iPhone is the Coca-Cola of tech

31^st December 2017

Consider the iPhone. In many ways, it's the worst phone on the market:

• It's manufactured unethically, abusing workers and tax-dodging to move local money into the hands of a mega-rich multinational. See this article by the Guardian.
• It doesn't respect our basic rights as tech users. It's designed to stop us studying and understanding it. It's designed to stop us changing the software. It's designed to lock us into their cloud services. Ask yourself if it respects your rights as listed here.

It reminds me of Coca-Cola, such an awful drink:

• It's manufactured unethically, again abusing workers and tax dodging to move local money into the hands of the mega-rich. killercoke.org is an informative read.
• It's actually an unhealthy and un-nourishing drink, even the versions that they market as healthy. same with most similar drinks.

Both of these products, iPhone and Coca-Cola, are very popular. People are even willing to pay more for them than for equivalent products.

Why is it that iPhone and Coca-Cola are so popular?

It's because people are not really buying a product but an experience.

It's very nice to experience the great experience of an iPhone.

The problem is that if you buy an experience, without caring about how the experience is generated or what it's consequences are, then you are living in a sort of fake world. This is because you have sacrificed the connection with reality we have when we know where things came from and how they work.

The iPhone is designed to be easy to use, but I assert that this "easiness" is achieved through dis-empowerment, and encourages dependence. People who learn computing with iPhones and similar products will know nothing about how they work, because these devices are designed to hide their workings from us.

If you want your phone to be a symbol of pretentiousness, stupidity, and waste, please buy a shiny new iPhone.

If you would rather carry a symbol of integrity and savvy: rescue an old phone and install an operating system that respects your rights better. Then you've made something from nothing. This is a phone a technologically advanced human can be proud of.

If you need information on setting up a phone that respects your rights you might read here or here.