(sorry, this is long. i took a few minutes to write this down.)
I never owned a Google/Apple device and never used one for more than a few minutes in my life.
I currently use my pinephone exclusively since my +15y old 2G dumb phone broke last year (i
broke it while fiddling with it, duh. it would likely have lasted another 15y. it still had its
first battery which lasted 5d with moderate phone usage).
Before pinephone i used a +15y old 2G flip phone (it had its first battery and lasted +7d) and i loved it,
which replaced my htc hd mini and htc hd2 around 2015 (fun times, sigh).
I hate the modern concept of phone and observing the long-lasting effect
of addiction on people's social and mental capabilities reminds me how important
a mind free from distraction and addiction is.
I know it takes a lot of self-discipline to own such a thing and not get sucked
into all the dark patterns that lurk you into addiction and drain your brain (and pocket, ultimately, as this is what it's made for).
Every now and then HN features some "i quit my smart{phone,watch} and it was hard" post
and commenters romanticize about it, yet i doubt most of them grasp the real implications.
Every now and then I whitness the effect of detox/cold turkey with "smart"{watch,phone}
on people (usually children, which cant't know better. they are exposed to digital media way too much with way too
little guidance/regulation by adults who are exposed too much and who don't seem to know better as well)
and it's the classic symptoms.
Unlike other additctive things, while addictive, modern phones seem useful/beneficial at the same time, which
is used to justiy excessive use. It's a fallacy, i don't see it.
Software run on these devices is not meant to be useful (in the generic sense)
but to keep/make you a customer (and they use lot of psy trick).
Do I miss out on things because i don't take part in the "modern" way of interacting with people/companies/state?
due to my self-impossed "accessibility issue" (not using "apps", that is)?
Sure, but I think
* people forgetting my birthday because their facebook app didn't remind them (because I don't provide data to facebook)
are dumb,
* banks who don't provide any other second factor for auth than their Google/Apple apps are dumb,
* (nothing to complain about state here yet, but will probably come later)
To me this just reveals the brokenness of some aspects of social interaction and economy
as the exclusion very well applies to elderly people as well (who even struggte with using
a computer, so they miss out on even more that can't be done in a purely offline way).
And i'm not even taking into account the macroscopic political aspects of driving
social life, state affairs and economy more and more into the walled garden duopoly
that is Google/Apple.
Nowadays, Nokia branded HMD dumb phones are available (i have a 4G 2660 flip here, works ok'ish).