To be fair, lol, “less off putting than Elon Musk” is a pretty low bar.

Well, yeah, for banks and “official” services like that. Otherwise, it’s fraud and you’ve got a whole new set of issues to deal with.

The article mentions things like auto-payment subscription services which can definitely be a pain to deal with (even while you’re alive lol). Depending on how the payments are setup, it can be as easy as having the bank cancel the debit/credit card. For direct debit from checking accounts, though, it’s often a lot more complex to get stop payments on those (been there, unfortunately).

So leaving your account details (in a password manager, text file, notebook, etc) has some tangible benefits. At the very least, it makes it easier on your survivors to handle your affairs.

Yeah. The only complicating factor is there are still some very stupid services that force periodic password changes (or at least I still have to deal with such stupid services with terrible password policies).

It can be, but you can’t tell it’s broken until you try to send an RCS reply. Otherwise, it appears to be working.

Last night I noticed they it broke again, so I just said hell with it and disabled Google Messages and went back to Fossify. I’m tired of re-generating PIF files. Screw RCS. Google has inserted themselves into what should be a carrier service, and they’re gatekeeping it to only Google-blessed configurations.

Then leave that to every one else to deal with; don’t make other people wear your tin-foil hat. Or just start your own community and call it “Dot’s Offbrand Extravaganza” or something.

Ugh. Just link to Reuters.

I think it’s more a generational gap in basic computer skills.

Millennials grew up alongside modern computing (meaning the two matured together). We dealt with everything from BASIC on a C64 to DOS and then through Windows 3 through current. We also grew up alongside Linux. We understand computers (mostly) and the (various) paradigms they use.

Gen Z is what I refer to as the iPad generation (give or take a few years). Everything’s dumbed down and they never had to learn what a folder is or why you should organize documents into them instead of throwing them all in “Documents” library and just using search. (i.e. throw everything in a junk drawer and rummage through it as needed).

As with millennials who can’t balance a checkbook or do basic household tasks, I don’t blame Gen Z for not learning; I blame those who didn’t teach them. In this case, tech companies who keep dumbing everything down.

Edit: “Balance a checkbook” doesn’t have to mean a physical transaction log for old school checks. It just means keeping track of expenditures and deposits so that you know the money in your account is sufficient to cover your purchases. You’d be surprised how many people my age can’t manage that.