b: Then get someone nearby to help you, or improve phone accessibility.
c: Tough luck. You made your decision, now live with it.
d: I highly doubt this. Phones are basically free - and I'm not just talking about budget, cheap-o phones. You can find an iPhone X for $100! People literally give them away sometimes!
e: That's fine, the Uber app works on some pretty darn old phones.
f: See (e).
g: Installing a third-party app to use a third-party service is pretty uncontroversial.
h: The ADA requires this from transit providers. If you are so disabled that a phone or desktop or whatever can't be used, you probably are not making your own travel arrangements.
i: Then you should not be purchasing things online at all, or with a credit card.
j-n: So... you go a day or two without a phone, replace it, and then things work again.
o: Hopefully not if anyone is making money off them!
p: Would you call a taxi in a hurricane and be surprised when it doesn't reach you?
I realize that HN HATES the idea that things sometimes require phones. Unfortunately, sometimes things are only possible with phones for reasons that have almost nothing to do with profit.
If you choose to not have a phone, you can still take the bus. You can still call taxi dispatch on a landline. You just can't do this stuff conveniently, which seems like a fair tradeoff to me.
> j-n: So... you go a day or two without a phone, replace it, and then things work again.
Which still is an option right now, where a lot of things haven't yet been app-ified, but if you follow "Why should we handicap new, shiny things to make them usable without a phone?" to the maximum, things could end up rather difficult in the future. Like if you've been commuting by public transport and public transport is no longer accessible without a smartphone, how would you continue going to work until the new phone arrives?
I do! That's how I know plenty of homeless people have phones. There's a disconnect between how people think smartphone ownership works on this site and how it actually works.
b: Then get someone nearby to help you, or improve phone accessibility.
c: Tough luck. You made your decision, now live with it.
d: I highly doubt this. Phones are basically free - and I'm not just talking about budget, cheap-o phones. You can find an iPhone X for $100! People literally give them away sometimes!
e: That's fine, the Uber app works on some pretty darn old phones.
f: See (e).
g: Installing a third-party app to use a third-party service is pretty uncontroversial.
h: The ADA requires this from transit providers. If you are so disabled that a phone or desktop or whatever can't be used, you probably are not making your own travel arrangements.
i: Then you should not be purchasing things online at all, or with a credit card.
j-n: So... you go a day or two without a phone, replace it, and then things work again.
o: Hopefully not if anyone is making money off them!
p: Would you call a taxi in a hurricane and be surprised when it doesn't reach you?
I realize that HN HATES the idea that things sometimes require phones. Unfortunately, sometimes things are only possible with phones for reasons that have almost nothing to do with profit.
If you choose to not have a phone, you can still take the bus. You can still call taxi dispatch on a landline. You just can't do this stuff conveniently, which seems like a fair tradeoff to me.