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Comment by tmtvl | Hacker News Reader

Mobility is such an antifeature. Taking your work home with you is something you really shouldn't have to do. Worse even, taking your computer which potentially holds sensitive data with you could result in it getting stolen, at which point you've got a big problem on your hands.

Laptops for work make no sense unless you're a field researcher.

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Disagree. Mobility is absolutely a feature. When the pandemic sent everyone at my employer (several thousand workers) home in 2020, we were at 90% productivity within a few days because virtually everyone had laptops. Getting everyone settled in with effective home office setups took a week or two, but we were connected and working the whole time.

Then, when we went home a couple years later because of a cyberattack, essential workers were able to log in and work with the systems because we all had laptops.

As time goes on and less and less of our data is actually sitting on laptops.

Mobility is not about taking work home. Disk encryption is almost standard these days. (Windows home edition is the last holdout) People travel for / with work, do on-calls, work at customer sites, work from home and don't want to be stuck in one room, etc. Laptop may not make sense for you, but it seems you're a bit out of your element here.

You do know that a lot of people travel for work, right?

Journalists and plenty of other fields benefit. Though I agree with the sentiment. A Mac mini is probably good enough for most folks who work in largely the same place.

My office is everywhere there is an Internet connection.

Mobility lets me work on the balcony and in parks

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