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”.
What a dingus.
It’s unironically good that there is further centralisation, integration and efficiency in payments, reservations, bills. What China is doing is It’s progress and future. You just can’t imagine that anything big and centralised can even in principle work for the people. WELL IT CAN AND IT SHOULD. No need to be a Luddite or dogmatic libertarian about it. What you are really worried that government or big corporation would control it. And if you are one of those that can’t process the idea that government could ever be trusted in anything, because of bad experience (and probably partly because of propaganda) then it gets to be understandable position, but it isn’t in reality like that and doesn’t have to be like that.
Yeah, you can totally trust government and big corporation, just like in Canada. /s
web.archive.org/web/20220317115211/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-protest-finances.html
Canada banks froze hundreds of accounts during trucker protests, some of them were just some random supporters which sent some bucks to support… So its not propaganda, and its enough to read history, there are plenty of examples, how governments struck down on its own people, why do you think there is a second amendment in US constitution ?
I want regulation and preferably nationalisation and putting them under democratic control to work towards social ends and not profit. Not corporate power, not fragmentation.
that impulse came from the socialistic Canadian government mainly, so tying them even more with state doesnt come with more freedom, but just more restrictions and control… Without their approval and suggestions, that would absolutely not happen.
We basically need fragmentation - to small local counties, instead of a multinational hegemony.
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.
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
In some applications centralisation is the only feasible solution. Decentralisation and cynical fear of centralisation is never the excuse to create and accept shit.
You can’t even open a bank account without a smartphone in China
Push for mobile phones that have open source operating systems like GrapheneOS. It’ll probably be the most secure and private device you’ll ever own. Then the issue is making these proprietary systems like WeChat, Google Services, whatever China uses. These should be accessible, and if it’s required for day-to-day life then you’re entitled to know every line of code you’re forced to rely on.
