucks. So much time and resources are spent on UI/UX (I fucking hate that "UX" is even a thing) these days hat no one really knows how to do anything other than what is explicitly presented. No one is hacking anymore, no one seems to be curious, everything just werks. Until it doesn't.
As for cell phones, you can put one together yourself with off the shelf stuff, at least in the US. It's going to be a very simple device but they do work.
I had a kid come into my work for "work placement" Got told their password didn't work. Tried myself, worked fine. Logged out, asked them to log in. They proceeded to attempt to use the shift key on a keyboard like a toggle button from a smart phone or tablet. Kid had never even used a PC in their life.