Reasons (excuses?) that I cannot downgrade to a dumbphone:

  • 2FA apps. You can set up a generic TOTP program on your computer, but that’s not very convenient, and some organizations explicitly require you to use Microsoft or Google Authenticator. (I don’t know how they enforce this given that the algorithm for generating TOTP codes from the secret is an open standard.)
  • My apartment building used to require an app to unlock the package room. The app is proprietary and probably not secure. The only alternative to the app is to bother the staff to open the package room for you.
  • During the pandemic, Korea adopted a contact tracing system that involved scanning a QR code in an app on your phone at every business you entered. Many businesses would let you just write your phone number on a clipboard as an alternative, but some (Starbucks) required the app. Was the app secure? Has the database ever been breached? I sure hope not.
  • Concert tickets from dice.fm. They have an exclusive deal with many venues that makes them the only place you can buy tickets, and their system requires you to store your tickets in their app, for anti-fraud reasons or whatever. (At smaller venues, if you don’t have the app, they can manually verify your name on the guest list.)

I don’t like that a smartphone has become a de facto requirement participation in society. Smartphones have only existed for a few years. The main purpose of the “prove you own a (smart)phone” tests that most commercial and government services put you through these days seems to be to combat spam: Acquiring and maintaining a non-VOIP phone number that can receive SMS messages is too expensive for most spammers to do at scale. But again, I resent that the burden of proof is on me to prove I’m not a spammer instead of on the service to prove I am.