Let’s talk about the greatest scam of our lifetime: the cell phone.
We pay more for this little rectangle than we used to pay for a used pickup. We carry it everywhere. We sleep next to it. We’d go back into a burning barn for it. And how does it repay our loyalty?
“Storage Full.”
Full? FULL? I have four pictures of a heifer, two screenshots of a hay invoice, and a video of the dog that I’ve watched 300 times. That’s it. Apparently that’s the Library of Congress.
So you delete things. You delete apps. You delete memories. You delete photos of your own children. And the phone says, “Thanks. Still full. Would you like to buy more cloud?”
No, I would not like to buy a cloud. I live in the Columbia Basin. I’d like a real cloud, and maybe some rain.
Then there’s reliability. You need one bar to make one call about one cow that’s out on one road, and the phone says “No Service.” But stand at the exact northeast corner of the shop, hold the phone above your head like you’re offering it to the gods, tilt left, and boom, one bar. Call drops anyway. Then lets talk about my zoom meetings while driving Jax to school where I have him hold the phone to the roof of the car, sometimes I can make it all the way through a meeting, sometimes I can’t. Same route.
And now? Now we have AI on our phones. Wonderful. Now we can depend on it for EVERYTHING. Directions, schedules, reminders, recipes, what’s wrong with the tractor. The future is here!
…if it decides to work. Which it will, right up until you actually need it. Then it updates. For 45 minutes. In the middle of whatever circus is going on at that moment.
Welcome to Frustration Nation. Population: everyone with a charger cord that only works at a certain angle.
The kicker? We’ll all be upgrading next year anyway.
Tell us in the comments: what’s your phone’s worst betrayal? Let’s commiserate.
Happy Finally Friday. Go outside. Your phone won’t notice. It’s busy updating.