A world where you don't really own what you own.

Replacing both kids phones, and encountered the new (somewhat Orwellian) world of cell carriers coordinating with each other to control what phone you can use.

Meaning, that one kid’s phone could not be activated because the old phone had a Find My IPhone lost alert (because it was lost). They won’t create a new SIM for a lost phone, which seems nuts, but then again it’s an opportunity for the person asking for a new sim to demonstrate their ownership of the associated AppleID. But the fact that my cell provider is coordinating with Apple like this creeps me out.

The other kids phone, gotten from ebay, was just marked as “locked”, not carrier locked - the agent said most lately it was for non-payment of a bill. It’s as if the phone is some kind of bond the user posts, that the carrier can go after.

So my two physical phones, which turn on and operate fine, were unusable. It feels like the world where I owned this object is over, and I kinda hate that.

I also can’t help but extrapolate - as more of our physical objects have one foot in the virtual world, having some provider brick your refrigerator seems like it would become more and more common. (I’m kinda ok with them bricking my car, that’s a big ticket item where I prefer security in the tradeoff). I hate the emotional feelings this invokes - it’s some kind of frustrated helplessness.

So anyway….this is a thing and it will become even more of a thing. I can imagine a charter city where you have to post a large bond/demonstrate insurance to enter / reside in the city, but then inside there are laws about data portability and hardware ownership which create a totally different ecosystem.