Also, the largest phone market in the world is the developing countries market. Cheap phones are supreme right now
This fantasy among the technical crowd here that the general public only cares about cheap and convenient, which is at best condescending, needs to die. Convincing oneself of this only takes meeting non technical people.
Since they can’t see it, think they’re above it, and see stuff that makes them laugh, they just keep going. Never mind all the misinformation these same people send me or how worked up they get about various political issues they never seemed to care about before.
This is the boat a lot of people I know fall into. They will get upset about a lot of stuff, but have a massive blind spot when it comes to online and device privacy, even if I try to point it out. I’m usually trying to point it out as they are trying to convince me to join Facebook and Instagram. If I get worked up over some privacy overreach in something I’m trying to use, they just kind of shrug. A fiend of mine spent all morning ranting to me about streaming services, but isn’t cancelling any of them.
It's literally brainwashing by design. My dad is convinced everybody should use Facebook to be informed or they'll be "left behind". My peers are convinced you're socially a loser if you don't have Instagram. Privacy concerns are not even an afterthought.
And this brainwashing sits on top of the dopamine/reward center related neurochemical effects of these apps, which are very mild, much milder than any typical substance addictions for most people.
It took me aboout 3 months of abstinence of Reddit and HN for it to finally click that I didn't actually need them at any capacity in my life.
The blind spot is all too obvious for those with eyes to see. I can tell which app is a person's drug of choice within ~5 minutes of meeting them. Over time, these algorithm-driven apps even (subtly) change a person's personality.
Most people I know aren't particularly technical, and many of them are at least concerned or aware of these topics, even if they haven't taken any concrete actions (yet).
Keep trying to gently spread the word then, that's a good thing to do (without being annoying!). It takes time, but it eventually pays.
100% correct.
I have many non-technical friends who want to De-Google but lack the knowledge and/or find the switch intimidating.
Motorola on GrapheneOS can run away with this and create a Global South phone ecosystem that can rival that of Apple and Google. The fact they are Chinese owned is a feature.
- Commonly misattributed to Henry Ford
Ask an exercise, ask yourself this: if you could offer every iPhone or Android shopper the choice between their current OS, and an otherwise exactly identical one that just wasn't listening to them, spying on them, tracking them, selling their every thought to advertisers, and shoving irrelevant ads into their face all day long, how many do you think would honestly prefer the one with all the spyware and ads?
Ordinary people do want privacy of their data, autonomy over their device. They just feel so hopelessly powerless in the fight that they don't believe it's even possible to achieve any meaningful degree of privacy or control these days, and those values are less important to them than the value of having a smartphone itself, so they sacrifice those values to have a smartphone.
