Mastodawn

Commodore’s newest gadget is a flip phone that blocks social media and browsers

Commodore's Call Back 8020 is a phone “where the customer is not the product."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/commodores-newest-gadget-is-a-flip-phone-that-blocks-social-media-and-browsers/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

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Boris Kretzinger 3d ago

@arstechnica Well ... hope they have their market research homework done, but I'll remain very sceptical of this. Also not something anybody has waited for imo, but guess we'll see.

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.ｂｅｅｊａｙ 3d ago

@Datassette_User @arstechnica Browsers and Social Media is blocked, but messengers like WhatsApp aren’t? Especially on WhatsApp the user is a huge valuable product. This is not consistent in my opinion.
SMS/RCS has enough functionality to cover most messaging needs without collecting, analyzing and selling metadata.

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woe2you

@beejay @Datassette_User @arstechnica Yeah, the "not the product" thing is absolutely full of shit.

Remember when tech journalists did actual journalism instead of publishing press releases verbatim?

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.ｂｅｅｊａｙ 3d ago

@woe2you @Datassette_User @arstechnica It is absolute bullshit. Either it’s a dumbphone with really limited functionality or the user is able to install what they want.