Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Christine Vaughan Davies's avatar

I'm already subscribed to all these substacks, which confirms that you have excellent taste! 😁 And I agree, this is a lovely place to read wonderful writers!

Expand full comment
Susan G Hawes's avatar

The money-and-tech article hit a nerve with me, and here's why: my husband's family (and so now Husband and I) have a cabin in a deeply rural area. We've often had to wrestle with tech because _anything_ that runs off a download or other wireless/internet connection is highly unreliable out there. Even electricity can be problematic.

We have dealt with this in much greater depth in the last few years because we've been building a house out there. EVERYTHING has "smart" capabilities, and we've had to search for the opposite, ensuring that the microwave/washer/window blinds will operate manually, without reliance on an app.

Always, a litmus test for any vendor or delivery person is whether or not they take seriously our warning that "your map app will. not. get you here. Please write down these directions." Sometimes it's just silly: what good does it do for my clothes washer to be able to run remotely through an app? If I'm not home, who is there to load the clothes in? If someone else is home to do laundry, I don't need an app.

I suspect it is literally unimaginable for the people who develop apps and other alleged labor saving tech that there are places their services don't reach, even in the continental US. I guess they don't go to those places! I think there's a lesson there about how our surroundings inform our base assumptions which in turn inform everything we do.

Expand full comment
4 more comments...

No posts