I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

Now I'm not blaming you, or any ordinary user for that. This is not a 'phones bad' post. This is a post about the redistribution of computing.

More people have access to the internet now than in the past, that's true. But while the processing power of a modern smartphone is greater than whole desktop computers of past decades, its use as a terminal comparatively sucks:

It's harder to compose/edit text, code, and data on a cell phone than it is on a laptop or desktop computer.

Using dedicated applications meant for creating visual and audio content is harder than on a desktop or laptop computer.

Switching between multiple programs the way somebody with a project would need to isn't convenient.

Phones as terminals are mostly optimized to browse with minimal interaction.

This is great in some ways for those who own that internet. Cloud computing, gaming, storage, mean that instead of owning significant hardware, software, or memory yourself you'll pay a company over time to own it for you, and that company will also benefit from everything you do entrust to their servers.

In other ways, this is a disaster. Expensive infrastructure facilitates web access for more users than ever before and the majority of them are completely passive. The "1% rule" has been true for a long time, but it's no longer voluntary: many users now do not have the interface to meaningfully interact with what they're paying to access even if they wanted to.