In Finland I think it's getting tough. I personally have a smartphone but just started to randomly wonder about this.
Let's say that you want to park your car. Parking meters are getting rarer and rarer and in many places it's practically expected that drivers are able to pay by smartphone app.
If you're a student, you now have to pay extra if you want a plastic student card – electric card is preferred.
Online banking is still possible without a smartphone, but the preferred two-factor authentication method requires a smartphone. The alternative is a key code list (I'm not sure if they still give you one by default or if you have to specifically ask your bank for one).
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The question all Germans have been waiting for! haha
One benefit of (or excuse for) Germany’s lagging digitalization is that it doesn’t exclude those who can’t afford or don’t know how to use certain technology, like smartphones.
A bit harder for sure because it would mean going physically to places but you could do all those things no problem.
Doable I guess, but very inconvenient.
Getting by without the personal ID and BankID is pretty much impossible.
Parking, in my country ?
There is no phone smart enough in this world to help you with that ! Hahaha
I’d say it’s quite easy in my country , though not for me ! :
There’s still plenty of pensioners and people in the countryside , especially people in the countryside that use a 15 year old cell phone for calls from their relatives and that’s about that . My Gran from my father’s, rest her soul – she never learned to use any of “them touch phones ” .
I mean it sounds like hell for someone like me who adopted technology at an early age, but for the average peasant, you just need some basic cable, some basement-made fruit spirits and that’s about that .
Technically still possible, but realistically it’s not. There’s a lot of inconveniences, like the obsession with QR codes everywhere, but whatever, that’s not vital for survival. If a bussiness is willing to ditch a group of customers, their problem.
The biggest gatekeeper are the banks. You cannot log in into your account without a smartphone. So you would have to go full cash, which is also getting harder and harder, or you would have to rely on branches with everything.
Fun fact – I have to use smartphone for double authetification. But to access the bank app in my phone, it only needs one 5-digit PIN code on the same phone and the bank account is fully accessible. I can even take a 40,000€ loan with just one PIN and the money will arrive in few minutes. Same thing with my virtual credit card. One PIN and 2000€ are at disposal. The whole point of double authetification used to be that the attacker would had to get access to two devices at once, generally desktop and phone. I guess it doesn’t apply anymore.
It’s annoying, I hate it and it makes me feel like grumpy old man even in my early 30s. Fuck smartphones.
There are usually alternatives to a smartphone, often with better security.
Printed TAN lists for online banking are abolished for security reasons. You can use a TAN generator / cardTAN with your banking smartcard instead.
For EIDAS / national ID you can use a FIDO key like a Yubikey.
For scheduling appointments you can either use a web browser on a desktop computer, or simply use the phone.
I personally really dislike the smartphone apps for work because the usability on a smaller screen is worse, and I rarely use it at home.
In italy, u have two opposite experience, in large city, smartphone is the way.
In mid city, rural context, smartphone could be an option, but usually everything is till very analogic.
(Almost) impossible, I think. You need the digital government ID to access almost everything governmental. Some kind of smart device is essential. A tablet would work, too, but _nothing_ is not an option, afaik.
my coworker has nokia and he’s doing great, as much as i’ve seen
lowkey wanna be like him
Sweden: you’re fucked. I went 48 hours without a smartphone and in that time I was stranded. All because we have this app thing called BankID which you basically need for *everything* these days.
The country is way too tech savvy, it’s like we have Germany at the one end with papyrus and carrier pigeons, and Sweden at the other end where cash isn’t accepted in shops and kids literally don’t know what a classic signature is (the latter example was actually a news article by the public service broadcaster a few years ago).
Same problem in France.
Navigating daily services without smartphone is should be doable, but gets more difficult. Without smartphones AND a computer, I think it’s getting impossible.
Government (don’t remember which one) launched “Agence France Service”, where people without computers can access their services and be helped with the administration. But that’s all. By the way Macron has been slowly renaming everything into “France + [stuff]” (unemployment agencies? France Travail. Etc… And it sounds exactly like Frank Underwood’s shenanigans in “House of Cards (US)” which I find hilarious)
Random example: supermarket special offers and sales has now been digitalized. No more catalogs on paper etc… Personally I navigate my supermarket app without issues, even if I preferred to hunt for sales on paper catalogs. But what about the very old folks? The people without smartphones or computers?
I like progress and innovations. But I think they’re rushing digitalization, and certainly not “to make it more convenient for the users/consumers”. They do it to spy on us more, and substitute capital to labor.
You can do everything without the need for a smartphone. Old people in Portugal don’t have digital literacy I can’t imagine my grandmother paying for something with her phone. The only thing she can do is use WhatsApp and when she bought a new phone I had to set up everything for her because she couldn’t do it.
Making everything internet/smartphone dependent would exclude a big population in our country of many important services.
I wonder how older people in other countries adapted to the digital age.
In Belgium, it’s becoming very hard. Elderly people and other “digibetics” (people with limited computer skills) have major difficulties and are easy victims of all sorts of fraud.
Parking without a smartphone can be done in some parking garages. You need an account that you can create using a laptop and connect your license plate to your account.
Banking is an all different matter. It’s next to impossible without a smartphone. Some functions are only available on smartphones, not in their dedicated banking app. Identification and access to the PC app with limited functionality can be done using a dedicated card reader and your bank card.
Tax declaration can be done without a smartphone. You can identify yourself using a special card reader.
In Poland, it’s doable but very annoying especially in the big cities.
It’s just too convenient to do everything by phone in Poland and having to do without feels like being in Stone Age.
Pretty much impossible in Denmark, to make an online purchase you need to authorize it with your phone, to receive bills, it’s all on your phone, I think they’re even getting rid of bus fare cards and going fully phone app for that too now… Parking paying is on your phone, divorce is authorized with your phone, house purchase is authorized on your phone…
Public transport in Helsinki area has been made difficult since you can’t buy tickets in buses, trains or trams anymore, unless you are a local and have the travel card. But I think they are in the process of getting of the card too since they are adding additional fees and encourage people to use the app instead.
You can still buy tickets at stations at least.
I would say it’s easy because everything online-related can also be done by computers.
When my smartphone got smashed last year, I still got by by using my laptop, and bringing it with me. It was inconvenient, but it was doable.
I wouldn’t want to do it long-term though. There are so many things that are helpful to be able to check on the go: Travel routes, online payment solutions, discounts, the weather, checking active prescriptions, library search, my kid’s school app.
Without any computer devices? I know that many elderly people here have opted out of electronics use from the state. It is voluntary to go electronic. Then they still get paper letters, and go to IRL offices to confirm stuff.
On occasion I swap to a Nokia dumbphone …it’s honestly fine, but you have to remember your wallet. Contactless plastic debit cards make up the bulk of our infrastructure, obviously streamlined heavily by Google/Apple Pay.
The only things that I miss when using a dumbphone is mobile payments, maps, and WhatsApp — so as long as you still have a wallet with you, know the local area, and remember what time you’re meeting your mates it’s actually all very manageable in the UK.
Paying for parking would be a faff in London, but to be honest even considering driving a car *into* London is an expensive prospect these days. Car parking terminals also have contactless card access, so this is covered with the debit card still.
You’re gonna need it for most stuff. Going by your example: parking “meters” are just plaque telling you which zone you are in, which tarrif you’ll have to pay and where to pay (usually text or app, so phone is needed)
For official stuff you can get around using your phone by using you ID card and a card reader, but it’s gonna be infinitely faster and more convenient if you use the itsme signing app. A computer is always going to be needed in this case.
In the UK it would be very tough, although we have good laws that require most businesses to make accommodations for people with different access needs.
We are heavily digitised though. App only banks, QR code menus in restaurants, Apple Pay in shops, transport etc. Nearly all of our government services are online through gov.uk
It’s doable in day to day life but when you want to apply for something like a passport, the system heavily prefers that you do it online. I got my passport 4 days after applying online but if you do it by paper they tell you to expect it to be weeks
Without a car also? Depends where.
In cities with buses, trams, metro etc then its still possible. In Olsztyn for example you can buy the ticket on the bus. I assume other cities also have this.
But in the countryside or in smaller cities then its not a question of smartphone but question of bus availability and car ownership.
I don’t use my smartphone for anything other than texting, calling, Google Maps, watching videos and identifying plants.
A lot of things do have a smartphone option (banking, parking, customer cards…) but these are never the only option. I don’t think I’ve ever missed out on anything by not using them.
Finland for sure could be totally cashless and just run on smartphone apps.
I think it’s a horrible idea, if you lose currency you lose control of your rights.
The government can then track anything to spend money on and where. They could sell your data to companies. If a server drops out it can take out that part of banking so can’t use it for anything.
You already have all these apps for say fast food that now have access to marketing at you at anytime of the day and anywhere in the world.
I might be old school but it’s not for me
Very, for navigation!
As it lacks a lot of maps, tables, indicators on what to get to go wherever you want to go.
Luckily I use Organic maps:
https://organicmaps.app/
But I still have to ask people.
I own a push button phone and if you want to take a deeper dive into this topic I recommend r/dumbphones. It is very apparent that they want to force me into technology here in Austria. They = the government. Many people look at me like I am a weirdo, but when I tell them that I have more time to live and less time on screen some of them start to envy me. I am lucky, though, that I can do this. Job-wise it would not be possible for many if not most at this point. Eventually they will all force us into this if the people don’t put their foot down.
Not difficult at all as long as you had *some* device that could access the internet occasionally so you could access online banking etc.
I hope it remains that way. If everything moves to apps what happens when the app goes down? Making yourself entirely dependent on something like that to be able to do the most basic of things seems a bit limited.
Almost impossible. Bus tickets, concert tickets, banking, EV charging, sending money to someone you owe or giving money as a gift, parking. The list can go on forever. I recently bought a car from a private seller, and 100% of the process was done on our phones. The contract, the registration, the payment etc.
Of course, you CAN pay by card at all stores, but a lot of pop ups require Vipps
Back when I was homeless in Sweden, I was willing to lose anything.
Except my phone. I would have killed to keep my phone.
For me the worst is that since COVID a lot of the public services offices are working only with appointments. Which makes you navigate the impossible burocracy to not only book an appointment and then to actually do what you need to do.
And if you do it online with an id reader you still have to pay the same fee as if the services needed to print documents and actually do the work. Stupid as f.
It’s hard to even ride the tram now without a smartphone for the ticket app.
In Hong Kong in 2021, I was stopped from attending a court hearing. The security insisted that I show them my ‘leave home safe’ app before allowing me to enter. I hadn’t brought my phone. There was no way around it. “Sorry, come back next time with your phone?”
During Rona, unless you agreed to the govt tracking your every move, you were effectively denied any public service (schools, hospitals, libraries) as well as entry to restaurants and shops. Some people got around it by turning on airplane mode and using a stale QR code, but the vast majority rolled over for intrusive govt surveillance.
Czechia – it’s all you need
Serbia – difficult but doable