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.