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
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
yea, discovering is part of the fun
RIP what.cd’s amazing music discovery spider web chart
I leaned hard on Waffles top 10 and also turntable.fm rooms after college.
Now in my 40s, I’ma little bit stuck in the LCD Sound System era of electro indie.
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 HATED rap and whatnot when I was 12-19 or so. Apple too.
Now I’m constantly listening to clipping. and doneone and UGK (RIP Young Pimp C) on my iPhone.
Dunno I can’t stand the music I listened to in my teenage years.
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.
Well, it’s Disney so…
I WILL NEVER STOP LOVING THE BLOOD BROTHERS
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
Me neither. I wonder if that’s even true, because i see a lot of people changing tastes with age.
PWAs for the win!
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cut out avocado toast and Starbucks (sarcasm)
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
Oh cool, thanks for providing the source
That’s altogether BS. The bands I listen to have changed constantly since my teenage years. That’s just an excuse to become a ranting old man.
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.
Most people young or old don’t think about it and don’t care.
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.
Wait come back!! You dropped your cane!
An interesting experiment on the music thing. Top songs on your 13th birthday, at least for US/North Americans. https://www.birthdayjams.com
Wonder what they use your birthday for?
I don’t think that’s true. I like what I liked what I was a teen but more in a nostalgic kind of way. I definitely didn’t like harder metalcore in my teens the way I do now lol.
I realize you may just be venting but consider complaining to your college administration either via your student council or by yourself.
It should not be the norm to have to tell a stranger where you are to eat food.
You are paying for your education even if you are doing so via a loan and that gives you the right to tell them how you feel about them invading your privacy. In college and in jobs authority figures routinely try to control you and it is worth learning to take a stand against such abuses.
They literally could not give over fuck less. They are probably being paid or otherwise are getting done other kind of kickback to push these apps. Colleges are…I hesitate to say greedy, but let’s call it “capitalistic”.
I agree with the sentiment, but if no one ever complains things are guaranteed to not change. At least this is, at the very least, an exercise in explaining your own viewpoints and understanding the workings of an institution. That is a skill and lesson that is valuable in the professional world.
I went to college before it was app everything and our student id’s were smartcards. Dining plan associated with the smartcard. Just stick it in the reader when you show up and you’re good. You could put cash on your card then use it for the vending machines or laundry or any little incidental on campus. If you needed cashed added to your account, your parents could go online and do it, or you could. That was the only online component. The entire system just worked without any fuss or privacy concerns or anything.
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Our university made it so anything you can buy with the card was like 20-50% more expensive tho. I usually never bought anything on campus because of it :/
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Yeah it worked this was in the late 90s except your ID was a swipe card and it really only worked on food. You also had to go to the business office with a check to deposit more funds. Online was still dial up for most people.
Almost without any privacy concerns. When I went to college around the turn of the millennium, I worked at the main food court on campus. We had a card system just like you’re describing. When we swiped the student’s card to pay for their meal, their student ID would come up on my screen. Their student ID was their SSN. Back then the first three digits of a person’s SSN was based on the state they lived in when they got their number assigned. For most people that was when they were a baby or at least very young, and for most people that’s the state they did most of their growing up in. I used to have most of the codes memorized, so when I’d swipe someone’s card and see that they had an SSN from someplace that wasn’t the state where the university was, I’d mention it. “Oh, hey, you’re from Ohio? My aunt lives in Ohio.”
Yikes! That was a privacy nightmare. We were fortunate that the university assigned a personal ID on enrollment. I think the only place that had access to the social was the front office. Of course some of the students worked at the front office. I hope they were required to sign an NDA.
Yeah, same but they also worked as bus passes.
I like this too because it doesn’t require you to turn on NFC which I feel like drains power.
I mean, it does. But it’s such an insignificant amount you’d never notice.
If you got an hour of use out of your phone for instance, you’d only lose about 18 seconds runtime.
Huh, today I learned. I’d always assumed it was like Bluetooth or location.
How can people push back on this insanity? I don’t want 500 goddamn apps on my phone nor do I want 500 accounts on “portals” or what fucking ever your calling it today.
I agree with OP, but how do we resist the borg?
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Yet some local retailers somewhat insist on doing their own app.
One instead of a website where I could look at their course catalog and book had App Store/Google Play apps. They were terrible, and wouldn’t install on a still-supported Google Pixel phone, a friend with an iPhone tried the Apple version and said it was horrendous and uninstalled it immediately.
I don’t understand why they went with terrible custom apps, a responsive website would have been so much more convenient and easier to maintain! Also, call me old-fashioned but some things I just prefer doing from the comfort of my desktop with a nice big screen, keyboard, and mouse.
The 80s movie classic War Games has the answer:
STRANGE GAME…THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS NOT TOO PLAY…
In things where I can’t avoid an account, I use an email alias (personally I use Mozilla Relay, but Proton Pass offers logins as well if I recall.
Edit: for clarity, this adds at least a level of abstraction from my actual data. It’s not the only thing I do, such as blackhole DNS via PiHole, VPN in other scenarios, Tor for others (for those curious, pihole and Tor don’t work at the same time, and pihole and VPN generally doesn’t either without extra work and it’s not compatible with every VPN).
One way is to just lie and say you only have a flip phone. There are probably millions of old people that refuse to use smartphones because they don’t understand them and there no reason you can’t pretend to also have a dumb phone.
GREAT idea! I have both a flip and a smart phone.
An app in itself isn’t a bad thing… it’s the requirement that is wrong. Everything these days does seem to be geared around data mining and control. That well has to be getting awfully dry because it’s getting worse and worse.
You can’t even use many products without having an app that needs to be connected online so it can read your contacts and searches and such. Sites are getting harder to use if you have a DNS ad blocker or VPN on. Not sure where it ends…
It ends when out corporate overlords achieve the state of life depicted in Wall-E.
No.
It ends when we eat our corporate overlords. I look forward to sprinkling Torgo’s Executive Powder on my favorite dish.
I wish I could disagree with you but the path does seem pretty clear.
I can only speak from the experience of one app at one company, but data we collected was for troubleshooting. Mainly because customers will email us stuff like “your app doesn’t work!!! Worst company ever!!” And absolutely no identifying information whatsoever. To make matters worse they’ll email with an email that they didn’t give us as a customer so how in the world are we supposed to help‽
So we collect enough data so whoever in the company might need to help them can actually do so.
There’s a lot of “this app is impossible to use!!!” That we find out with enough data collection is just them refusing to hit the GIANT button in the middle of the damn screen that would solve their problem. I hate users.
I believe we answered questions in the Apple and Google stores that says that we collect information and send it to 3rd parties (because analytics platforms are technically 3rd party) but not to sell it. I don’t know if that distinction is clear on the stores though.I used to work in a job where we had a niche ebook reader app in the major app stores. My favorite review that someone left?
1 star, Worst game ever.
Collecting data relevant to the app is ok and logical. It’s collecting unrelated personal info I gave a problem with.
And i can sympathize with you regarding users. I design control system interfaces and sometimes I go to extremes to make it good for idiots. And i still get calls at 7am, have to drop everything else and drive 40 miles just to point out the giant red ALARM text i specifically put there to make things easier. It’s on the first fucking page!
It’s nice that remote access is easier now but some of these facility managers… i don’t know who puts their pants on for them because they don’t seem to be able to navigate treacherous logic and reason.
I hope I didn’t just quote your whole post, still trying to figure out boost hah
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.
Oh yeah, I definitely agree. Just pointing out it’s nowhere near as difficult/complicated to build or maintain apps for multiple platforms like it used to be.
instead of creating an Android app, iOS app and a desktop app.
Why do that when you can just have a buggy and crappy experience taylored specifically for each device?
My favorite barber was booked out recently, so I just walked into the next one across the road, which looked new and had no customers inside. Asked for the haircut, and he said sure, what’s your name and email address? I was confused and asked why he would need that, and he said it’s for his app to book appointments and charge customers.
I walked out without getting a haircut.
Good, that’s the only way people like that will change
That may be why he had no customers
Lol ok Boomer. Just say I’d rather not give that info
Well yeah, and his response was “sorry sir, but without an account we cannot serve customers…”
Then I’m an idiot.
Cute insult. Got any more you’d like to use?
Nah, it was a throwaway comment. Half a joke but it sure did make people mad.
And related, if your hardware product requires me to create Yet Another Account just to plug it into my computer and have it work, I’m returning it.
My apartment complex wants me to download some third-party app just to pay my rent, instead of using their perfectly serviceable web portal. I assume they’re getting a data harvest kickback that’s buried in several layers of fine-print legalese, which will be used to send me targeted spam and junk mail. And that data will be sold and re-sold to other parties ad infinitum. Whatever they can collect about my personal life, for sale to any asshole with enough cash in their pocket. Fuck that. I shouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit just to keep a roof over my head.
I was visiting family in the city I grew up in and we decided to go to this place that now charges for parking. It’s a city lot. I figured I have to get this app to park. The city app.
First, it was a nightmare of horrible bad UX and half-assed customization. Second, it took about 15 minutes of bs to pay for parking (time outs, a couple 2fa’s, we need you to use a social but we haven’t set up that login path correctly). Finally, get parking paid, my wife is losing her mind thinking I’m an idiot because it took so long, and then the spam calls started. I literally wasn’t into the building and I was getting spam texts and robo calls. I’m not talking “goods and services I might like” , this was “Canadian border services has determined you have unpaid fines” voicemails and “hi, i just found your number again can u text” type stuff. Just wild.
That’s terrible. So much data harvesting out there. It’s crazy. Cities and companies hire out to contractors that also do shady shit to the code to also harvest that data. It’s wild.
Does your lease precise you have to use the app or own a smartphone ? If not, get a cellphone, like those new 3210. Call them, ask them how to install, or visit their office. Play it dumb. Of they tell you to get a smartphone, tell them to provide you one.
Funny you mention enshittification, I just watched a talk from Cory Doctorow who coined that term and he pointed out the reason for insisting on an app is that it means you can’t block ads without violating the DMCA. Browsers can have adblocker extensions, apps cannot (unless you hack them.)
it means you can’t block ads without violating the DMCA. Browsers can have adblocker extensions, apps cannot (unless you hack them.)
I imagine this is just going to lead to more people using DNS ad blockers. My phone literally can’t access your ad server, sorry.
Private DNS FTW!
On Android:
- Swipe down and select settings (the gear)
- Search for: DNS
- Select Private DNS.
- Select Private DNS again.
- Select Private DNS provider hostname.
- Enter: dns.adguard.com
- Select Save
- Enjoy most ads being blocked in apps.
- Might work poorly on public wifi (Walmart wifi for example doesn’t work with a private DNS set).
On Apple:
- Fuck if I know.
Everytime I use this my WiFi stops working on my mobile.
Not sure why that would be. 🤷
Have you tried other private DNS servers? Curious if your Internet provider is blocking specific servers or DNS over HTTPS.
You are doing the lord’s work
I heard there are security concerns with this as adguard cannot be fully trusted. Anyone got the scoop?
Ed: as in didn’t adguard get bought by some questionable company?
Thanks!
As an app developer some people just get hard for an app and don’t know why they would want one.
It’s rarely some big plan just an ego thing
Unless someone makes a router that does that in firmware, there’s a lot of people who won’t bother.
Eero does but you have to pay a subscription fee and it’s an Amazon product.
So, blocks all ads but Amazon ads?
This one? It came up as the next post on sync:
My apartment “upgraded” us to digital locks and now we have to use an app to unlock our door. I was so pissed the entire time they were installing them. I don’t like the idea that the locks could run out of battery and keep us out, and I feel much more insecure in my apt. It also feels like our comings and goings can be spied on now. I hate this future.
Also annoying: you can’t leave the house without your tracking device anymore :/
The worst part of that is if your apartment management company gets phished then that person can now get into everyone’s apartment without setting off red flags to other residents since they can just unlock and walk right in.
I once had a dorm room lock run out of battery. It is beyond annoying, I’m sorry for your loss.
I installed something similar at my house, just a keypad, not app connected. It’s awesome. But a key will still unlock it. They are wonderful if it’s not connected to the Internet.
Hopefully you’re looking at different place now
Electric locks are supposed to fail safe. So if they run out of battery, they should remain open, not closed.
That does not sound awesome either. I Leave the apartment locked up, return to find the front door wide open because the battery died while I was out getting milk.
My keypad lock has a regular lock as a backup… Why not just do that.
Can’t agree more. And the issues go beyond data harvesting. For example, recently, I lost my phone and carried on for a while without it, only to realize we’re building a society in which we are slowly losing our citizenship rights if we don’t have a phone. I found myself locked out from many things, and having to go so many alternate routes, that I had to get a new phone quickly.
It all happened so subtly, and I saw it happening, but still, it’s hard to believe we came to this point without the people manifesting some sort of opposition. I get even more worried about the developing countries, where not everyone can properly afford a phone.
I think we are the frogs being boiled in the pot of enshittification
I’ve been called a crazy conspiracy theorist since 2009 and my first Android. Hated all the sync/tracking Google was doing that was killing my battery then. Disable Google, and now I get a full day’s battery, back then.
People still don’t listen to me about this issue, 10+ years later.
Those google apps are also the number 1 reason of phones getting slower over time and leading people to buy new ones. Fuck google.
Yep. Currently setting up my next phone - Pixel 4a. It won’t have any Google services. Gonna just bite the bullet and move on.
I went to join Planet Fitness, they insist on an app. They watched me leave. Kroger charged more than advertised, ooooh it was a digital coupon only available through the app. I left the item with the cashier. Order out? Only on an app? I guess I didn’t want to eat that so much anyway.
Edit to add: I don’t know how we are going to deal with apps that are forced upon you, that feels really gross especially if you are younger, like at your school. Forced commodification should be illegal.
Not going to do it, it feels controlling and abusive and I’ve worked too damn hard to let that shit go on.
I opened a bank account at Bank of America. Apparently it was just a matter of course to make people install the BOA app before opening an account. I practically had to fist fight them to get them to drop it. It was like they got commissions for every app install or something. Scary, honestly.
At least I learned from the experience that “I actually don’t have the Play Store on my phone” isn’t a good way to get them to drop it. I guess next time I get hard sold on an app, I’ll go the “I’ll decline the app, thanks” route. We’ll see whether that works or not.
I wonder if “oh I’m using some Nokia dumb phone” would have gotten them to stop
I figured “my phone’s weird and I don’t have the Play Store and can’t really install the app” would do it, but it really really didn’t.
Two different people pressured me to install the app. Both pressured me hard to show them (not at the same time, one after the other) that I didn’t have the Play Store. (And, yeah, I should have walked out before it got that far, but I’m not proud to admit I didn’t.)
The second one pressured me hard to go to such-and-such URL and download the BOA app in a way that didn’t require the Play Store. (Honestly, I was an extremely late adopter of smart phones. I didn’t and still don’t really fully know my way around them. And didn’t know you could just download an APK via a browser and install it. To be fair, I guess I still don’t know that for sure, because it didn’t work when this guy got me to do it.)
After that didn’t work I was like “it’s not like BOA doesn’t have a web app, right?” and hevery disapprovingly told me “but you know the web app isn’t secure.” I can’t say I’ve been literally shocked speechless many times in my life, but this was is one of them. (This was after I told him I’m a software engineer by trade. In fact, I’m a web developer and I’m the web application security guy on my team. Ha!)
I think “it won’t work on my phone” made these folks go into tech support mode. That surprised me. I figured they’d be fairly tech inept and not really want to get into a whole technical discussion. Which is why I’m thinking “I’d rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in my ear than install your app” might bypass the “tech support” conversation to the distainful lecturing one.
What about “hello I’m your customer and I’m not installing your app.” End of argument.
How about a “I don’t trust your app”
And then when they persist, go to the store and ask them for each permission why the app needs it.
This is what I told my employer’s IT system. They have an app for non-standard 2fa that I had no interest in configuring so now I just get phone calls.
Not surprised; BOA is the fucking Taco Bell of banking. The only one worse that I can think of is Wells Fargo.
Just put my oldest child in school this year and I had to download FOUR apps. Four fucking apps. Why? This could have been a Progressive Web App and a push notification service. There is no need for this.
I think a lot of the time for universities it’s cause they’re not building their own custom tools for this stuff, just using off the shelf solutions that they can implement locally. So they just grab one app or system for each different thing they need instead of building one connected one.
Yeah I’m a programmer at a community college and this is like us. Although we don’t have any apps, we have different web apps that we use. My current job is trying to use the APIs for each of them to try and build cards in one central web app that bring in the functionality from the other web apps to minimize the amount of time you spend going from web app to web app
Have you considered refunding the child?
PWAs still lock you into the Chrome ecosystem since Firefox doesn’t support them (without plugins and pain).
Firefox for Android does support them fully, it’s just desktop Firefox that doesn’t have pwa support.
Safari supports them.
You often can use web apps (of sorts). Most of those apps mirror the functionality of an already existing mobile web page. Then you just make a little web app container of that mobile site.
