(I think the "question" version of the title is correctly answered by Betteridge's Law, and the "statement" version is wrong if it's understood as claiming that a lot of people are choosing dumb phones.)

I believe it. In this case instead of dumb phone it should be called minimized UI phone. I believe that saying it is a dumb phone is disingenuous as some will believe the Google tracking isn't there. If they entirely de-googled the phone they could call it a de-googled mini-UI phone. A proper dumb phone could run on standby for weeks especially with modern batteries and would not be dialing home to the Google mother ship or any other third parties. The original dumb phones could boot up in milliseconds not counting network negotiation time. FWIW some of us old timers do care what the OS and firmware are doing and just want a phone that does it's job of being a phone. I acknowledge that the SS7 network needed to be deprecated and replaced ages ago but Google and Apple are not what I had in mind. RCS should have been the job of wireless providers in my opinion given so much data already goes to them such as real time spell check.

What I knew as a camera or music player only managed local files and was not internet enabled. Most today know a music player as a streaming client. If the internet went down most of them would not have any music at all. They also expect their camera can instantly share their photos with everyone via some big platform and AI or other algorithms will make suggestions or try to add captions. I still use cameras and music players that do not have network capabilities. I even have a physical calculator.

I think the overall goal is to remove distractions. For me it is also to stop AI and related psychological tools from becoming that embedded in my life. At some point I will just stop using a cell phone all together and I know I am not alone. Maybe alone here on HN but not alone outside of this chamber.

Something's got to give, from a device manufacturing point the thing _consumers_ need the most is probably cost. Keep the feature size, slash the cost so they can be sold more transistors.

Size doesn't even really matter that much anymore, but power consumption for work absolutely does. Possibly better interconnect technology and integration into larger physical packages (smaller overall footprint since all the big wires got taken out).

Who knows if someone wins a lottery of scientific discovery for either a more cost effective way to do stuff we already know how to do other ways, or for something completely new that breaks open space for new ideas.

I expect that to come true. We still have a Windows monopoly after 35-40 years.

As bad as the tracking part is, we're already getting profiled and sold based on card purchases anyway. Smart phone based payment does increase the amount of collectible data, but if it kills the practice of card skimming, that's probably a net win for society. I've never been hit by a skimmer and always tap to pay or check the terminal before putting my card in. Failing that, I use a CC where I can chargeback fraud and it becomes someone else's problem, rather than debit where the money comes off my account directly. I know people that have had their accounts drained by thieves using skimmer data, usually at gas pumps.