Just more of an incoherent shower thought of mine, but I think the line between convenience and necessity is a lot more blurry than many want to admit, and it's hard to see in most cases. We would all almost certainly agree that DoorDash and UberEats, Netflix and Disney Plus, various "smart" gadgets like fridges with screens that connect to the internet and all that are firmly in the convenience column.
But I wonder if some other things stretch the line too far, and people have basically been backed into a corner, complicitly or not, by corporations to a point where some things that might be seen as a convenience in the abstract, functionally are not. Like banks, utility companies, leasing management companies and such all switching to the "you have to use our app" model and there simply no longer being a way you can actually engage in normal life without a smartphone. "Dumb phones" don't even exist anymore, as the FCC shut down the 3G network years ago, and all 'dumb phones' that exist now, even ones that look like clunky flip phones from 2005, are actually just Android smartphones made to look simpler.
There is the ideal of "well all you need is 40 acres of land to farm and hunt your own food, build a cabin with your bare hands and an axe, and read Cicero by lanternlight, and any more than that is just you being a soft faggot", and while that sentiment has some value, it's functionally impossible for most people. The average person cannot afford to simply buy a big chunk of land and live off grid forever. Most people do have to live in the modern world with cars and phones and banks and all the rest, or they will die under a bridge somewhere.
My main sentiment is that there is often this "well, I'm way more of a hardass than you, I don't need all those fancy toys with screens and avocado toast and streaming services" attitude from certain segments of the Right, which is then used to totally dismiss the hard reality that most people do have to engage with the modern world as it is, not as we wish it would be, and will never have the financial leeway to avoid it. If you only make X dollars a month at your job, you're living in an apartment, not buying a house on several acres. If the people who own your apartment say "you have to pay rent via the smartphone app", well, you're paying rent via the smartphone app, which means you have to have a smartphone. You cannot simply say "no, I refuse". That way lies death under a bridge. Your refusal just means you're shut out from the things that are necessities like shelter, food, clean water, etc. Necessities are necessities, and conveniences are conveniences, but sometimes necessities are locked behind a convenience gate, if that makes any sense.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed this or has any thoughts on these ideas in specific or in general.
I think the point you’re hitting on is that we’re getting slowly out leveraged by technology:
I lose freedom of my purchasing power as cash is no longer accepted and payment options are limited to few electronic platforms.
I lose my freedom of movement as all electronic devices everywhere track me and housing/insurance algorithms push rent AND homeownership higher.
I lose my rights as both political parties hate me and work overtime to lower my wages, increase my costs, and cancel out my vote through infinity immigrants utilizing electronic & mail in voting.
And if I speak out against any of this, social media is utilized to digital ID me and get me fired from my job or ostracized from society.
I'm probably one of the more regular complainers about subscriptions here, but I still understand we must live in the world also.
Generally, I draw the line pretty heavily on the consumption of slop. TV slop, movie slop, and I really have never had any understanding of food delivery apps as that's just fucking lazy. That said, I have a iPhone, and I know well enough if I was going to do something hostile to leave the damn thing at home. Don't get some bright idea that an old dumb phone would save you. Maybe an analog phone but it would still know a radius. I have a music subscription, because honestly the music industry actually did that the best of any. I'm not much of a pirater, I have a pretty large physical movie/TV collection that I grow pretty regularly. Same with books, although I'm a bit overbought there. Rest of tech, I'm very Linux heavy and I self host damn near everything. A large chunk of that because I've toyed with computers since the late 80s. It's fun for me.
I can't just disappear as I still have to do business, keep up with friends, family, etc. and that's just not going to work trying to get a POTS line and use payphones. I use banks and banking apps. Albeit I'm pretty hostile to most bank services, but it's still expected to have. I give a lot of credit to my success to not letting bankers leech interest off me for things, so I've rarely had much debt.
I think my philosophy is more of don't give in much to the places they are playing the mind games with you. The places where you're signing up to willingly transfer your money to the Bezos of the world, not because you have to, but because it mostly makes up for poor planning or saves just a little bit of time.
I wouldn't even consider most of that convenient. With the streaming apps the convenience argument was stronger when it was one app for one monthly payment. Now that everyone has their own walled garden you're dealing with half a dozen apps, the same number of monthly payments, and now you have to remember what show is on what app. It's no less convenient to find a pirate streaming site to watch what you want to watch. It's usually easier and you're not getting kiked that way. The food delivery apps are nice if you really don't feel like driving to get your food but I didn't find that happening all that often back when I used to eat out. I've never hooked up a "smart" appliance to my wifi and I've never had a problem.
You need internet to function in today's world, true. But I rented as recently as 2024, and while I had serious complaints about the kikery and nigger problems, I've never dealt with a bank or landlord that didn't have a desktop version of an online payment system. Right now I deal with like 5 different banks for credit cards and a mortgage company. They all have apps I'm sure but their desktop sites work fine with what I want to do. Hell, they'll even take a mailed check if you want to go that route.There's pretty much always a way around using an app if you're serious about it. Most people just consoom the slop they're served up. I think that's the source of the "I'm such a hardass" mentality from parts of the Right. Most of it is a choice even if it's not the path of least resistance.
Read Ted Kasynski's manifesto if you haven't already.
I think he's wrong because technology and tool use is basically how humans interact with the world, and even the smartest animals do it. And looking back on the progression of tech, there's not point where you can point to as the break off point. It's all a continuous slope. He's not wrong in his observations of course, but there's no stopping it unfortunately.
The only consolation is that there's always been gaps to operate in. And the speed of change means it's really hard to fix those gaps.
I've long said it, but the break off point is transistors. We need a neo-Amish movement that is cool with technology (basic Amish utilize technology in the form of handtools, carts, ect) up to vacuum tubes. You can live a comfortable, convenient life with indoor lighting, plumbing, appliances, long range communion without going past that.
What do transistors do that makes them a break off point?
Total cop out.
You don't know what you're capable of because you haven't actually tried to do it. You say you want to, but you actually want to live in the gilded cage that's being provided for you, where you don't have to grow, shed your weakness, and take on responsibility for your situation.
Do you know who actually does live without "cars and phones and banks and all the rest"? Homeless people, and they're fucked in the head. You think a functional adult couldn't do it if they wanted to? Of course they could, but they'd rather be comfortable than stick by any sort of principle, because it's easier.
Let me give you an anecdotal example. I live in a shitty apartment owned by a slumlord corporation. Every week there's something new over which I need to fight them. I constantly say "no, I refuse" and, guess what? I usually get away with it. I have completely renovated my unit, without their permission, which they full well know, and they haven't been able to do anything more than threaten me. I do this because, living here as long as I have, my rent is dirt cheap. And, because my rent is dirt cheap, I'm able to spend the majority of my time raising my kids, forging bonds with them, rather than working for money.
I could easily have shipped them off to some fucking daycare and had someone else raise them while working full time. If I did that, I'd be in a house now, no question, and they'd have the latest smart phones, video games, clothes, sports, etc, and they'd probably have zero respect for me at the same time.
But that's not what I want. I want to have kids that will have my back, as I have theirs, when shit hits the fan; which it regularily does in our lives. I want them to know that they matter, and I matter, more than "cars and phones and banks and all the rest". And they do, because I made that my priority.
Everybody thinks they have to go along to get along, and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I know it doesn't have to be because I did something different from almost everyone else. I didn't know I could do it when I started, but I do now. And if more people were willing to take that risk, we wouldn't have all this pressure to conform that we do.
Tl;dr: if you believe in something, nut up and live it out. Otherwise, your words are meaningless excuses.
I still, even today, use my smart phone mostly as a phone. I don't use banking apps, don't have FB or X on it, don't watch videos on it, and don't use it to pay for stuff.
I do most everything internet related via a browser on a desktop/laptop. Email is with a desktop app; I don't use web based email.
I will never have smart appliances, don't use streaming services, and I suppose you could call me a luddite all you want, but I will never center my digital life on my phone.
and people use to do all that on the street.