In China, you can’t exist without a smartphone, because for all existential things you have to do (paying bills, buying tickets etc.) , you are forced to use the almighty wechat app. Smartphones are a tool to manipulate and to spy on the population. It is a tool utilized by the ruling class, to control the masses. I hate the future and I hate “progress”.
I honestly think the US is at that point. I need a phone to clock in, you can’t find price checkers anymore, physically paying bills just doesn’t happen anymore, checks are becoming obsolete. Stores are downsizing in favor of online markets, banks are closing lobbies in favor of digital. We love in a digital world and while it’s technically possible without it still, very difficult to do so.
My grandmother doesn’t have a cell phone or computer and gets around just fine. The US definitely accommodates people without those abilities or who have disabilities. Yes it’s way slower and inconvenient but always possible
yeah and the problem here would be that it all would happen in one app? Seriously? It would only be a problem if google or Microsoft owned and controlled it and ran it rampantly for their own profit, not if it’s handled as a public utility as such things should. That’s why WeChat-like apps are progress and the future.
No, centralized applications should never be the future. Of course technology that connects us is the future. But I’d prefer to see a federated system for that, similar to lemmy