wilsonnb2

I think the Tesla fanboys who bought these would have spent $1500 on a coffee mug if Musk had asked them to. Would have had better margins than decorative surfboards but I guess they're optimizing for Twitter appeal instead.

> I said "you're by yourself". Forget the magazines, they are the crappiest magazines ever. The pages are sticky, they are awful.

I assumed you meant "by myself" as in "not with anyone you know". I've actually never sat in a waiting room that was entirely devoid of human life before, but I'm sure it happens in less populated areas.

> Your problem is you never took control of your smartphone.

I don't know where you got this impression. I'm not the person your original comment was responding to - I have a smartphone that I use and like.

> "Sit and think". No, I feel like reading some poetry or philosophy or an interesting article, or listening to music, or playing a puzzle game. I don't want to sit there thinking about the upcoming doctor's appointment.

Those are all valid ways to pass time - so is just sitting and thinking and everything else I said. Being able to do any of those things you listed with the swipe of a finger, even though they are not the usual suspects of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter, is still a form of instant gratification and still has an effect on you. A negative effect, some (myself included) think.

Also, there are plenty of other things to think about aside from the upcoming doctor's appointment.

> They can be set to be just an innocent little screen with interesting words or whatever on it. My own smartphone doesn't annoy me, it does exactly what I want it to do. Zero notifications, internet data is off until I need it etc.

Yes, they can be used like this. I use my own smartphone in a similar manner.

I read something recently (I can't remember what) but it had a quote that I liked.

"You can choose not to use a TV, but you can't choose to live in a world where the TV doesn't exist"

In a similar sense, a person can choose to use a smartphone in a responsible manner or not to use one at all, but they can't choose to live in a culture that wasn't affected by smartphones. They can't choose to live in a world where endless distractions aren't always a few swipes away.

The closest they can get is ditching the smartphone, so that's what they do. It's not just a matter of configuring away the parts of a smartphone you don't like.

So if Google is a monopoly, what should be done about it? Split it up into separate, competing mini-Googles? Keep fining them more and more money until they stop anti-competitive practices? Split off Maps/Android/Drive/etc into separate companies so that Google can't use their search monopoly to dominate those fields?

I'm genuinely not sure what the best way to go about this would be.

I find it rather easy to use android without selling my soul to Google. In fact, I use android on a Google Pixel 2 on Google's own Project Fi network and yet I don't feel as if I've sold my soul to them.

I could switch to an iPhone running iOS on Verizon in the span of a few hours if I felt like it, or just chuck my phone into a river and call it a day. I can install FireFox if I don't want to use Chrome, F Droid if I don't want to use the Play Store, and a huge number of other apps from a huge number of other companies.

The idea that you have to "sell your soul" to Google to use android, even hyperbolically, is stupid.

If banking and internet services are so vital that we justify the existence of libraries because they provide access to them, then the Government should be responsible for providing to it's citizens anyways.

It's possible that libraries are the best way to do that but it's also possible that there are other, better ways.

> Social media apps are easy to uninstall

They're also easy to reinstall, and often times have good enough mobile web clients. Can't uninstall the browser, unfortunately.

It shouldn't surprise us that Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/Reddit are more widely addictive than alcohol. They are designed to be addictive, because it's good for business.

> Just don‘t twitter, instagram, facebook, snapchat or whatever you do 24/7

The point is that choosing to not do these things is hard for a lot of us. Getting rid of a smartphone is a decision you have to make once. Not using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Hacker News, and Reddit is a decision that you have to make tens to hundreds of times a day, every day.

Just sit and think. Watch other people. Read the old Vogue magazines. Listen to the conversations between employees. A lot of the time there will be a TV on or some music playing.

It's really not that bad if you're not used to the constant stimulation that smartphones (and to a lesser extent, all internet connected computers) provide.

I use Spotify on multiple devices every day and didn't notice anything about Drake recently, so it must not have been that effective a promotion.

Maybe someday we will all realize that daily fluctuations in a company's market cap don't matter.

Just because something happened doesn't make it news.

Credit cards are an excellent tool as long as you don't accrue debt with them.

I get 1.5%-2% cash back with everything purchased with it. I'd be losing money by using a debit card instead. Not to mention the $500 they gave me just for signing up for it.

I also don't to worry about when I get paid. I might only have $100 left in my checking account when I need to buy groceries if the day I get paid falls at a weird time. I don't have to worry about that sort of thing with a credit card, although it is much less of an issue now that I actually have savings than it was when I was in college.

If someone steals my debit card or my cash and uses it, my money is gone. My bank would probably refund me the stolen money if my debit card was used fraudulently, but until that happens I'm still out however much of my own money.

If they steal my credit card, who cares? I'll call the bank and cancel it and in the mean time, none of my actual money has been touched.

> If I need more I go to the Bank's ATM and get more. Easy.

Not having to go to an ATM is even easier than having to go to an ATM.

There are more people programming for intellectual reasons now than ever before in absolute numbers.

However, that larger absolute number is a much smaller proportion of the total number of programmers than it was in the past.

I think it's also safe to say that the mainstream of programming has moved more towards monetary motivation and away from intellectual curiosity.

But you're the one using these inventions as justification for future space exploration - shouldn't the burden of proof fall on the one making the claim?