> You mums problem is not the phone. Her problem is random strangers being able to "talk her into" whatever.
You're right, the problem is not her phone, because she has an iphone.
> It is sad when aging parents no longer ...
Her problem is less to do with ageing and more to do with not being interested in or exposed to technology in general throughout her life. And it's not just old people, lots of people have issues in those sorts of directions, are we saying "throw them to the wolves" or even "my freedom trumps their safely own a phone at all"?
Personally, I would opt in to "old person mode" on my phone these days, if by that we mean the current state of the iphone ecosystem, as it's a tool and I use it just fine on rails. I think we need to get rid of this toxic idea that 'personal responsibility' is a solution to all things all the time, and that people need to be constantly on guard about scams
25 year-old me would be the opposite of course, attitudes do change, and I'd like to see both approaches accounted for. I agree wholeheartedly that monopolies are bad and that markets need to be managed for both people and economies to thrive. But I'm also perfectly happy with a walled garden for myself and my less capable family members.
> You're right, the problem is not her phone, because she has an iphone.
The problem is her. If she is gullible enough to be talked into sideloading she is vulnerable enough to be talked into worse. You don't need to sideload anything to make a bank transfer.
Yes, but at least one avenue of attack is cut off by using a walled-garden phone.
The problem is scammers. We have a lot of vulnerable people in this world, saying “well obviously they’re too stupid to participate in modern society” isn’t really a good answer.
> Her problem is less to do with ageing and more to do with not being interested in or exposed to technology in general throughout her life
We do all sorts of things in life (that have nothing to do with technology, even) where we are required to develop, at minimum, some sort of basic understanding of the safe way of doing those things. And then we take responsibility, and follow those safety guidelines. Or we don't, and then have no one to blame but ourselves if it blows up in our faces.
There certainly should be guardrails on phones that can be enabled for people who are aging and suffering mental decline, or just have developmental disabilities in general. Or, sure, for people who just don't care, and want someone else in their family to "deal with all that nerdy stuff" for them. But building systems for the lowest common denominator is rarely the right solution.
> 25 year-old me would be the opposite of course
I'm in my 40s, so I don't think my take on this has much to do with age.
> Or we don't, and then have no one to blame but ourselves if it blows up in our faces.
Actually we have scammers to blame, this is pure victim-blaming on your part. I find it pretty awful when this sort of attitude is displayed towards people who are the victims of crime.
One perfectly valid way to take responsibility for oneself is to choose a secured platform that precludes these sorts of problems happening in the first place. Given that people must use technology to interact with their government, and increasingly their finances, this seems a great way to go about things.
> But building systems for the lowest common denominator is rarely the right solution.
This is a moral viewpoint, not a practical one. Pragmatically, it clearly is a perfectly fine solution for a lot of people. Myself included.
None of this is to say you shouldn’t e able to buy an open platform if you want one, but not everybody does, and it’s not to everyone’s advantage.
You're right, the problem is not her phone, because she has an iphone.
> It is sad when aging parents no longer ...
Her problem is less to do with ageing and more to do with not being interested in or exposed to technology in general throughout her life. And it's not just old people, lots of people have issues in those sorts of directions, are we saying "throw them to the wolves" or even "my freedom trumps their safely own a phone at all"?
Personally, I would opt in to "old person mode" on my phone these days, if by that we mean the current state of the iphone ecosystem, as it's a tool and I use it just fine on rails. I think we need to get rid of this toxic idea that 'personal responsibility' is a solution to all things all the time, and that people need to be constantly on guard about scams
25 year-old me would be the opposite of course, attitudes do change, and I'd like to see both approaches accounted for. I agree wholeheartedly that monopolies are bad and that markets need to be managed for both people and economies to thrive. But I'm also perfectly happy with a walled garden for myself and my less capable family members.