I have recently started a new position and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy in order to get your food when it would literally work perfectly fine ordering to a real cashier or shit even a website rather than having to download an app.
I have also read many stories of people that live in apartments that require them to use a mobile app for god damn LAUNDRY. All you need, is a card reader, and it will work perfectly fine like it has been for the longest time.
Privacy concerns aside, it is just annoying that you need this app and that app and this app and that app and it just clutters space on your phone. Security concerns too as now they have all of this additional info on you online, such as your phone number your email your real name, instead of just your credit card info like a card reader would have. And I am willing to guarantee that their security model is absolute horseshit because they have such a small team of engineers working on the app and the servers.
Literal enshitification
Magne
I guess unpopular opinion but experience of a good app is significantly better than the experience of even a good mobile website. Especially if I’m frequently going back and forth between pages and whatnot.
The data harvesting is a huge issue but it’s clear that most people don’t give a shit and / or aren’t savvy enough to understand what’s actually happening. Though I think iOS and Android have both done a good job exposing what data apps are collecting on your and if you are conscious of it, the info is there for you.
If the app is libre software than ok.
I use Android, and I guess it “exposes” what permissions a given app is asking for, but in the end that’s bullshit anyway. You download some app for a fast food joint or whatever and immediately it demands all the permissions under the sun: Microphone, location, contacts, call history, media, etc., etc., which are all things it clearly doesn’t need. But it’s worthless that the OS tells you this, because the fucking thing refuses to work if you deny it any of these ludicrous permissions, so it’s become a boy-who-cries-wolf thing by now and users just click through the prompts without reading or understanding them.
I actually don’t like it partially because of the privacy bit, but also because of all the apps needed for everything for myself and my kid’s stuff I have run out of room on my phone. I had to go through today and find things to delete and my phone is still prompting me to “archive” apps because my available storage is so low. It says I will be able to restore the app if need be, but I shouldn’t need that many apps that they fill up my entire storage.