It could only be the way it is, for time has passed and it ended up that way, or that is what determinism would say about it.

I would like to think that at least hard determinism is not true. I can agree on some things being predictable by means of statistics, a-priori knowledge, phenomenal experience, etc., but a predetermined totality of existence, I cannot possibly agree on that.

I believe this is mere cultural terminology.

I disagree. If you compare a mobile phone to a rock and declare: otter technology is in principle the same as human technology, I would tend to argue that we used to use rocks once as well, and that rocks are accessible to all species. Rocks occur naturally. But we have improved on that natural rock on such a fundamental level that I think you are comparing two different things, separated by a long (technological-) evolutionary path that led to us using mobile phones and otters still using naturally occuring rocks.