‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners
‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners
From loyalty cards, to restaurant meal deals or simply parking your car – it is harder and harder to get by without signing up to a multitude of apps
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?
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.
what's the rationale for IT not wanting to pay for the fobs?
The same goes for customer loyalty cards. All market tracking schemes should be rightfully banned.
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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https://customblogs.vercel.app/download-our-app-pleaseeveryone wants to force you to use apps instead of websites, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of apps are just websites..in a app wrapper, because normal websites and normal browsers have inbuilt protections for you.
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.
Phones are not listening and if you have proof post it. No security researcher has ever posted this.
[https://youtu.be/0dGqR4ue8dg?si=tA1s-S3jdz2SwEoo](Idk i trust Snowden's take on this over yours)
See:
- MindShift
- Cox Media Group (Alternative non-subscriberwalled link here)
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.
Don't lose hope, lead the resistance!
Out of curiosity, how many flip phones have you used since 2007?
Out of curiosity, how many flip phones have you used since 2007?
My current phone is a flip phone. A Samsung Galaxy Flip 5
Phone apps are nothing more than modern toolbars. And in case you forgot or missed this phase of the internet...
needs more sheep
I want a re-made Bonzi buddy with AI.
I don't vouch for these, as I have not used them. But, I found this rewritten one and this one with LLM.
Peak internet wdym
No argument there, especially with Bonzi Buddy lol
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.
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.
Hooboy
Click to win a FREE LOBSTER Dinner 🦀🦞🦐
Man I miss this era of the internet. It truly felt like a new frontier.
I clicked, but all I got was a dancing stripper and something called Conficker.
I missed that phase because I was using Netscape.
Then you didn't miss it. You glossed over it, like a boss
Yeah, Bonzi Buddy!
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.
you can't.
Can, but refuse. Big distinction for me. I've lived through these arguments once already, and have watched their computers keel over and die several time from the viruses these toolbars often bring, and I will now watch as their phones do the same.
I keep seeing this headline and thinking it's a slur
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.
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".
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.
"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.
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.
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.
My GF laughs because I have no loyalty cards or apps and I laugh that she has one for everything.
Loyalty rewards are bullshit.
Early 2000 wants its internet back
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.
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.
I mean I use Cashapp, but I could also not use it and my life wouldn't be much harder
they make older phones become useless after ditching their support
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.
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.
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.
These useless apps make Linux phone adoption harder, fuck them!
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 :(
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yep, the homeless pay more!
Remember the meltdown over “Obamaphones”?
I have an app for that.
Any time I'm required to use an app for something that could be a website, I leave the app a one star review.
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.
I have THREE separate parking apps because I travel.
most phones now don’t support memory expansion
Well of course not. If phones supported memory expansion you would just buy more memory, instead of buying an entirely new phone Don't even get me started on how bloated these apps have become. I used Paperclip word processor on a Commodore-64; you can not convince me that your app needs to be 50+ Megs in size.
I actually wrote my own text editor for the C-64
And that's one of the benefits from open source apps. I have a very low end and dated phone, and yet I have more apps installed and hardware functionality than the average person, because I grab everything I can from f-droid. It's amazing how much smaller and performant everything is.
The reason they're so huge is
- They're generally not well optimized by the creators.
- They all contain their own dependencies
- There's a LOT of stuff in them (both code and dependencies). Which is kind of an optimization problem, but potato potato.
Every app is a bundle of a full website and spyware.
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
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.
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.
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.
The reason venues don't allow PDFs is so that you're forced to use their own platform for resale where they take a commission.
apps allow user tracking and advertising though. Much more valuable to the corpos than a few lost customers.
Also mich More valuable to Google, as they are the biggest Advertising company. I looked it up and according to this source they have ~70% of the pay-per-click market.
There should be a warning label on any establishment or product that requires a smartphone to use.
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.
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.
Unless you bothered to check the laundry room when you were looking at the apartment, you wouldn't know. No warnings.
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
That...
Is that not illegal where you live?
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
quarter slots on the washing machines
Thank god they decided to keep these free where I live
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.
I can't even go to a high school football game without having an app.
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
Everything by Virgin is shit. I don't understand why they're so big
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.
It’s also a gigantic information harvesting ploy.
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.
I flat-out refuse to do business with any that requires I use an app. I won't even scan a QR code for a restaurant menu; that's my cue to go eat elsewhere.
Worst thing about qr menus for me is that when I finally order, I have to give my phone number and address. Bro, I'm sitting across from the kitchen and just want dumplings. Why I gotta dox myself for that?
I don't mind the whole online menu thing. It's probably an environmental net positive, but it's bs if they don't have ANY physical copies for those who can't or don't want to for whatever reason.
If they wanted me to install something, though, that'd be a 100% instant nope.
Scan QR code. Order on your phone. Pay on your phone. Asks for a tip.
So uh, what exactly am I tipping you here for dawg?
that stuff is nice as an option. There's a bar I go to that I can order my food and drink to the table my friends are at, while I'm walking to the place, and everything just arrives shortly after I sit down. Other people get offended about how fast I get served, it's always amusing. I also enjoy not interacting with the staff, nothing against them, brain just doesn't brain sometimes.
But what if I didn't have a phone? or if I left home without it? 24/7 pocket rectangle is not natural.
The funny thing about qr codes for restaurant menus to me, as someone that studied menu design. Is that actual menus are designed specific ways make the restaurant more profit and make it easier for people to find what they want. Whereas qr codes often bring one to a hastily designed list of categories which are not only less intuitive but also less manipulative. So people will end up taking longer to order less profitable dishes.
I've been to some that try to upsell you during the checkout process. Big pop up comes up "Add x to your order for $y.99!" Shut the fuck up!
Hell yeah, consumer win. I like selecting an item and it offers me changes or addition options that I never would have considered!
But really, it means they can hire less people so they gain profit anyway.
Dennis Takes a Mental Health Day is probably the most accurate portrayal of me ever written.
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.
You can still live in the US without apps... For now
Social Friendly Browser can usualky get around this
Cloudalist's and their technofuedalism
A mobile app requirement is an easy excuse for me to nope the fuck out.
My old apartment had gates that could only be opened with an app. They took out the card reader and made it app only. Should have gotten out of there much earlier than I did.
the gates that slide over using a chain, they often have a removable link at the end. If you unhook the chain on the opener side, it will open one more time, then spit all the chain out trying to close it. I used to take that link out when living in complexes with those gates. Made life easier for most. Would take months for it to get fixed. They are just standard 1/2in x1/8in bike chain.
Yeah, that's a nope from me. I'm trying to eliminate as many apps from my life as I can.
"Continue reading this on the reddit/instagram/tik tok/blablah app" No, I didn't need to see it that badly.
Even if you did want apps the majority only offer it from 1 of the 2 popular repositories (" stores "). It's a shame they do not have a way to track that lost sale/interaction.
You don't need an app to use a loyalty card...
But yes I am against supermarkets that only provide discounts if you use their loyalty program, which in turn allows them to track your purchases. Especially since many items are priced with the discount as the "fair" price and the full price is really just a money grab.
If you do the calculation, the discount you get in the end is often just 1%. I don't really care about that 1%. You can get more, but the time you have to invest to get a better deal makes less money than just work an extra hour.
And some of those loyalty programs have expiring points, that happen to expire just before you get to the tier when things get interesting. And when you do save up to the food stuff you find out the app is a lot better at collecting loyalty points and doesn't work so great at exchanging them.
This kinda shit is why I go to Aldi instead. They give everyone the same low prices. Tesco have their clubcard and seeing how much more they want to charge me for not having one puts me off ever going there on a regular basis.
Also under 18s can't get these loyalty cards here so fuck you I guess you have to pay a load more.
Man, I’m torn on this one.
We have two grocery stores in our exurban area.
Kroger, as a corporation, contributes to politicians of both US parties in roughly equal measure. Less than ideal (zero contributions), but not too bad I guess. But, they do have an obnoxious customer loyalty card program. Boo!
Publix, on the other hand, doesn’t have a customer loyalty card program at all. Yay! But, the corporation and their leadership contribute HEAVILY to the new Trumpy GOP, Matt Gaetz in particular. So, fuck them.
I’m boycotting Publix. Lesser of two evils I guess.
I really wish we had a locally-owned mom ’n pop grocery. I’d pay a premium for that.
Contributing to that Kinderficker changes my opinion of Publix.
Same. We have two grocery stores nearby, both with loyalty programs. One requires using the program to get discounts, while the other doesn't (you just miss out on points). Guess which I shop at...
If I need to go to the other one (Kroger family), I'll use my parents' number so they get the points. I go maybe once/year if there's a particularly good deal.
Last time I went to a new-to-me grocery store that I didn't have a loyalty card for, I just used [local area code]-867-5309. Jenny hasn't failed me yet.
i don't have one. i don't want one, either.
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.
the problem is also apple's slow adoption (or outright refusal) to open up various web apis to make web apps more prevalent.
Even the homeless in my city have smartphones.
Get $50.
Get out of the stone age.
this comment makes me wish for a Carrington Event in the 21st century
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 just as human as you.
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.