TBH I dont use an app for anything that can be done in the browser, especially when mobile websites ask me tl get their app.
I recently re-downloaded the Michaels app while I was in the Michaels checkout line just so I could apply a $5 coupon that the register failed to read from the app anyway.
There's your problem right there.
Does this author not understand how dumb this makes him look? You downloaded an entire app for a $5 coupon on something you probably were overcharged for in the first place?
Even when you’re lacking in a store-specific app, your apps will let you pay by app. You just need to figure out (or remember, if you ever knew) whether your gardener or your hair salon takes Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or one of the new bank-provided services such as Zelle and Paze.
If only there was a universal form of payment that you could keep in your pocket and pull out to use anytime with very minimal interaction. Maybe a card or something.
Apps are all around us now. McDonald’s has an app. Dunkin’ has an app.
Why are you using them?
Every chain restaurant has an app. Every food-delivery service too: Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Chowbus.
Why are you using all of them??
Every supermarket and big-box store. I currently have 139 apps on my phone. These include: Menards, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Joann Fabric, Dierbergs, Target, IKEA, Walmart, Whole Foods
Why the fucking hell do you need any of these?!
This is literally the 2024 equivalent of your mother having a dozen toolbars in Internet Explorer because she kept clicking on coupons.
Just go to the place, pull out your credit card, pay the cashier, and leave. How the hell does any functioning adult blame the technology when they have this little self control?
Honestly, if there were a simpler way to sell their personal data to retailers for people who want to do so, that probably would be more appealing for the users.
Not sure anyone actually read the article, cuz yall are talkin about apps vs. web sites, and data collection. Two points which are briefly covered, but ultimately shrugged off in favor of the larger thesis:
Smartphones … meant [companies] could use their apps to off-load effort. … In other words, apps became bureaucratized. What started as a source of fun, efficiency, and convenience became enmeshed in daily life. Now it seems like every ordinary activity has been turned into an app, while the benefit of those apps has diminished.
I’d like to think that this hellscape is a temporary one. As the number of apps multiplies beyond all logic or utility, won’t people start resisting them? And if platform owners such as Apple ratchet up their privacy restrictions, won’t businesses adjust? Don’t count on it. Our app-ocalypse is much too far along already. Every crevice of contemporary life has been colonized. At every branch in your life, and with each new responsibility, apps will keep sprouting from your phone. You can't escape them. You won’t escape them, not even as you die, because—of course—there’s an app for that too.
It’s not simply the code delivery mechanism, and it’s not whether the data exchange is safe from prying eyes… It’s the fact that a digital UX has invaded every aspect of human interaction, including mourning.
At every branch in your life, and with each new responsibility, apps will keep sprouting from your phone. You can't escape them. You won’t escape them, not even as you die, because—of course—there’s an app for that too.
Except that's just straight up not true. You can't escape it? You can't escape installing the Michaels app to get a $5 discount coupon?
I'm absolutely flabbergasted by what I'm reading here because I have no idea what the hell any of these people are doing in their lives where they're collecting this many apps out of necessity. This is entirely selection bias. They seem to be incapable of resisting the pull of trashy, useless apps, and insist the whole world is.
Nothing is stopping you from walking into any of these businesses, getting your purchase, paying with a card, and leaving.
I like apps for stores I frequent. Most people do.
Having 150+ is a personal problem.
This....is a BATTERY SUCKING LIE PEOPLE!! - Aldi ad
You can do almost anything with a website that you could do with an app. The only reason they are pushing the apps so hard is because they can collect a lot more data than a website can.
As Cory Doctorow put it, "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it."
The cloud is many things, but most of all, it's a trap. When software is delivered as a service, when your data and the programs you use to read and write it live on computers that you don't control, your switching costs skyrocket. Think of Adobe, which no longer lets you buy programs at all, but instead insists that you run its software via the cloud. Adobe used the fact that you no longer own the tools you rely upon to cancel its Pantone color-matching license. One day, every Adobe customer in the world woke up to discover that the colors in their career-spanning file collections had all turned black, and would remain black until they paid an upcharge:
The cloud allows the companies whose products you rely on to alter the functioning and cost of those products unilaterally. Like mobile apps – which can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking legal liability – cloud apps are built for enshittification. They are designed to shift power away from users to software companies. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it. A cloud app is some Javascript wrapped in enough terms of service clickthroughs to make it a felony to restore old features that the company now wants to upcharge you for.
I legitimately want to scream sometimes as I feel the continual death of local computing and actual software, and it depresses me to no end how few businesses or users see it for what it is.
And it's exactly this: a trap. A trap users people are racing into, and they have no idea, at all, how bad it's going to get when the doors close behind them.
The rest of us are left with little recourse. Looking at the difference between Outlook and New Outlook is genuinely depressing because that's the future we're all being shepherded into against our will. I swear, in like 10 years, Windows will mostly just be a kiosk for Edge.
Windows will mostly just be a kiosk for Edge.
I think for the vast majority of average users this has been true for a long time.
This is the main reason why I seldom install anyone's "app".
Most of these apps aren't true apps anyway, they're just customized browsers that lead you to a website and are free to collect as much data from you and your phone as they want.
I'll go on your website first if I have to and 9 / 10 I get what I want. Besides, I'll only ever visit the service once or twice so I don't need to install a permanent app on my phone for that.
Also desktop mode to circumvent those phone detection systems and trying to force an app.
Desktop mode plus zoom out on iOS, sometimes… then over to a desktop browser app when that falls. Sigh
I wish. Every fucking bank has their own shitty app for 2FA instead of just using standardized and proven TOTP, no way around that.
Same about school apps the article mentioned since it's connecting to their (one of many) proprietary system, no website for that.
And recently got into the home automation rabbit hole. Lots of devices that require their fucking app, sometimes with mandatory cloud account, just to connect! And people in reviews even praise how easy it is, it's infuriating! I don't need light bulbs connecting to the internet, thank you very much.
I get emails from school, with a link that opens a 3rd party app, which only displays a link that opens in the default browser. I've asked the school to just send me direct links to the announcements, but they say they can't. The site doesn't require authentication, but the URLs have UUIDs so I can't just guess what the link would be. The app is quite literally just a data exfiltration layer that does everything it can to make sure you can't bypass it. Good luck getting any other parents to give a shit though.
I returned a bunch of smart outlets I got at Home Depot after I got fed up with waiting for the app to launch just to turn a light on or off.
I also don't want to have to talk to it, so switching to Home Assistant with Zigbee button remotes has made my experience so much better. And on the plus side, everything still works when the power or Internet goes out because I've got it on battery backup.
Ha, sucker, you think your non-Internet-connected lightbulbs make you safe? My Internet-connected lightbulbs have sent my online-car to wardrive your neighbourhood and sniff your Zigbee network!
…if you see my car please tell it to come back to me, I need to go to the shops…
The number I remember seeing was that on average, app users are seven times more profitable than web users. Sorry, no citation.
I suspect there's some selection bias in that regular/loyal users of a particular product or service are more likely to install the app, but it also affords the company greater access to send notifications and collect data. On the rare occasion that I install some random company's app for a specific benefit, I remove it when I'm done.
My favorite part of the 30 day dumb phone challenge I did recently: I couldn't install your crappy app even if I wanted to.
A little over halfway through the challenge, was paying for my order at a local eatery, and the cashier started plugging their new app and rewards points and digital coupons and shit. I was like "I'm gonna stop you right there: flip phone." and pulled it out of my pocket and brandished it like I was the sheriff of Luddite-ville.
Kinda like this, but "Flip phone!"
I was like "I'm gonna stop you right there: flip phone." and pulled it out of my pocket and brandished it like I was the sheriff of Luddite-ville.
I...is the implication you would have no other choice but to install their app if you didn't have a flip phone?
I'm baffled by these comments. Who the hell is actually listening to these people and installing apps on their phone just because a cashier mentioned it?
I just tell them 'no'.
Yeah........try that in CVS.
"No no, I'd rather NOT have a reciept that's 3 miles long, because I bought a candy bar....."
But we already cut down 3 trees just for you!
"No."
"Oh, you're taking this irrelevant slip of paper! We have armed guards to make sure you do! There is a world war 2 tank outside that will crush you, and blow up your car! I know it's not really a war worthy tank, and in that sense it's obsolete, but it can still more than handle your toyota geo. Now then....take....the....reciept!
NEVER!!!!
GUARDS!!!!
And then a Kill Bill-esque fight scene breaks out. You know, like when she fought the crazy 88s. Except instead of a group of ninjas headed by a 14 year old Japanese girl, it's a group of swat team members headed by a 17 year old CVS register worker wearing a red CVS vest that he uses as a choking hazard on you in the fight.
Your goal is to dodge bullets, matrix style, while disarming one guard to shoot the rest of the guards dead, so you can fight this CVS employee one on one, as wave after wave of reinforcements constantly change the dynamic of the battle.
Finally, after defeating all the guards, you return to your car to return home, and as you make your turn onto the main road, thats when you see it. A world war 2 era tank firing mortors at you, as you're forced to weave all over the road. Other cars exploding, you're all over the road, a helicopter has joined the chase. Suddenly the helicopter is firing air to surface missles, and as you dodge them, they blow up the tank.
The helicopter then lands right in front of you on the highway. As you prepare for the final battle, the door opens it's your wife. You both embrace, and take off in the helicopter. Forever on the lamb. Always running from the threat of CVS employees that can strike at any time.
What on earth are you people talking about?
I got CVS all the time for random things, I've never once been pushed to use an app, nor have I ever encountered anyone that is legitimately pushing you to do anything after a simple no.
Really? You never used kung-fu to disarm swat teams, killing dozens with their own guns, while never taking damage yourself? You never sped through your local streets as tanks shot mortors at your toyota geo?
You're telling me your wife never saved you with rockets fired from a helicopter in a high speed highway chase?
Yeah........you didn't read a single sentence of the comment you replied to, did you? Aw hell. What makes me think you'll read THIS far into the message??? Tiktok is just what this generation has been needing. An entire generation of kids who don't waste their time reading!
I don't go to CVS because they make the whole experience exhausting.
May I introduce you to RadioShack? Where they used to prompt you to sign up for a credit card, ask to record your personal info on a RadioShack loyalty card system (that nobody seems to remember), and one time, the lady asked me to impregnate her. I'm unclear if that was RadioShack policy, or if she was just itching. Either way it was kind of messed up, because I was 14. I looked and sounded older, but I was 14. She was like 30ish.
Gonna just leave us hanging on this one?
That's what I used to do, but a good portion of the time they'd continue their spiel to try to change my mind. Have only had to brandish the dumb phone once, but so far it's got a 100% shut down success rate.
That's what I used to do, but a good portion of the time they'd continue their spiel to try to change my mind.
Where are you shopping where you are routinely encountering cashier's that are this pushy about the apps? The overwhelming majority of cash register attendance are underpaid employees that are just trying to get you through the line. They said the line because they have to say the line, but most have no intention of really trying to sell you on it.
Once upon A time, these things were just rewards programs, with the key ring bullshit. Were you signing up for each and every one of them too?
I just tell them I don’t have a phone. Even if I’m still holding it in my hand. Most don’t want to engage. They likely figure they’re not payed enough for that.
Just say 'no thank you'
Same.
Cashier: "What's your phone number?" (For the store tracking/rewards/whatever)
Me : "Don't have one!" (As I remove the credit card from the case on the back of myphone)
Nobody has questioned it once. They don't want to ask in the first place but are forced to.
If the apps wouldn't be slow React Native or whatever "multiplatform framework" crapware, then I'd actually say that well designed, native Swift UI (iOS) or Material (Android) apps can enhance the user experience for a lot of services that are otherwise offered via website. Native integrations with shortcuts, widgets, fully supporting accessibility features of the OS etc.
The problem is most apps are just low-effort web app conversions.
The problem is most apps are just low-effort web app conversions.
If only that. Web apps are relatively well sandboxed. Most dedicated apps (that should be websites) are designed to harvest as much data as they can and spam you with notifications/ads.
Hell I use my garden diary selfhosted service via a wepapp (hortusfox).
Just put a direct link on my homescreen. With the included favicon it almost looks like a native app.
Do most people even know what a phone app is??!
You know what else is overrun? Paywalls or other “requirements” where I need to signup and/or pay to access something that should be free.
Don’t get me started on those fullscreen ad interstitials that force me to watch an ad I’m not interested in before I can continue either.
Let’s face it, the Internet today fucking sucks and it’s partly to do with these so-called news outlets like the Atlantic.
I miss the days when barely anyone heard of the web. Sure, it wasn’t as feature rich, but then again, those features are overly abused in the name of capitalism anyway. It’s like those strip malls that have nothing but shitty restaurants, nail salons, and tax preparers. Gone are the days of fun stores like hobby shops, comic book stores, local mom & pop toy stores.
They just sucked the fun out of it all. 😡
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
