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[I7guy]

No - I'm arguing it's about as necessary, "enabling" and convenient as...

...that enable many things we have today.


You authenticate your online banking without a second factor or device?

I have the ability to use a trusted telephone number in an emergency.

Must be in the U.S. or some other backward country that doesn't take payment security seriously.

Of course the US doesn’t take payment security seriously /s

 

[jakey rolling]

Not quite. A smartphone is a form factor. The internet is physical infrastructure.
That doesn’t mean it’s a necessity right up there with food and water or even electricity. The fact is it’s a convenient form factor.

Why would something need to be on the level of "food and water" in order to be considered a necessity?

And the internet "infrastructure" is made up of what? Wires? Servers? Cell towers? Or is it also made up of all the devices that are ultimately connected together to form the network itself?

But it’s still a convenience by your own words up above. I can still navigate in a standalone garmin.

Until Garmin no longer sells stand-alone GPS units because nobody is buying them anymore. Or until Garmin adapts their GPS units to require an always-on internet connection through your phone because everyone has a phone and everyone wants the kind of real-time traffic awareness that stand-alone GPS units cannot provide. Or until Garmin decides that they only want to sell commercial GPS units that only communicate through smartphones or direct to cell-based internet infrastructure.

Speaking of food, water, and electricity - none of those things are delivered without the use of internet service anymore and some of those deliveries (food, in particular) would stop if widespread internet service were to go down. Yet you can look back on 90's movies like The Net and Hackers when we first saw them and scoffed at the idea of such infrastructure even being connected to the Internet.

Popularity is not equal to necessity.

You are correct. Those are not equal. Which is why I didn't use the word "popular", I used the word "ubiquitous". Those words have very different meanings. Hamburgers are popular. Streaming services are popular. Theme parks are popular. Yet if I approached a random person on the street and asked them if they've used any of the above three things today, it would certainly not be a guarantee that they would say "yes." If I approached a random person on the street and asked them if they had a smartphone on them at that moment, what do you think the answer would almost certainly be?

10 years ago cell phones were in full swing. The statement might be 10 years ago more people owned cell phones than cars.

Sure. And 10 years ago cell phones were so ubiquitous that it was almost a certainty that unless you were unemployed, had no kids, had no close family, and had no close friends, there would be someone who would have the expectation that you would be reachable by your cell phone. Today, the same thing applies with texts and in many cases, much more than texts (even up to specific apps).

So far imo all that is concluded is that the smartphone is an amalgam that results in convenient form factor. And that convenience is why it’s popular.

If you choose not to learn anything from recent technological history, choose to ignore the entire functioning society around you, fail to see how rapidly technology is evolving, and ignore the difference between the terms "ubiquity" and "popularity", then sure. I guess it is concluded.

Just remember that the next time Apple decides to try the same argument they've used before when defending their walled garden - namely that smartphones are something more than a mere general purpose internet device and that they deserve special protection - your smartphone is merely a convenience device.