> This is such a straw man.

Perhaps, but I don't agree with you. It's an expression of frustration about my own personal experiences.

> At least where I leave, local libraries provide a ton of support for people who need help using a computer

That's a good point. I haven't (yet) looked at my local libraries to see how functional they are. I'll do that within the next month though.

> You still haven't given any evidence on why you need a smartphone.

I shouldn't need evidence for why you need a smartphone when I am arguing that you shouldn't need a smartphone. But ok: try signing up for any service with SMS-based 2FA required; banks come to mind, many other online services. Guess you "need" a smartphone unless you don't want to do online banking. It's further crazy that SMS-based 2FA actually decreases security.

> Yes, society changes, and as part of those changes you need access to new tools. When I was a kid in the 80s in the US, you needed to have a car and you needed to have a phone.

Changes in society should not require you to follow those changes yourself.

The requirement for a car is strictly a negative aspect of society, and very much a USA-based problem induced by not fostering public transit while also fostering sprawling urban/suburban environments. And that requirement is also a self-reinforcing lock-in: if you don't have a car then you can't afford to get a good job and without a good job you can't afford to move somewhere that a car is not required. Today it's very much still that way, with the exception of remote work which is very much in danger of being destroyed by oligarchs.

And for phone; well I distinctly recall many homes had phones shared by the whole family. You didn't need a phone per-se, you could easily borrow your own, or your neighbor's/friend's phone number and they'd take messages for you. Still can today, except that there's a lot more assumption about one-phone-to-one-real-person today.

> I'm not saying that change is easy, but this idea that people are helpless and there aren't avenues to get access to the tools they need is BS in my opinion.

I'm not saying people are helpless and there aren't avenues to get access to the tools they need. I'm saying the tools they need have been perverted beyond belief so that someone who has different morals no longer feels safe using the tools they need.

You can't say the same about cars in the 80s. Yes you might have actually needed a car, but the car was yours and didn't spy on you. Yes you might have actually needed a personal phone number and you could count on it being monitored by the government or with a warrant, but your conversations weren't data mined by and sold to third parties who you've never even heard of let alone done business with.

Dude, you're writing so much but not even reading. You write "But ok: try signing up for any service with SMS-based 2FA required; banks come to mind, many other online services."

I literally wrote in the first comment you replied to "But that just requires any cellphone that can text, and cell phones have been common for 25 years. Are there some specific examples of where you have to have a smartphone?" - and then you just give another example that just requires texting...

> Dude, you're writing so much but not even reading

I did read what you said. You're clearly not reading what I am saying. Here, let me repeat it for you:

Try.

Signing.

Up.

To.

Anything.

Without.

A.

Phone.

This has been the dumbest conversation I've ever had on HN.

I fully understand you need to a phone that accepts text messages. You don't seem to understand that phones that can accept text messages existed long before smartphones, you can still buy them, and they aren't the same thing.

You realize that feature phones can receive texts don’t you?

Yes, re-read, that is my exact point.