Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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Tobacco use has dropped significantly over the years, while their prices have dramatically risen. Yes there are people who still smoke, but that probably is more attributable to it being a severe addiction than really a choice. Electricity and gasoline are both necessities. The price does continue to go up, and people have no choice but to pay.
Something that would be interesting to look at would be true luxuries; like cable tv, video games, smart phones, etc.
Smart phones are basically a requirement now. With most people not wanting laptops/desktops anymore and with jobs wanting you to apply online instead of on paper. Their usefulness is far beyond a luxury.
I’ll use AT&T as an example, because that’s who I use as a cell phone provider. You can buy inexpensive pre-paid plans for as low as $40/month, with a one-time fee for a sub-$100 dumb phone.
Smart phones - which have a higher barrier of entry - are most certainly luxuries, and most certainly are not a requirement. And people who need access to computers have low cost or no-cost alternatives, such as using free public libraries.
A friend of mine switched from a dumb phone to a smart phone some time in around 2015. He said that the dumb phone was keeping him isolated from the rest of the world. He was unable to communicate with the with certain people because they were sending messages using whatsapp, facebook and all that modern spyware trash. It was too late to stick to a dumb phone back then, and now it’s even worse. If you want to isolate yourself from the people around you, a dumb phone has become an excellent tool to achieve that.