> a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc

That device was called personal computer for decades, and the world didn't end for the simplicity of installing software on it.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> That device was called personal computer

To be fair, mobile phones being locked down probably contributed to the mass adoption of e.g. mobile payments and banking.

	▲	g-b-r 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Web banking was offered by all banks long before banking apps, and you could of course access it from smartphones The move to apps made things more difficult, if anything

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charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The world may not of ended but to of people have been hurt by malware ruining their computer, cryptolocking all of their company's files for ransom, stealing all of your login credentials, stealing cryptocurrency, taking secret photos with your webcam, screen recording what you are doing on your computer, etc.

The "personal computer" has a terrible track record.

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krzyk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Just like people get robbed, it is as common as that.

It doesn't mean one can't buy nice things because one is afraid of being robbed.

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charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Except a sane society puts rules in place against robbers and then bans such people from society.

	▲	Vrondi an hour ago \| parent [-]
		There have already been laws against scammers and hackers for a long time.

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Vrondi an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For many decades, people have been mistakenly putting diesel fuel into their gasoline cars, yet we never outlawed diesel vehicles. You can only do so much to protect people without destroying their rights to their property.

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g-b-r 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That seems to happen on phones too

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charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It is much rarer since it needs 0 day to do these at the same level as possible on a pc. The play store scanning apps for malware is an important safety mechanism against this. Further more imposter apps like YouTube but with no ads that are Trojans that steal people's accounts.

	▲	g-b-r 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Or the accessibility permission, or to some degree the access all files ones; but it's also enough for the app to pilfer the data you trust it with. The Play Store's scanning is very far from perfect, and the amount of crap that's on it, combined with the trust that people have towards it, and apps' unfettered access to internet, makes malicious software easily more common than on PCs. Even without considering as malicious the enormous data collection that almost everything on the Play Store does, encouraged by Google