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Websites requiring a phone number is bad business and potential discrimination

4 points by teslacar ↗ HN
Websites requiring a phone number is bad business and potential discrimination

Millions of Americans don't have cell phones . Either they are too expensive or the are disabled or other reasons that prevents them for having a mobile phone . Cellphone service is very expensive ,requires decent credit and many poor and disabled people cannot afford it

6 comments

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smt88
1) More than 92% of Americans have cell phones[1].

2) An SMS/MMS-enabled number is free from Google Voice.

3) Cell plans don't require credit (except possibly for the phone itself). You can pre-pay.

4) This may be discrimination, but so is requiring an email address. The question is whether it's illegal discrimination, and the answer is no. "Phone type" is not a protected class, like race or religion, in the United States. "Income level" is also not a protected class.

1. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/26/chapter-1-always-on-co...

dangrossman
> "Phone type" is not a protected class, like race or religion, in the United States. "Income level" is also not a protected class.

If discriminating on the basis of phone type or income level has a disparately adverse affect on members of a protected class, then the policy is is illegal discrimination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

Mz
I am homeless and a homeless advocate. I agree with you. Email addresses can be had for free and accessed for free via, for example, going to a public library.

I am online all the fucking time, even when my tablet or laptop has died and I don't yet have the means to replace it. Sometimes I have a phone. Sometimes, I don't. I have yet to find a 100% free and reliable means to have a phone number.

mattbgates
I met someone in my travels who is homeless by choice and living out of his car. Basically does freelance work, charges up at Starbucks, which... "are all his office", and does what he has to do. I met him in California.. he says he doesn't mind and loves it because everyday is a visit to a new Starbucks in a new city, hehe.
Mz
If you get into the details, to some degree, many homeless people made a choice. Some left an abusive situation. I left a corporate job that was helping go keep me sick.

If I had other options, I would have made other choices. This isn't what I wanted. It was just less objectionable than the alternatives. This is probably true for most homeless people. They don't really want to be there, but given the fabric of their lives, this was the least worst or most viable choice available.

I would like to see better options available. I write about that.

I am trying to get off the street. I am aggravated with the whole thing. I also do freelance work, usually at a library. Starbucks is a bit of a luxury for me.