Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not really a valid comparison. The cellphone is not a compromise for convenience. It allows me to make a living, providing internet connectivity and lets me keep in contact with friends and family. Without it, my freedoms would be drastically diminished. With software we develop with, we have choices. We can use OSS. We can try to use open hardware. If we are working on sensitive things, we can use an airgapp…
A cellphone literally tracks your every move. If that's not a privacy concern then I don't know what is. Maybe a device with a microphone that's constantly on you. Oh no wait, that's also a cellphone. I was born in the 70's, and I can tell you, you can survive just fine without a cellphone. All of what you describe can be done on a desktop. But hey, if you want to compromise your privacy for some convenience, that's…
Will you carry your desktop in your car while living on the road? In the middle of forests and on top of mountains?
Will you work from a campsite with your desktop while not connected to the internet?
Can you have a meeting via your desktop from a rocky beach and no internet service?
A cellphone can't track what I type on my laptop, and it can't read encrypted comms my laptop makes to remote systems. I can put a cellphone in a distant location and use a portable, open source router with a VPN on the router, with encrypted, private DNS.
Not everyone lives inside a comfortable little box. There are all kinds of ways to do life.