Comment by d0gsg0w00f

Comment by d0gsg0w00f 4 days ago

I'm right there with you. I work in tech, but I don't want to fuss with tech when I'm off the clock. Like, it all annoys me and just feels like work.

When my router breaks I just buy a new one. When my laptop gives me the first sign of trouble I just buy a new one.

I see people fussing with unlocking their phones to pay for lunch and I am totally bewildered. Why is it so hard to pull a card out of your pocket? I have a rule "no new chargers" when buying stuff. If it comes with some proprietary charger I make a half-assed attempt to keep up with it but I just throw it in the trash after about 6 months and buy something with a cord.

Maybe I'm an old man, but maybe that means I know now that life is too short to spend my Saturday morning messing with HomeAssistant.

rwyinuse 4 days ago

>> When my laptop gives me the first sign of trouble I just buy a new one.

Well, some people enjoy fixing old things. Even though I work in tech I don't get to fix physical devices at work, which means fixing them at home doesn't feel like work at all. Rather it feels like an excellent and fun way to save money for something more meaningful than buying a new router or laptop.

I have some passion for technology, but zero passion for wasting the little money I'm paid on expensive devices, which will be outdated in a couple of years anyway.

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framapotari 4 days ago

> Why is it so hard to pull a card out of your pocket?

Because I haven't carried a card for years now. I couldn't even tell you where my physical credit card is.

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kiwijamo 4 days ago

I guess this is very geographic dependent. I live in a country where only maybe 80% of merchants accept Visa/Mastercard (and thus only those can accept Google/Apple Pay) so I need to either carry a card for our domestic payment card infrastructure–or carry cash in order to be able to transact with any shops.

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zer0zzz 4 days ago

I can empathize. I have some similar rules:

- if an app won’t sign up without a phone number I don’t use it anymore

- if a product is single purpose, and isn’t a phone or some jogging tracker or a set top box I don’t buy it

- if a product requires me to sign into a service for it to do anything, I don’t buy it

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gambiting 4 days ago

>>I see people fussing with unlocking their phones to pay for lunch and I am totally bewildered.

How are people "fussing with unlocking their phones" to pay though? It literally couldn't be any easier - I pull it out, touch the screen on the fingerprint sensor to unlock it and tap on the terminal, done. It's about 200x easier than pulling the card out of my wallet, and the card can only be used for contactless up to a certain amount, and half the time it randomly asks me for my pin anyway so the whole benefit of contactless is lost. Paying with your phone is a massive improvement to convenience.

>> When my laptop gives me the first sign of trouble I just buy a new one.

I mean I hope you recognize the incredible priviledge behind that statement - for a lot of people tinkering with their laptop isn't about being a hobby IT person, it's about the fact that a new laptop costs half their salary so it's quite literally not an option.

>> life is too short to spend my Saturday morning messing with HomeAssistant.

Sure but you make it sound like it's a chore - most people(I'd guess) set up HA because it provides value in their lives, that other, more simpler devices cannot provide. So at the cost of X number of hours once a year you get a device that consolidates all of your home automation and data. If you could buy a premade device that did it without fuss - I'm sure a lot of people would.

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prmoustache 4 days ago

> How are people "fussing with unlocking their phones" to pay though? It literally couldn't be any easier - I pull it out, touch the screen on the fingerprint sensor to unlock it and tap on the terminal, done. It's about 200x easier than pulling the card out of my wallet, and the card can only be used for contactless up to a certain amount, and half the time it randomly asks me for my pin anyway so the whole benefit of contactless is lost. Paying with your phone is a massive improvement to convenience.
Sweaty/wet hands can make unlocking unreliable, some people have multiple cards and need to select the correct one, sometimes their phone is lagging and taking time getting the wallet screen opening, etc. It is not uncommon to see people struggling for a few seconds with their watch or smartphone. So do people not finding their wallet in a bag too or failing to grab a card from a physical wallet too to be honest. I wouldn't say one option is 200x easier, both are pretty much on equal terms imho.
I don't use wallet because I don't have a google account on my phone anyway nor would it work with my grapheneOS AFAIK anyway.

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rantallion 4 days ago

> Paying with your phone is a massive improvement to convenience.
And it only gets easier when you pay with a watch - you don't even have to pull your phone out of your pocket!
My cards only come out when I'm making a large purchase that I want extra protection on (think the UK's Section 75) and these are usually purchases I know about in advance - otherwise my wallet stays at home most days.

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