Submitted 3 months ago by nahostdeutschland@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
I wouldn’t mind these apps if there was actually a technical need for them beyond just being a Chromium component, but with added data slurping and pointless notifications.
If I have to use an app to use your product/store, I won’t use your product/store, with a side helping of go fuck yourself on top.
It’s true in many ways. If I buy McDonald’s without the app I pay more for it. If I fill up my gas tank without an app like upside, I pay more for it. There are services that aren’t even available to people without modern phones (I refuse to call them smart phones). Maybe we need legislation to ensure all available discounts, services and benefits are available to customers equally regardless of how they engage services.
It costs less with the app bexause you pay with your privacy and dignity. Now tgey can A/B test your behavioural patterns like a lab rat and create models to tweedle your knobs just right for optimal value extraction at the specified satisfaction level of you type or personnal prifile.
Then they can use what they learned against non-app users that are also human. It won’t be as accurate but they’ll probably guess your profile type just from environmental and anonymizer data footprint.
From tge cctv camera, gait tracking, face recognition, automatic demographic analysis, the car model and plate number you came with, your vocabulary grade when talking to the clerk and of cpurse the treasure throve of data they can buy from your credit card company, they’ll be able to know you as well as if you had the app. They might even end up knowing you better than yourself.
Pocket computer, phone is just an aspect of it. Surveillance capitalism monitors is what they are in the context you describe
Early 2000 wants its internet back
Eh. The internet was always shit because of scammers and useful idiots.
Really the only way to make it not-shit is to have governments step in and protect us from what useful idiots have been conditioned to accept as normal.
!smartphone_required@lemmy.sdf.org
i don’t have one. i don’t want one, either.
I use a dumbphone. I’m not buying a smartphone just so I can play these stupid games, and I’m installing an app for every fucking business I interact with. I realize there will one day be a point where I won’t be able to do things I need to do without one, but until then I have no desire for one. Fortunately they haven’t made the parking meters here require a smartphone yet.
My grocery store still uses loyalty cards for most discounts (which is irritating enough), but also has “digital coupons” that require an app so I can’t get that. Theoretically I could go to their website and print them off but that’s not worth the effort. I have to pay close attention to the price signs they put up because some of them say “with digital coupon” in small print, meaning “not for you, bitch”. You know who doesn’t pull this kind of shit? Walmart. So I wind up getting a lot of my groceries there so as not to be discriminated against.
Flipphones… I want a full keyboard phone again. Maybe even a slider full keyboard. Those were the days.
Apps… I evade most apps as much as i can or if i must use closed source apps, i will put them in a secondary profile.
I have a flip phone with a touchscreen so I can type via the onscreen keyboard. When I bought it I wondered how well it would work since the screen is so small, but it works great! So much easier than using the keypad. BTW it also has maps with voice navigation.
Walmart doesn’t let you use contactless pay unless you use their app. several times now I’ve gone there to grab a few things, not realizing i didn’t have my card with me, and had to leave a full cart behind because i will not install their adware.
Walmart doesn’t let you use contactless pay unless you use their app.
By “contactless pay” I assume you’re talking about paying by using a smartphone app? Obviously I don’t care about that because the whole point of my post is that I’m not using a smartphone, so obviously I have no apps of any kind.
But if by “contactless pay” you meant paying with your debit card by tapping it or holding it near the card reader, yes they do have that like everyone else.
Back in the day, Walmart and Apple fought over contactless pay standards for the US.
Apple’s standard was eventually mass adopted, and has Walmart refused to license the tech. So you have to use their app, which uses their own tech stack.
I’m open to hear if you guys disagree with me, but that is not simply about not having a smartphone as much as it is about not having cell service, not using data service. If a person uses a libre VoIP app, there is no need for cell service, and people actually can live happy lives disconnected from internet when they are outside or in public.
Society must revert their mentality and not expect constant immediate access to everything. Absolutely nothing happens on the internet for personal activity that can’t wait a few hours or the next day.
I use phone only for direct communication, zero multimedia, zero social media on phone. Everything else is done on computer. Especially banking, that is on computer website only for security, never on phone. I despise and resent using a phone for websites
If a person uses a libre VoIP app, there is no need for cell service
I don’t follow. Don’t you need internet for VoIP? Unless the point is to have a phone that gets zero connection while outside a wifi, which sounds kinda pointless?
Correct, use VoIP with wi-fi service instead of cell and data. It also makes the calls untraceable for location for best privacy practices. There’s no way to trace where in the world a phone is if using wi-fi to call standard phone numbers. For personal calling, not a work phone, some people don’t care about messages and calling when they are out walking, shopping, attending events. They want to focus on the real world around them, not phone stuff.
Society must revert their mentality and not expect constant immediate access to everything. Absolutely nothing happens on the internet for personal activity that can’t wait a few hours or the next day.
yeah ok so, counterpoint, you pull up to an EV charging station (it’s tesla because of course it’s tesla) please show me where the card reader is. I’ll wait.
Bad example. Tesla chargers don’t use an app, they assume you have an account set up with a credit card on file. Most people do that through the app but I don’t think you have to. Once it’s set up, it just works with no further interaction
“Continue reading this on the reddit/instagram/tik tok/blablah app” No, I didn’t need to see it that badly.
especially if you don’t have an iphone. I have seen so many accessories and apps that were made for use on iphones which would also be useful for android devices as well. my transplant clinic has a patient portal that has an app for iphones but nothing for android so you have to use their website.
I switched thermostats due to the old one failing, and getting a basic smart thermostat was required for a hefty rebate that basically made it free… and the one I have now, the app thought my not-major-brand phone was a tablet. I couldn’t hit the button to turn down the heat, only up, because it was cut off due to scaling.
So yeah, requiring apps for interface is bad. Even if you are willing to use it there’s so freakin many various versions of android that it’s guaranteed to not work properly for a whole swath of people, mostly those on budget devices.
Especially given that some of the common budget devices, like Huawei, lacks Google services. It is the reason why all the major banks here except one don’t require Google services.
I recently shared a meal with a female friend. Imagine how I’d look if I wasn’t able to get money transferred from her, because of not having a mobile banking app.
Y’all not heard of cash?
Get out of the stone age.
I’m probably gonna get clowned for feeding the troll, but - this comment comes off a lot more harsh if you’ve ever experienced not having access to the Internet and a smartphone or computer.
I spent the better part of 16 years of my life with no TV, MP3 player, phone, Internet, or computer - and it has negatively impacted me in immeasurable ways. I couldn’t find work, because I couldn’t apply for jobs but also I didn’t know you could do that on the Internet - I also didn’t know YouTube existed, so I missed out on learning the things I liked, and I didn’t know I was being abused because I had no way of knowing that it wasn’t normal until I got access to help, via the Internet.
I wasn’t in the stone age - if I’d had options to do any of the above without a phone or the Internet, I’d be a different person today. Shut up, mate - not everyone can afford or has the opportunity to own a smartphone and data plan (which are rare and expensive in abusive situations like my past). Making services available in places like libraries and community centers without requiring smartphones and Internet would help so many people who have no ability to use them - those people are humans too.
and by the way while we’re at it: if we’re effectively paywalling access to basic human rights behind an IP address and cellular radio, those should be enshrined as human rights too.
I was raised in the boondocks. You couldn’t get reception there back in the 90’s, and there weren’t any kids or neighbors that I could visit without having to be driven. My parents didn’t have any community at all, so I in turn never learned how to socialize properly. To say the least, I never became comfortable with phones, even after moving into civilization. It just wasn’t part of me.
Isolation from people is a huge disadvantage in life, you don’t get to make friends, network, or learn what it means to be part of society. Here’s hoping that cellphones and whatnot become rights, as you have said.
However, some states might provide SSI recipients a LifeConnect program. You get a free smartphone and low-end plan.
Someone make a smartphone that isn’t a steaming pile of shit then. The pinephone was so close but struggled with SMS when I tried it.
this comment makes me wish for a Carrington Event in the 21st century
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.
No way would I use that app.
We’re talking of what is, technically a bank (Moey), that entered my country through another bank. What is even stranger is that you can’t even go to one of those banks and make a deposit on you account.
I use the services of what you can consider the most de-materialized bank in my country, which has less than twenty physical locations in the entire country, but they have a very robust help line and you can use the locations of another bank in the same group to deposit money to your account.
But Moey? Either the money is wired in or your stuck.
I mean I use Cashapp, but I could also not use it and my life wouldn’t be much harder
I don’t know what Cashapp is but I’m going to take the risk and say it’s a fintech that handles direct money services. How off am I?
But I’m talking about a bank. The institution only exists through an app. Let’s say you do a odd job and you get paid cash. You can’t deposit that money: there is no place or way to do so.
the problem is also apple’s slow adoption (or outright refusal) to open up various web apis to make web apps more prevalent.
I keep seeing this headline and thinking it’s a slur
I have an app for that.
Even the homeless in my city have smartphones.
Get $50.
DarkSpectrum@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Cloudalist’s and their technofuedalism