The Fairphone (Gen. 6)

If they'd just provide a physical switch (not software-based but actually cutting off the respective chips and antennae from electricity) to go full offline (no GPS, no Wifi, no mobile connection, ...) they'd effortlessly at least double their market potential.

Genuinely interested, why is that? IOW, why do I want a (mobile) phone without connectivity?

Not a phone without connectivity. A phone with truly optional connectivity.

OK, but why?

There are legitimate situations where you may want to have a phone easily accessible, but not zapping your location to a base station every millisecond. For example protests.

If you are worried about getting noticed at a protest, stay at home. If you plan on doing things at that protest which might make it necessary to track you, please stay at home.

1. The government doesn't have any way to only track the phones of people torching cars. Everyone in the vicinity with an active cellphone is going to get caught up in that dragnet.

2. That advice sounds more reasonable if you assume a reasonable government that is only interested in tracking people who are torching cars. Governments have retaliated against political dissidents in the past who have committed no crimes.