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

⁨800⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨nahostdeutschland@feddit.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/22/the-tyranny-of-apps-those-without-smartphones-are-unfairly-penalised-say-campaigners

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Comments

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  • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Not having a phone really sucks in this day and age. Imagine getting out of jail for something stupid like marijuana possession and then a parole violation due to a missed appointment. No one will hire you with your rap sheet. You live in a halfway house with a bunch of petty BS every day. And you can’t keep up with your parole demands because of how much your lack of a phone gets in your way. At the end of the day, there IS a way to succeed if you make the right choices, but shit it’s just so much harder for some people to make the right choices when every day is crisis mode. And all because of WHAT?

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  • dukeofdummies@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    I for one cheer and root for my flip phone friends.

    I’d never do it, but we have one at work and he’s singlehandedly causing so much grief at work. Because none of the engineers wanna use a security app for login. They want a fob.

    IT refuses to pay for fobs and wants us to use an app, but they also don’t want to pay for a phone for anyone in engineering just to use the security app because it opens a floodgate of people with company phones.

    It’s just wonderful to watch this fight from the sidelines sipping tea.

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    • grepe@lemmy.world ⁨25⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      what’s the rationale for IT not wanting to pay for the fobs?

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  • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    The same goes for customer loyalty cards. All market tracking schemes should be rightfully banned.

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    • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.ca ⁨20⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      What ticks my off is that I have the stupid Safeway card and the stupid Kroger card. But now there’s more deals, better deals if I do a digital coupon requiring the app on my phone, too. It’s not enough to know about all the regular items in my home, from celery to toilet paper, but they also must need to hoover up all my digital into as well? Dude, just buy it from Meta or whichever jerks have it all. Half-price grapes ain’t the right price.

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  • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Phone apps are nothing more than modern toolbars. And in case you forgot or missed this phase of the internet…

    Image

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    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      needs more sheep

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    • Domino@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      I want a re-made Bonzi buddy with AI.

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨36⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        I don’t vouch for these, as I have not used them. But, I found this rewritten one and this one with LLM.

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    • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Peak internet wdym

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        No argument there, especially with Bonzi Buddy lol

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    • AstralPath@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Click to win a FREE LOBSTER Dinner 🦀🦞🦐

      Man I miss this era of the internet. It truly felt like a new frontier.

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I clicked, but all I got was a dancing stripper and something called Conficker.

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    • techforwhat@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Could you expand on that thought a bit more? How is an app like the internet tool bars of old?

      Genuinely curious. I’m a little too young to have experienced internet toolbars like the ones in your image.

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      • alekwithak@lemmy.world ⁨54⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Every service and site had their own malicious toolbar they’d ask you to install and / sneak it into the install for other software. They also came loaded with malware and or siphoned data from you. Older/more tech illiterate people would have browsers looking like the picture above and come to you wondering why their computer is so slow or why they keep getting viruses.

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      • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨59⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Hooboy

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    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      I missed that phase because I was using Netscape.

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        Then you didn’t miss it. You glossed over it, like a boss

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    • 486@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yeah, Bonzi Buddy!

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    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “2020 search”

      Bruh someone’s grandma needs help, we need to fix this computer, it looks like it’s about to get stuck on zombo.com.

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      • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world ⁨58⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Nothing wrong with getting stuck on zombo.com. After all you can do anything there.

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Or Jen hahaha

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    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Then you could agree with any barely computer-savvy person that such things should be killed with fire.

      Now a lot of very competent person will try to persuade you how you are a luddite and wrong, except 5-10 years ago they’d also promise some bright tech future in addition to that, and now you’re just wrong because they can exist in that environment and like it, and you can’t.

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      • 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        you can’t.

        Can, but refuse. Big distinction for me. I’ve lived through these arguments once already, and have watched their computers keep over and die several time from the viruses these toolbars often bring, and I will now watch as their phones do the same.

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  • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br ⁨50⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    comment unavailable

    If you want to read this content, please download our app:
    customblogs.vercel.app/download-our-app-please

    source
  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨36⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    I keep seeing this headline and thinking it’s a slur

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  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    everyone wants to force you to use apps instead of websites, because websites and browsers have inbuilt protections.

    Apps don’t.

    Idiots install apps, give them the 400,000 permissions they ask for, then go on their merry way…ignorant to the fact that they just installed a data vacuum on their phone thats siphoning everything off of it to be used and sold and resold for marketing purposes… Even the phone itself its not safe, cause its sitting there, listening to your conversations, even when not on a call, to more “Accurately” spam you with bullshit.

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    • Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Phones are not listening and if you have proof post it. No security researcher has ever posted this.

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      • alekwithak@lemmy.world ⁨56⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        [youtu.be/0dGqR4ue8dg?si=tA1s-S3jdz2SwEoo](Idk i trust Snowden’s take on this over yours)

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      • ArchRecord@lemm.ee ⁨50⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        See:

        • MindShift
        • Cox Media Group (Alternative non-subscriberwalled link here)
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  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    As I’ve been making an effort to replace apps with the browser version of the service. It’s so abundantly clear that companies don’t want you using their website.

    Even if they don’t outright cripple functionality, they’ll hound you endlessly to install the app.

    It’s infuriating to say the least.

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    • finder585@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Even if they don’t outright cripple functionality, they’ll hound you endlessly to install the app.

      Still don’t understand the logic of doing that.

      It’s like saying,

      “Our website is nigh unusable, please install our app instead. We pinky promise our app works”.

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      • Wrrzag@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        It’s because you have control over your browser, but they control their app and all its trackers, ads, etc

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  • Cool_Name@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I am still using a flip phone. My new goal is to make it to 2027 marking two decades of rejecting the smartphone era. Each time I consider compromising something gets even more awful about smartphones and I double down on saying no.

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    • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br ⁨44⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Don’t lose hope, lead the resistance!

      Out of curiosity, how many flip phones have you used since 2007?

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      • btaf45@lemmy.world ⁨36⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Out of curiosity, how many flip phones have you used since 2007?

        My current phone is a flip phone. A Samsung Galaxy Flip 5

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  • Sunshine@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    These useless apps make Linux phone adoption harder, fuck them!

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    • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br ⁨41⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      I still miss firefox os and feel sad for them not succeeding. Their app system could have become a multiplatform standard and allow us to have much more options in the smartphone market, as well as better desktop integration and interoperability :(

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    • throwback3090@lemmy.nz ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      that is your takeaway? You’re part of a cult if that’s really how you think.

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      • Sunshine@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Part of a cult for wanting more options…

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  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I use GraphineOS on my Pixel 7 and even I feel penalized for caring about my privacy. Its absolutely nonsense, not everything needs an app.

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    • DJDarren@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yeah. My bank is one of the few UK banks whose app won’t work with Graphene, which is irritating. Also, the lack of Wallet access for payment cards is annoying.

      But all in all everything else works fine.

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  • dirthawker0@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m in California where we have a grocery chain, Safeway. They’ve had a loyalty card for decades, which works great, gets you good deals, can be scanned by the checkout clerk or at self checkout. It also racks up points which can be used for discounts.

    About 2 years ago I started seeing signs in the store offering even greater savings through the app. There will sometimes be 2 signs side by side for the loyalty card vs the app. The app is always a better deal.

    So I downloaded the app and learned

    • the app cannot scan your membership at self checkout, you have to be checked out by a clerk
    • the app’s membership number is different from your loyalty card number and the two cannot be merged.
    • because of that your points can’t be transferred to the app

    It’s the dumbest thing ever. Why not just offer the better savings to the loyalty card? Isn’t that the whole point behind loyalty? I literally shop at Safeway less often now.

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    • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “It’s the dumbest thing ever. Why not just offer the better savings to the loyalty card?”

      it’s not a flaw. it’s a feature.

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    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Loyalty cards werent a great thing either.

      They werent to reward your loyalty, they were to tie your purchase history to an individual, So that information can be used and sold for marketing purposes.

      It was basically the prototype for the invasive, information stealing apps we have today.

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      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Can’t your purchases be tied to you via credit/debit card number? I mean obviously you can use cash, but I don’t see a lot of people using cash

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    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My GF laughs because I have no loyalty cards or apps and I laugh that she has one for everything.

      Loyalty rewards are bullshit.

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      • limelight79@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        In the US, if you don’t have the loyalty card, you’re paying more for groceries. For the stores we use, any sale prices are contingent upon using the loyalty card. This can add up to $5-$10 per order.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Food Lion (East coast, not sure if they’re national) has a fairly good loyalty program. Your loyalty card number on the physical card or in the app are the same, you can load coupons to it so they’re applied at checkout if they’re relevant, you can use their ordinary website if you don’t have/want to use a smart phone app…it’s non-cancerous.

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  • Zak@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Any time I’m required to use an app for something that could be a website, I leave the app a one star review.

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  • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    YES full support! I have and am sending this from my smartphone but I’ll stop going to your store before I download your stupid fucking app for a free mcflurry or whatever the fuck pisspoor excuse you have for installing malware on my devices.

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  • answersplease77@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    they make older phones become useless after ditching their support

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    • Stegget@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My S21 is on the verge of losing regular security updates, and I hate it. The battery is fine, the camera is more than adequate, I do not want to upgrade.

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      • limelight79@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Mine decided to randomly start rebooting about a year ago. :( Tried everything I could think of to get it to work normally, but nothing helped. I couldn’t rely on it, so I had to replace it. Like you, I hadn’t planned to replace it any time soon.

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      • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I have an S10e in service, it’s perfectly fine.

        I saw whoever has the Nokia name now is selling smart phones designed to be end user disassembled and repairable, but they’re really mum about how long their software support is.

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  • yesman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    There should be a warning label on any establishment or product that requires a smartphone to use.

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    • Ulrich@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      There was a food truck I went to one time that required you to download some app to look at their menu and order your food. They refused to accept a credit card or cash. I walked. So fucking stupid. I don’t know why people allow shit like that to exist.

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    • SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      How about this:

      At the apartments I recently moved out of, there were no quarter slots on the washing machines. They were an app that required a bluetooth connection to pay.

      So if you lived there and didn’t have a smartphone? Go fuck yourself, you don’t get to do laundry.

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      • white_nrdy@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Tbf, my building also uses an app for laundry. However they also have a machine in the laundry rooms where you can purchase an NFC payment card and put money on it. So you can use it without the app. Is that not the case with yours? If not, that’s 100% fucked

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      • LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        That…

        Is that not illegal?

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      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        quarter slots on the washing machines

        Thank god they decided to keep these free where I live

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      • Vinstaal0@feddit.nl ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        That depends a bit on if it was advertised or not to have a laundry room. At least here in NL it is more common to have your own washing machine than to use a shared one so having a laundry room would be an extra to start with.

        Still sucks though

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  • mtchristo@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Early 2000 wants its internet back

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  • SabinStargem@lemmings.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I am still on a flip phone. It is usually silent, and I don’t spend much time with it at all. While I am missing out on discounts and such, I simply hate the idea of constantly using a phone. Email is my telecommunication of choice, but receptionists don’t understand the idea, unfortunately.

    My household bought a Rinnai water heater, and the bastard needed a phone to set the temperature. Thing is, it couldn’t communicate with the two or three phones that were used on it. Fortunately, there was an old-school modification for a physical keypad, but that had to be bought separately.

    Phones are just not my thing.

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    • starlainjury@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I used a flip phone for a month to help curb my screen time addiction. The number of restaurants, stores, etc. that simply expect it of you to have a smart phone was eye opening.

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  • reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    also those who dont want to install that spyware shit on their phones. Even if you dont care about the data collection it still consumes battery faster as more and more data is being transferred

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    • benjaminb@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      McDonald’s (in Germany at least) needs your location to “see when you arrive at the restaurant”. What the hell?! That doesn’t even work properly and they force it on me! I uninstalled the app and now I am actually happy, because without the promotion and discount stuff, I don’t eat McDanks that often anymore.

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      • archchan@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        McDonald’s wants your IQ too. Seriously, it’s in their privacy policy.

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      • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I use an app for OTR (petrol chain in Aus) and they’ve removed the requirement for location which is… Unexpected, to say the least. Anything except using the pumps on the app no longer needs it when all orders previously needed it.

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    • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yeah, I couldn’t be arsed to install that shit. I’m also not taking out my phone for this kind of bullshit. I’m sick and tired of smartphones.

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  • BigTrout75@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yep, the homeless pay more!

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    • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Remember the meltdown over “Obamaphones”?

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  • ladfrombrad@lemdro.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I literally had to switch bank accounts because I couldn’t reset my password “on the web” and required me to use Virgin Money’s app.

    Customer service agent(s) on the phone after prolonged discussions why their app wouldn’t work on three Android phones right in front of me surfaced, and I shit you not

    Well sir, I have my iPhone here and can login just fine maybe you should buy one of those instead

    That day I found out about this

    www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk

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    • TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I also had to switch accounts because after an update, the banking app didn’t work any longer on my rooted phone and I couldn’t log in. Thankfully, I’ve been keeping two accounts since forever, with the main motivation being that banks really like changing their TOS and introducing all sorts of fees, which I don’t want.

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    • j4yt33@feddit.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Everything by Virgin is shit. I don’t understand why they’re so big

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  • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m shocked.

    Right off the top of my head, I can mention an entire finacial institution that only exists through an app. No website, no physical locations, no nothing. It’s one app and that is it.

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    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      I mean I use Cashapp, but I could also not use it and my life wouldn’t be much harder

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  • ambitiousslab@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This affects me a lot day to day. I have a phone, but it runs postmarketOS, not iOS or Android. It really shows me the importance of open standards. I feel that every business should be required to support open standards for each of the services they offer.

    For me, buying train tickets used to be ok, but is getting harder now. Some train operators are really pushing you to use their app now, and getting rid of the option to download a PDF. It really frustrates me: it’s not like it costs them more to offer PDF download - if anything, it’s much cheaper to offer that functionality than to build and maintain an app for iOS and Android.

    Back when I had an Android phone, I used Monzo, and it was so easy to send money to friends, set up standing orders etc. I wish they offered a proper web interface. Now, I use Natwest’s online banking, and it’s a real pain - I use the card reader to authenticate, then the website logs me out seemingly every 2 mins of inactivity. Some features, like pre-notifying that you’ll be travelling abroad, are only available on the app. I only see this trend continuing.

    The concert tickets example in the article is insane to me. I can’t think of a use case that is better suited for PDFs, and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 10+ years without any issues. It really is user hostile and excludes people on the edges of society who don’t fit, for whatever reason, with what the 80-90% do.

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  • CubitOom@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    If you don’t have a smart phone in the US, even temporally, your almost a second class citizen.

    Then if you don’t install corporate apps on your phone, there are even more problems for you.

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  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Even if I was willing to download all of those apps I don’t have room for them. They chew up 50-300mb each (why!?) and if I installed all of them I’d run out of memory. Since most phones now don’t support memory expansion I have to be picky about which ones I use.

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  • Xanthobilly@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s also a gigantic information harvesting ploy.

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  • distortwave@lemmy.ml ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The whole using your phone for everything from grocery shopping to just doing whatever Like getting deals or whatever?, Can it please go away?

    They’re collecting our data anyways.

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  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That is what I noticed. Everything these days require app to get shopping vouchers, book tickets, go in to your local gym, pay in store (we are being weaned off from using cash) etc.

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  • recursive_recursion@lemmy.ca ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    A mobile app requirement is an easy excuse for me to nope the fuck out.

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  • DarkSpectrum@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Cloudalist’s and their technofuedalism

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