alt Hacker NewsYou missed out the parts about "extremely painful" and "basically required", as well as "privacy destroying" and "makes huge corporations that much richer".
So, for the analogy, let's say lots and lots of businesses and public utilities are cash only, and carrying the cash exploits you for Google's profit somehow. Or we could stick to the idea that carrying cash is a theft risk, but let's say the businesses are indirectly in cahoots with the pickpockets through a chain of corruption and that's why everybody requires you to carry cash and be vulnerable.
You can choose not to do it, and your choice is not without consequences that are morally wrong, and you'd be right to complain about that. Otherwise if "not without consequence" implies that you shouldn't complain, then you're offering a viewpoint of it being a dog-eat-dog world, and that's just the way it is, if you resist you'll suffer and you're a fool, so take the easy path and don't worry about the morality. Resignation.
My smart phone is essentially bricked, allowing only text and voice. I have not in the least found it "extremely painful" or "basically required" to have phone connectivity as I only use my laptop for connected activity.
I realize, however, that having both a phone and a home computer may be a privilege that others may not share. That's the rub. Users with only phones for connectivity are made more vulnerable by an exploitative digital system. In that, the author is correct. It's a terrible ecosystem and it begs legislative intervention but I haven't a clue how that is to be accomplished.