With the proliferation of “dumbphones” and smartphone platforms that are intentionally set up to provide a degraded experience by not allowing you to install things that are major attention and privacy traps, I keep wondering why people are buying more unsatisfying ewaste that doesn’t cover their needs instead of just choosing not to install the garbage apps in the first place.

@fluffy Because a lot of things assume that you have access to a smartphone. the only way to transfer enough money to cover my rent is through rbc's smartphone app- their website caps you at a limit of $2,000, and my rent is $2011/month.

Yes, this is really annoying

@Canageek Yeah it’s annoying that so many things require garbage smartphone apps which is another reason why the whole “buy a phone that can’t run them and still need another phone which can” thing is silly? because the whole “get a dumbphone” movement is based around not wanting apps which aren’t compulsory to install in the first place.

Like do people not realize you can just not install bsky/xitter/discord/facebook/etc. in the first place?

@fluffy Oh, I didn't reach people were buying two phones, I thought they were just trying to go without entirely

@Canageek I mean there’s some of both camp, but they still end up being all like “I want a dumbphone to simplify my life and get rid of notifications” and IMO what they really want is to have the self-control to not install the apps that make their smartphone hellish, or to learn how to disable the spammy notifications or whatever.

It sucks how much things rely on apps but removing the ability to run those apps doesn’t feel like the empowering move people make it out to be.

@fluffy yeah and the related one being buying android mp3 players for casual listening on the go. there are a few benefits they have (better dac and amp. which you can also just plug into a regular phone) but for the most part they are quite literally just phone-less smartphones

@charlotte I've actually never found an Android media player app that I like and when I was an Android user I'd dual-wield an iPod for my music listening.

@fluffy @Canageek this does somewhat bury the part that it's literally people's full-time jobs to get fishhooks into your brain that you are missing out and must be installing and checking those things, and the whole ecosystem of drip-feeding just enough desperate reward for doing so, for every re-engagement notification

@fluffy @Canageek trying to go cold turkey on that kind of apps doesn't get you a support group, it gets you alcohol salesmen offering you just a taste, and telling you all about the good time you missed down the pub with your friends

it annoys me that the regulation about this has focused on "the children" rather than "actually this belongs in the same trashcan of 'why did we ever allow that' as cigarette ads"

@LionsPhil @Canageek sure I agree that the apps themselves are the problem but folks already have control over the apps they install and which ones are allowed to present notifications. I see so many people looking for “a dumb phone with no apps but I still need to be able to run (specific smartphone thing)” and this just leads to even more kickstarters for detox gadgets that end up as unsupported e-waste a year later.

@fluffy US wise - VOLTE whitelisting and other garbage telcom moves are unfortunately trying to push us back to a locked phone system and removing a lot of usable phone waste from operability. (and blocking hardware options from out of country)

@Officeplant yeah that's a concern as well

@fluffy That makes sense. I will say, I understand having self-control problems like that though, I had to hack the YouTube app with ReVanced/Morph to remove its ability to scroll on shorts, because I was constantly wasting entire evenings or being late for work because of it.

@Canageek yeah I do wish the iOS youtube app had hacking potential, as there's a lot of stuff I'd like removed from it while still having the native app. YouTube's mobile site doesn't work super well.

@fluffy I've read the whole thread so far and apart from the "just say no (to drugs)" vibe, which is still kinda true, I think there may be more to it than wanting less or only specific apps available on a given device.

If I just think of what aspects I am drawn to in the dumbphone space, it has less to do with freedom from distraction and more with yearning for simplicity. It may be nostalgia for a 'simpler' past, where a phone would do what you needed it to do (a total fantasy, of course).

Sometimes I watch older movies or tv shows where somebody dramatically uses a flipphone and just achieves their goals instantly. It is like competence porn, the phone is just a tool to get there, it's not the focus of the task. Think of cop movies/shows (The Departed/Miami Vice [2006]/ Numb3rs comes to mind). It's mostly another male power fantasy, where a quick, incisive phone call, will thrust the investigation wide open.

Also there may be some kind of gadget culture involved, where you want a device to be cool and unique, that makes you appear stylish, knowledgable and, of course, competent. These features are factors which set you apart from others, who are ignorant of the world and enslaved by the digital drugs, to dramatize the thinking.

Smartphone design might be considered conformist and utterly boring, they all look the same and are just delivery devices for the content, you want to consume. Don't you want a techy hacky looking little machine with knobs and levers and antennas, weird little displays and protruding rubbery tentacles and clicky buttons with kanji characters on them?

I don't have any answers here to your first and further questions. That's just what came to mind, sorry if you didn't want this, since we haven't interacted before. Feel free to ignore. ✌️

@dio Oh sure I totally get the desire for dumbphones from an aesthetic or nostalgia purpose; I'm super enamored with a bunch of them for that reason!

My issue is more with folks who are trying to use a dumbphone (or a "dumb" phone like the Commodore one) as a cure-all for all modern smartphone ills, but then getting frustrated that the things they need aren't available on the same phones.

@dio like the Commodore phone in particular is pretty annoying to me because it is in every way that matters still a smartphone, but then they advertise themselves as having some sort of proprietary technology that allows most apps to install but bans social media and browser apps, but done in an incredibly paternalistic way.

Like, I get not wanting those apps on your phone. The solution to that is to *not install them*, not to engineer the entire phone around disallowing them.

@fluffy it's like they want some kind of cyberdaddy who teaches them how to behave correctly. I am not good at putting this into words, but the retro design on the restrictive covert smartphone smells reactionary to me. Someone learned all the wrong things from history.

@dio yeah exactly

Like personally I want a flip or slider phone with a real or T9 keyboard but otherwise a good modern smartphone OS. A Sony Ericsson w580i running android or sailfish or whatever would be amazing.