[ NNSquad ] Script of my national radio report two days ago on arrogant billionaire CEOs who assume everyone uses smartphones and everyone else is disposable

[Lauren Weinstein]

This is the script of my national radio report two days ago,
discussing arrogant billionaire CEOs who assume everyone uses
smartphones and apps, and everyone else is disposable. As always,
there may have been some minor wording variations from this script as
I presented this report live on air.

- - -

Yeah, sometimes you really do have to wonder what planet some of the
billionaire CEOs are living on, because so often it seems like they're
somewhere totally different than the rest of us, at least judging from
the arrogance and seeming lack of comprehension that they increasingly
display in public. And we've seen this more and more from Big Tech
CEOs who seem to assume that everybody uses smartphones and
understands apps and the rest of these complex systems being used to
replace traditional customer services.

Now we have yet another example in a service industry, an example so
blatant that it almost seems like a parody, like something that would
be on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately it's all too real. There's an
airline that has just announced that if you don't have a smartphone,
and you don't use their app, you can't fly starting very soon after a
short upcoming grace period. And when their billionaire CEO was asked
about what would happen to people choosing to use simple
non-smartphones or who don't understand smartphones and apps, with
many elderly persons being examples, this guy just says well, they'll
adapt. They can get other people to help them, and golly he says he
has an elderly relative that is just fine with this tech, so that
proves it's not problem.

Now if that sounds incredibly arrogant to you, I should add that this
is the same CEO who has previously proposed charging to use the
RESTROOMS on his planes and who suggested having a "standing only"
section on his planes where passengers wouldn't even have any SEATS.
You don't really have to go further than this guy to understand why so
many people are upset at the billionaire CEO class.

And he's just one example of course. You may recall back when we
discussed how DOGE wanted to end most phone support at Social
Security. DOGE wanted to force all the elderly persons dependent on
those services to either go in person to Social Security offices,
which are being drastically cut back as part of DOGE efforts, or use
the online systems. But many people, especially elderly ones, often
can't use the online systems. This caused such blowback that most of
those changes were quickly reversed. But the fact that they were
announced in the first place shows the utter lack of understanding of
the fact that many people aren't able to use smartphones and other hi
tech devices.

In fact, it was billionaire Commerce Secretary Lutnick who tried to
justify the DOGE ordered Social Security changes by saying HE had an
elderly relative who had no problem with the tech, so, nothing to
worry about.

Well we certainly see the patterns emerging. Even if we put aside for
the moment these billionaire CEOs effectively thumbing their noses at
significant categories of their customers who are dependent on those
services, even for tech-savvy customers the reliance on smartphones in
so many of these areas creates many new risks. Phones are lost, or
stolen, or are dropped and break or the batteries go dead where they
can't be recharged, or the apps just aren't working correctly for that
matter.

Irrespective of how regulators around the world will react to the
latest anti-consumer move by that particular airline, so many firms
are actively leaving behind anyone who isn't a hi-tech adopter, even
when those persons are dependent on those firms. Perhaps if our
politicians in both parties took fewer big dollar corporate campaign
contributions and spent more time actually thinking about the needs of
their constituents and controlling such obnoxious corporate practices,
things might improve a bit. But as usual, it's the money doing the
talking for most of them, and consumers are left just twisting in the
wind.

- - -

L

- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lau...@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
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Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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