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David Cantrell · August 22nd 12, 11:29 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 10:51:08AM +0000, d wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:40:50 +0100
David Cantrell wrote:
On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 08:36:50AM +0000, d wrote:
Basil Jet wrote:
As we approach the point where everyone has a smart-phone, we might
Who is "everyone"? I don't, most of my family don't, a lot of my friends
don't. Don't confuse teenagers and hipsters with "everyone".
The key word "approach" should have told you that we're not there yet.
And what makes you think we will get there?

Simple economics. We are already at the point where nigh-on everyone
(91% of adults; 99% of people aged 25 to 34) has a mobile phone. The
price of manufacturing smartphones is dropping quickly (retail price,
unsubsidised, has already dropped from hundreds of pounds to tens of
pounds), and even at their current prices they are eating into the
market for dumbphones. A great many people who have dumbphones would
prefer to have a smartphone but are prevented from having them by cost.
Once almost everyone can afford a smartphone, or they start being given
away "for free" with a phone contract, the cost of manufacturing
tiny numbers of dumbphones for the handful of weirdos who still want one
will increase because there will be no economies of scale.

Already a quarter of adults have a smartphone and half of all teenagers.

And this is obviously for values of "everyone" which deliberately
doesn't consider the vanishingly small population of digital refuseniks,
You seem to be implying that not buying a smartphone is some kind of social
or political statement rather than the simple fact that some of us simply
don't need or want one and therefor don't see any reason to buy one.

It won't be long before it's hard to buy a dumbphone. At which point,
yes, not having a smartphone will indeed be a statement.

This is obvious. If you try to buy a *really* dumb phone, of the sort
that was common a decade ago - a Nokia 6310i, for example - you just
can't. It doesn't matter that there's still a small market for them,
they're just not made any more.

I don't
have a home surround sound system

Nor do most people.

or the latest core i7 PC for the same
reason - does that also make me a "refusenik" in your eyes?

Not having a computer of any kind would.

who will be economically and socially irrelevant just like those who
If you need to have a smartphone to be socially relevant then there's
something seriously wrong with your social life and probably social skills.

Have you not noticed how many businesses and other organisations assume
that their customers and members have mobile phones and email? I have,
mostly because my mother is one of the refuseniks.

Being socially relevant has nothing whatsoever to do with your social
life or skills, and everything to do with how others wish to interact
with you. If you choose not to be able to interact and take part in
activities in ways that people think are normal and convenient, then
you are socially irrelevant. An awful lot of groups these days rely on
email to contact their members, ranging from the local chess club to
patient support groups and political parties. Therefore if you refuse
to have email, you are removing yourself from that part of society and
that social interaction. Mobile phones aren't there yet, but I expect
that they will be soon.

To take one example, the British Go Association http://britgo.org/
recently stopped publishing its newsletter on paper and posting it to
members, and now distributes it by email. There are a handful of
members who don't have email, but that handful was deemed to not be
important enough to justify the costs of catering to their choice of not
having email.

And to be bring us back to what started you off on your foolish Luddite
ranting - navigating public transport networks - would you like to guess
which are the top three categories of paid-for content/applications on
phones? They a
* games
* music
* travel

So aside from entertainment, finding your way around is the most
important thing that people do with their smartphones that you can't do
with a dumbphone. The people have spoken.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

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