I have recently started a new position and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy in order to get your food when it would literally work perfectly fine ordering to a real cashier or shit even a website rather than having to download an app.
I have also read many stories of people that live in apartments that require them to use a mobile app for god damn LAUNDRY. All you need, is a card reader, and it will work perfectly fine like it has been for the longest time.
Privacy concerns aside, it is just annoying that you need this app and that app and this app and that app and it just clutters space on your phone. Security concerns too as now they have all of this additional info on you online, such as your phone number your email your real name, instead of just your credit card info like a card reader would have. And I am willing to guarantee that their security model is absolute horseshit because they have such a small team of engineers working on the app and the servers.
Literal enshitification
Magne
Are you using apple or android? If you are using android check out adguard. It runs a local VPN and filters that shit out. I’ve actually had to white list some apps like geico because it broke them and they weren’t using (as far as I can tell) any fb or other data collection trackers.
While this is the recommended way for us tech savvy people to block trackers, it still doesn’t change this enshitification shift with data harvesting apps.
Not arguing that. I’m simply providing an option for those situations where you have no choice. Your other option may be to buy an old pixel or something and use it only for those apps that you can’t not use.
And as far as tech savvy? No, even the tech unsavvy to install it and set it up. Adguard isn’t pihole, you don’t have to run your own server, it does all of the work and if you can manage to browse tiktok or Twitter, you can use the app to white list any apps that need it to function properly.
I have seen maybe 10 ads in the past decade between adguard, noscript, etc. The times I’ve seen ads has been because I had to turn off adguard for a reason or forgot that I had a specific browser whitelisted for a reason.
Honestly its fucking annoying literally had to make several user profiles just for my work life and my other invasive activities
A person’s music taste seems to crystalize at some point in their teenage years. The bands you loved at 15-17 are probably the bands that you’ll love forever.
Likewise, I’m finding that my relationship with information services as a whole probably crystalized a while ago, and the new era of “apps for every individual thing” is just wholly unappealing. Give me a web browser to interface with your information. If I can’t get it done with that, I’m more likely to move on to some even older tech and skip your product altogether.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late to bingo. And get off my lawn.
Me: “seems to” “at some point” “probably” while making a minor, secondary point. Others: Severely Triggered
I’m doing my best to constantly listen to new music every week to keep fresh and malleable in my taste
For me it depends on the mood. New stuff is fun, but stuff I know can be instantly trabsportative to moods or mental spaces and it feels good. New stuff can be too mentally engaging if I’m trying to do focus work or zone out. I think I listen to less new stuff now because I’m usually wanting to zone out with music more than actively engage with it.
I dont listen to anyone I liked as I kid cause they all came out as sex traffickers and pedophiles.
now I just listen to disney music, and waiting for the inevitable horror revelations with regards to those.
I don’t know if anyone growing up these days would actually like mobile app requirements if they took the time to think about why they’re required. Source: I’m one of them.
The bands you loved at 15-17 are probably the bands that you’ll love forever.
Thank god that wasn’t the case. Listened to some awful shit as a kid
An interesting experiment on the music thing. Top songs on your 13th birthday, at least for US/North Americans. https://www.birthdayjams.com
I’m finding that my relationship with information services as a whole probably crystalized a while ago
You are correct but it goes further:
Any tech that existed before you start school is completely natural and quite boring.
Any tech that is invented while you still care about new tech (this can be anywhere between 15 and 45 as it depends on the person) is exciting and cool.
Anything after that is squarely in get off my lawn territory and a bit scary and confronting.
Everything that’s normal between age 10-20 is just as it is.
Everything you get to know between 20 and 30 is the hot new shit.
Everything after age 30 is just another fad you don’t want to invest time to get to know anyway
I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
- Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
- Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
One of the credit card companies I use has a website that won’t work properly anymore in my phone’s browser.
My wife has a card through this company as well and she uses their app with no problems.
I have zero interest in installing their app so once a month I fire up my surface pro just to pay that damn bill.
It used to work just fine in the phone browser though.
Should probably just cancel that shitty account one of these days.
I refuse to use services that demand you use their app.
Services only need a website for the most part, not only is this easier for development cost but it is simplier to create a mobile friendly website instead of creating an Android app, iOS app and a desktop app.
To be fair, there are frameworks like Flutter nowadays that let you build your app once in one language and it will build/compile an iOS, Android, and web app for you.
True, I am all for Flutter and Tauri. However websites are better for sevices since it is not likely the company will release a fully open source app or APIs for developers to build apps for the service. There are many web clients out there that are open source and allow for a good private web experience.
And even if a company does release a FOSS app, it is hard to get the company to release the app on alternative app stores like F-Droid.
Also I do not want a million apps on my phone taking up space, that could be running in the background and harvesting my data. Websites or PWA are like one-time apps you load in the browser, use and the close to discard, especially when you use your browser private mode.
I use the work profile via Insular/Island, and certain apps I don’t like but do want I put in there, and freeze whenever not in use.
