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.

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.

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?

Like when ordering bubble tea

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?

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.

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.

You can still live in the US without apps... For now

Social Friendly Browser can usualky get around this

I remember this being true almost as soon as smart phones and QR codes were invented. There were so many things you just couldn’t do as easily if you didn’t have one. Even in 2006.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

have you tried stop being poor?!

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.

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

Your switch is guaranteed

The Current Account Switch Service makes switching your current account simple, reliable and stress-free. You could even switch with an overdraft, just speak to your new bank first.

Over 11 million current accounts have been switched so far and over 50 banks and building societies are already part of the service.

The Account Switch Service Guarantee means your new bank will switch your payments and transfer your balance, and your old bank will take care of closing your old account. So you don’t need to worry.

Dude that comment would make my blood boil, like holy shit.

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.

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

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.

For some things it’s more convenient for customers. For others, it’s more convenient for businesses.

We, as customers, need to promote what’s convenient for us while ignoring what’s convenient for businesses.

Keep in mind: we are not on the same side as the people taking our money.

apps allow user tracking and advertising though. Much more valuable to the corpos than a few lost customers.

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.

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.

I can’t even go to a high school football game without having an app.

The reason they’re so huge is

1. They’re generally not well optimized by the creators.
2. They all contain their own dependencies
3. 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.

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 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.

Smartphones are objectively better than flip phones.

The flip phone praise comes from useful idiots looking up to children who lack self-control.

It’s all bass-ackwards, but that’s how far we’ve strayed from the truth.

The powers that be are happy, though. We’re just not one of them.

Remember the meltdown over “Obamaphones”?

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.

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

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 :(

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.

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”.

“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.

Click to win a FREE LOBSTER Dinner 🦀🦞🦐

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

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.

Yeah, Bonzi Buddy!

Peak internet wdym

I missed that phase because I was using Netscape.

I want a re-made Bonzi buddy with AI.

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.

needs more sheep

I remember toolbar days… I used to lov— sorry i admit this … Installing them … shivers for my sins

No Virtua Girl?

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.

Governments only serve rich people though, so we’re SOL.

It’s a cultural problem.

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

Loyalty rewards are bullshit.

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.

“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.

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.

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

This is why I install such shit only if i have to, and only on vm

because normal websites and normal browsers have inbuilt protections for you.

Ding ding ding.

Yep, 100%. That digital coupon is you getting paid $0.33 for the data they collected from you.

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

Don’t lose hope, lead the resistance!

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

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

I have no smartphone and am unable to access any of my college resources or email from home because you need a security app for remote login. I’ve got in trouble a few times for it but idk what I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t able to access my Exam Timetable because of this and had to ask some friends when the exams were because my teachers didn’t know (somehow). It’s very annoying.

Edit:

It also took a few weeks of difficulty to get the free bus pass the college gives out as they only gave it out on the bus pass app, I have a card that you scan, I’ve never had any issues with the card and yet EVERY day people complain about the app not working as you need an internet connection (in an area with dodgy internet) for the app and the app is apparently not very good in other areas. I think people are starting to get jealous of my bus pass card.

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

Why are you cheering for a lack of self-control?

Smartphones are great. You just need to be smart enough to not let them use you.

It should put into perspective who is a useful idiot, and who is not.

I’d never do it, but we have one at work and he’s singlehandedly causing so much grief at work.

tell him the funny internet man that replied to you told him that he was based and that we collectively appreciate his efforts of basedness.

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.

At least you can not only ask other customers for their cards, but also sometimes be offered theirs without even asking.

Risky click of the day.

Dang it!

I fell for it.

Y’all not heard of cash?

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?

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.

oh but what about the non tesla charging stations you might say. those are still iffy right now, i’m hopeful they’ll improve in the future, but a lot of them have readers (that may or may not work) and a phone app (that may or may not work) also whose to say they don’t just fucking disappear.

It is more about being able to constantly spy on everyone. Funny how this exact sentence would have labeled one as a conspiracy nut not too long ago.

Constantly online means constant (more or less) analytics, means constant data to throw in the big computer to make you buy more shit or vote for the shit party.

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.

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.

Why are they no option in the US?

In Flanders, 🇧🇪, teachers have a card that gives them certain benefits. Free acces to musea, exhibitions,… This year they made it app only. You need to buy a smartphone to get your benefits…

Not sure if we can really blame Steve Jobs for this though, he wasn’t around when things turned to shit. The iPhone he introduced was merely a phone, web browser, email and music player.

I think it’s fair if we blame Tim Apple for this and the other big tech CEO’s of the recent past.

sounds like you DO have a use for one…

.

Pocket computer, phone is just an aspect of it. Surveillance capitalism monitors is what they are in the context you describe

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.