There was a time when the internet had a place in the home; a corner, a schedule, a shared practice. That idea didn't vanish overnight. It came apart gradually, and left something behind.
I’ve sort of started to do something like this. I quit using streaming services, I re-downloaded a billion .mp3 files. I downloaded and converted all my Audible books and cancelled the service. I download podcasts instead of streaming them.
If I’m going on a trip, I’ll transfer a couple of audio books, some podcasts and a bunch of music to my phone. I keep about 5000 songs in the phone constantly, changing them every now and then as the feeling takes me. I use my phone like a old timey mp3 player and instead of carrying the local public trans schedule booklet, like I did 20 years ago, I now have the schedule website saved on my phone.
I still have internet access and connection on the phone but I try to avoid it as much as possible. But I don’t do silly extremes where I’m not “allowed” to use it at all. If I’m bored waiting for a doctor or something and I want to watch a youtube video, I watch a youtube video. But the strange thing is, once you think of the phone as a mp3 player, you sort of dont have the desire to use it as a instant entertainment machine. Some sort of switch snapped in my head when I did all that.
Anyway, sorry if this became incoherent, I’m trying to type this out before getting my afternoon coffee and I want the coffee more than I want to make sense.
Not incoherent at all, that sounds really nice. One of my ambitions is to have my “main” cell phone just be a postmarketOS device that can receive calls and texts and select encrypted data from home base. Eventually I’d like to be able to just flash an image onto a cell phone and have it hooked into my VPN and basically just have it communicate solely with my home server, but that dream is still a ways away.
If the people who are infinitely more smart than me, would work for free a little bit harder and do a proper mobile Linux OS, what you are describing might be very easy to do.
Easy is the goal, but it turns out mobile OSes are hard to make, harder when the entire for-profit ecosystem is actively trying to undercut free solutions. Right now I’m working with old devices that, while they are running postmarketOS, are still pretty janky and have a lot of missing functionality. Still, a lot progress is being made, by an army of regular folks who pitch in when and where they can, and somehow the boulder of free software slowly but inexorably rolls uphill. It’s very cool to watch.
Yup. I’m actually planning on getting a second phone that will be my daily driver, one that I can just try out different things, like whatever Linux OS’s there are available etc. Then have another phone that I will do the banking stuff and whatnot.
I’ve sort of started to do something like this. I quit using streaming services, I re-downloaded a billion .mp3 files. I downloaded and converted all my Audible books and cancelled the service. I download podcasts instead of streaming them.
If I’m going on a trip, I’ll transfer a couple of audio books, some podcasts and a bunch of music to my phone. I keep about 5000 songs in the phone constantly, changing them every now and then as the feeling takes me. I use my phone like a old timey mp3 player and instead of carrying the local public trans schedule booklet, like I did 20 years ago, I now have the schedule website saved on my phone.
I still have internet access and connection on the phone but I try to avoid it as much as possible. But I don’t do silly extremes where I’m not “allowed” to use it at all. If I’m bored waiting for a doctor or something and I want to watch a youtube video, I watch a youtube video. But the strange thing is, once you think of the phone as a mp3 player, you sort of dont have the desire to use it as a instant entertainment machine. Some sort of switch snapped in my head when I did all that.
Anyway, sorry if this became incoherent, I’m trying to type this out before getting my afternoon coffee and I want the coffee more than I want to make sense.
Not incoherent at all, that sounds really nice. One of my ambitions is to have my “main” cell phone just be a postmarketOS device that can receive calls and texts and select encrypted data from home base. Eventually I’d like to be able to just flash an image onto a cell phone and have it hooked into my VPN and basically just have it communicate solely with my home server, but that dream is still a ways away.
If the people who are infinitely more smart than me, would work for free a little bit harder and do a proper mobile Linux OS, what you are describing might be very easy to do.
Easy is the goal, but it turns out mobile OSes are hard to make, harder when the entire for-profit ecosystem is actively trying to undercut free solutions. Right now I’m working with old devices that, while they are running postmarketOS, are still pretty janky and have a lot of missing functionality. Still, a lot progress is being made, by an army of regular folks who pitch in when and where they can, and somehow the boulder of free software slowly but inexorably rolls uphill. It’s very cool to watch.
Yup. I’m actually planning on getting a second phone that will be my daily driver, one that I can just try out different things, like whatever Linux OS’s there are available etc. Then have another phone that I will do the banking stuff and whatnot.