I recently had my credit card cancelled by John Lewis because I was unable to provide a mobile number for two-factor authentication. My argument that using a landline works currently and is more secure, and that in the end the mobile is merely a communication channel, cut no ice with them.
This experience set me thinking that progress should be measured by outcomes, not process. As somebody who has installed and commissioned IT and telecoms systems for around 40 years it is a given to me that technical developments have advanced beyond imagination over that period. However, it is not apparent that services for the ordinary citizen have improved; I would suggest that they have significantly deteriorated. Health, transport, welfare, police and so on are up to their necks in sophisticated systems but as far as the ordinary citizen is concerned we might as well be in the age of Bob Cratchit and the quill pen.
One example of past...