Technology is a cold pool of water. Few want to jump in and never do. But those who do, find out the water is quite nice once they get used to it. YMMV.
When cellphones first came to prominence in the 90s, I really didn’t expect them to catch on. Expensive, unreliable, and annoying, I could see maybe 1% of professions finding a use for them but the overwhelming majority had no need to ever use them at all. And I was completely wrong, totally misread the hunger for them, and they got like 80% saturation amongst the general populace quite rapidly.
However, when smartphones came on the scene, that was different. I could see the potential for having a pocket-sized computer that could be your map, guidebook, camera, and translator in one. I could see the practicality of a mobile computer, but could not see the appeal of a constant interruption device.
I still don’t like them much personally, the only reason I have one is because my life took a downturn and I needed to be contacted, and since then now the default assumption is everyone has one so they’re inescapable, but I really only use it for a rare call, a rarer text message, and listening to podcasts.
Anyways, it’s interesting to look back on people’s predictions about technology, even amongst ourselves. So much has changed in the last 20 years with the rise of social media, online streaming, and ubiquitous internet access. It’s all happened so quickly.
Until I glanced at the date, that was a WEIRD o.p. to read.
Zombie cell phones! I assume that, in the last 13 years, at least some people have changed their opinions on cell phones and their many features.
Yeah, I drove the Verizon guy nuts when I got my new phone. He’s telling me all the apps I can download even as I was standing there unloading unwanted crap from my phone. He’s trying to sell me a mega-data plan while I’m asking for the smallest possible - “You can use this to watch movies! Read books! Play games!” “I have two kindles, a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop - I really don’t need a phone to do any of that.” Two months after I got the phone Verizon offered an even smaller data plan than the one I originally had and I called to downsize. The person on the other end of the phone was flabbergasted. I said look at my data usage. I had used all of 2% of my allotment each month since I got the phone. Yeah, yeah, I get that the salespeople are there to make sales.
It’s nice to have options, but I think there’s a definite slice of the population that like to keep things simple and know their own minds/wants/desires. The technology isn’t useless, it’s just unneeded by a lot of folks.
The kernel of truth in the OP is that consumer items have always been marketed heavily by features, many of which are not terribly useful. But as the technology matures, it turns out some of those features ARE useful.
If I were writing the OP today, my thesis would be two-part:
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That current tech comes with a lot of useless crap we don’t need… YET. On my smart phone right now there is a folder titled “Useless Crap”, in which reside all the apps I don’t need, but can’t be deleted for one reason or another. In time, maybe there will be a need, or the tech will improve to the point that I want to use them.
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A lot of tech work is very shoddy. Meaning, software of various kinds is released that doesn’t work very well. Thus the need for constant updates. I’d like to see better quality testing, but I suspect releasing products quickly is more important to the industry.
I realize security also figures in there irrespective of basic work-ability, but the fact is I see a lot of apps and programs that just work terribly. Basic texting for example - my phone can’t even keep them in order. When I go back to look at a texting conversation I’ve had they are scrambled. The goddam app has one basic function, and it can’t even do that correctly.
We don’t all want the same thing; but all too often what we actually get is what your link got me – an error message.
Then, they get hypothermia and die. Frankly, the thought leaves me cold. 
My phone has, what, thousands? Millions? of features I never use, if you count every app it could run as a different feature. But the thing is, it’s easier to make a general-purpose device that’s capable of running all of those apps than it is to make a specialized device capable only of running the specific apps I personally want. Especially since some of the apps I personally want are so niche that nobody would ever design anything just around the capability of doing that.
This is, I think, what made smartphones so much more successful than PDAs. A PDA would have an app for whatever the maker of the PDA thought would be useful. A smart phone has an app for whatever any programmer in the world thought would be useful.
Not surprising. That link was posted in 2006. It’s only natural that it would expire after 13 years.
I’ve run nearly fill circle on mobile phones, from initially thinking that they were useful but unnecessary, to being almost fully dependent on my smart phone and enjoying it, to realizing my life likely would be much simpler and probably more enjoyable with less stress without one. I wouldn’t mind having just a texting device and an e-reader.
Only if you artificially limit the term PDA to the low-end early ones that specificly fit your description. The most popular PDAs were not limited like that. And I would argue that a modern smartphone is a PDA with a cellular modem as a standard feature.
Whoops! I need to pay more attention.
I’ve heard it said since at least the 1990’s - “80% of the people use only 20% of the features in any hardware or software”. It still rings true.
You should see the wonderful array of various shovels I’ve acquired over the years since first posting.