Comment on ‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners

• AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Presumably they’re expensive and someone needs to manage them.

  My company’s approach is “we’ll pay your phone bill if you use an Authenticator app on your phone.” Cheaper for them, plus they don’t need to buy company phones or fobs, and who’s going to complain about their phone bill getting paid?

  A previous company tried similar but required putting your phone under enterprise management. A lot of us disagreed with that

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  • scottywh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    They’re not expensive at all.

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    • AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Well, my old company sure made a ridiculous profit selling them. You may be looking at the cost per fob hardware, but not including the management cost. They are much more expensive than an authentication app, plus authentication apps are mostly managed by someone else, and you don’t have distribution overhead

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      • scottywh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        In my experience, the only thing that really made them more difficult than managing end users who were using an authentication app instead was having to facilitate getting the fob to the users and replacing them occasionally and they were dirt cheap… Like less than $5 apiece.

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      • grepe@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        what exactly is the management cost here?

        at my old company they simply ordered a yubikey for you amd forgot about it. nobody kept track of it. i didn’t even need to return mine when i was leaving. the part they manage is the user account. the hardware you get once and use for added security…

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• Fedizen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Managers probably sold apps as a cost cutting measure

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• Pacattack57@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  My job does this too. It’s literally just cost cutting. The fobs expire and need to be replaced every so often but the app lasts “forever”.

  IMO the fobs pay for themselves because what they are spending on fobs is the same as what they’re spending on IT members answering calls all day for employees that are having login issues with the app.

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  • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I worked a job where I had to have an app that tracked me wherever I went. I finally had to tell my boss I couldn’t use it anymore because it was killing my battery in like 3 hours.

    If I was still working and a job wanted me to put an app on my personal phone I’d tell them to go fuck themselves.

    Just another way capitalists thieve money from its workers.

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