THIS IS ACTUALLY SO REAL FUCKING SMARTPHONES I HATE STEVE JOBS FUCK YOU WHY DID YOU RUIN TECHNOLOGY.
ok rant over, but seriously though, it’s so fucked how you basically just need a smartphone to do ANYTHING these days. I don’t want a phone, i have no use for one.
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sounds like you DO have a use for one…
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.
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…
Surely that falls afoul of some sort of equality legislation/disability legislation?
in the height of covid panic, there was a wheelchair bound, oxygen tank connected, customer whom I still respect for unrelated reasons, who insisted on entering my store without a mask because he was disabled. My dude. If you are so weak that a mask would kill you, you should not be going to stores right now. Do you not know that there’s a plague happening!?!?!? There are delivery services, and it doesn’t cost that much.
Americans will find any excuse to justify their lazy entitled bullshit.
I’m young and I fucking hate apps. I have android phone without a google account which works well for the most part. I’m too dumb to install LineageOS. and Linux phones aren’t really an option in the US.
Why are they no option in the US?
Carrier support is pretty much non-existant from what I have seen.
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.
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.
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.
Do NOT give these fucking cunts any fucking money. I was a backer for this phone on indiegogo.
They are liars when they eventually did communicate any updates during the project. They produced around 2000 units, most of which were sent to people who backed the project years after the first backers on indiegogo because they backed on a different platform.
Ultimately they just shut down the kickstarter giving no actual details. They stole thousands of peoples money through that. They made a product with the money people contributed to back the project and then just shuttered the project so they wouldn’t need to deliver a device to these backers.
I didn’t realise they were now trying to sell them again but the units that did get shipped were massively out of date and barely worked as it is.
If you want a keyboard on a phone Unihertz are about your only option right now.
Fuck planet computers, thieving fucking cunts
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
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.
I think I would agree due to when I have been sitting in public somewhere with others sitting around, they have clearly been programmed by their phone, subservient to their master. I do also wonder if there is an IQ element to it. Having a lower level of personal intelligence so they have been conned into believe that they must have a phone that is connected to internet at all times everywhere.
Spend 2 months without cell service, without mobile service, and you will see how far gone many, many people are. I’m fully serious about live without cell service for 2 months, the world does not look the way you think it does.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You could install an android emulator on your personal computer then run the authenticator from there.
BRB pulling up to a QR code scanner with my 15 inch thinkpad w520 running on 92whr of battery consuming literal watts of power because it’s from 2012.
Hopefully i’m not an inconvenience.
The OC said in a different comment that you must be on the college network to set it up.
You don’t need to tag me, by the way; I get a notification if someone responds to me directly.
sorry, I’m viewing this from mastodon so the setup’s different.
All good. Hope you have a great day!
Yes, it’s a specific one. App only.
The authenticator requires you to be in the college’s network to set it up for the first time and I don’t have a laptop.
Ah, that does complicate matters. Good luck.
what’s the rationale for IT not wanting to pay for the fobs?
Presumably they’re expensive and someone needs to manage them.
My company’s approach is “we’ll pay your phone bill if you use an Authenticator app on your phone.” Cheaper for them, plus they don’t need to buy company phones or fobs, and who’s going to complain about their phone bill getting paid?
A previous company tried similar but required putting your phone under enterprise management. A lot of us disagreed with that
They’re not expensive at all.
Well, my old company sure made a ridiculous profit selling them. You may be looking at the cost per fob hardware, but not including the management cost. They are much more expensive than an authentication app, plus authentication apps are mostly managed by someone else, and you don’t have distribution overhead
In my experience, the only thing that really made them more difficult than managing end users who were using an authentication app instead was having to facilitate getting the fob to the users and replacing them occasionally and they were dirt cheap… Like less than $5 apiece.
Managers probably sold apps as a cost cutting measure
My job does this too. It’s literally just cost cutting. The fobs expire and need to be replaced every so often but the app lasts “forever”.
IMO the fobs pay for themselves because what they are spending on fobs is the same as what they’re spending on IT members answering calls all day for employees that are having login issues with the app.
I worked a job where I had to have an app that tracked me wherever I went. I finally had to tell my boss I couldn’t use it anymore because it was killing my battery in like 3 hours.
If I was still working and a job wanted me to put an app on my personal phone I’d tell them to go fuck themselves.
Just another way capitalists thieve money from its workers.
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.
Perhaps his friends do not have smart phones, because they do not want smart phones.
Yes, but why don’t they want smartphones?
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?
Phone apps are nothing more than modern toolbars. And in case you forgot or missed this phase of the internet…
I remember toolbar days… I used to lov— sorry i admit this … Installing them … shivers for my sins
No Virtua Girl?
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.
Peak internet wdym
No argument there, especially with Bonzi Buddy lol
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.
needs more sheep
“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.
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 / or* 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.
Plus the even simpler: apps are like browser “toolbars” because they’re just a veneer to collect more data, add more tracking, appear to be useful without actually benefitting the user over a simple web page
Ohh, I see. That makes a lot of sense. I understand the comparison now, ty 🙏
@alekwithak @techforwhat Norton Antivirus is still at it
Hooboy
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.
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.
Yeah multiple layers of s***; I’ll be honest I never figured out how to use the digital coupons for the second layer of discount; seems like it’s not in the Kroger app but some other scammy telemetry scamming 3rs party. I paid the $2.99 for the ice cream I stead of 1.99
At least you can not only ask other customers for their cards, but also sometimes be offered theirs without even asking.
Man, I hate when people like you come out with “justifications” like these.
No. They should be banned. Trying to “justify” their existence with “well umm, sometimes you can just talk to other customers for theirs!” is fucking stupid.
Why are we so eager to do the work of our oppressors for them?
I don’t see a “justification” in my reply. I cannot change or influence the system, I need the discounts - so I do that.
everyone 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.
Yep, 100%. That digital coupon is you getting paid $0.33 for the data they collected from you.
because normal websites and normal browsers have inbuilt protections for you.
Ding ding ding.
This is why I install such shit only if i have to, and only on vm
Phones are not listening and if you have proof post it. No security researcher has ever posted this.
yeah yeah, people said the same thing about google home and amazon alexa for years… until data leaks proved that was a lie, too.
[https://youtu.be/0dGqR4ue8dg](Idk i trust Snowden’s take on this over yours)
See:
- MindShift
- Cox Media Group (Alternative non-subscriberwalled link here)
It’s called “Active Listening”
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
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Risky click of the day.
Dang it!
I fell for it.
Dear reader,
The link is, indeed, a redirect to Never Gonna Give You Up
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”.
It’s because you have control over your browser, but they control their app and all its trackers, ads, etc
Yep. They want you to use apps, cause all the permissions you give the app makes it much easier for them to harvest all your data for marketing and selling purposes.
That’s exactly it. Easy to block ads and trackers on a website, but more difficult or impossible on some apps.
One of the banking apps won’t show the total balance of the account unless I’m using the app. How ridiculous.
They know that a lot of people would rather have it work a little better by getting an app, if they keep reminding people it’s an option.
Even if “better” is just lack of nags.
It’s sad. We need a digital privacy law so that an app can’t be more invasive than the website.
Even if “better” is just lack of nags.
Well, they just swap nags from “download our app” to “rate our app” no matter what you do, you’ll be nagged…
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
Well, you’re technically correct lol
I hope you can see that, as an owner of a Android flip phone, it is annoying to see people use “flip phone” as a synonym for “dumb phone”. BTW not all dumb phones were flip phones, only the final wave of dumb phones generally were.
@btaf45 @nossaquesapao thank god someone had pointed this out because I’m old and I’ve been getting confused. Nokia 3310 all the way
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.
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.
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
yes, that still doesnt give the store your home address, phone number, etc etc like signing up for a rewards card does.
Does the supermarket sell the data, or use it for their own purposes
yes
“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.
My GF laughs because I have no loyalty cards or apps and I laugh that she has one for everything.
Loyalty rewards are bullshit.
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.
We used to be free from such bullshit, but some companies have started trying to bring similar systems here in Brazil, especially drugstore brands that would ask for our id number in every order to give “discounts”. Fortunately, this practice is now being investigated, and I hope the companies lose the case.
Oh the same bullshit is done here with Loblaws. I don’t care. They have my info every time I use my credit card at their store that’s all they need and it’s all they get.
If I have to pay more because they’re greedy little fuckpigs so be it.
I use a loyalty card pretty often. It’s just that it is almost always another customer’s card) And in case this is not available - a barcode of some rando’s loyalty card I found online, the valid ones are often easy to find.
(Local Area Code)-867-5309
Works every time.
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.
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 :(
that is your takeaway? You’re part of a cult if that’s really how you think.
Part of a cult for wanting more options…
Ill be part of that cult
Not more options, you want your option to win.
What does that even mean?
Most people here would be satisfied with a working website they can access from any browser or OS, mobile or desktop.
And? Apple and Google are too big and influential as they’re. Why go attacking the little guys?
Linux is awesome, what are you crying about?
You’re an idiot or you’re trolling, I honestly can’t tell.
I’m never trolling about Linux. On Lemmy there are so many cultists that you can say the most innocuous things and it will be downvoted to oblivion or deleted for “trolling”. Maybe you don’t like calling it a cult but I get more downvoted for negative comments about Linux than other people do when they literally say Nazi things.
And then you get people like this…I mean what kind of broken prejudiced brain do you have to have to think this comparison is ok?
“You’re a cultist!” screamed the cultist, angry at people for using something other than what the cultist prefers.
innocuous
Calling people “cultists” doesn’t sound very “innocuous”.
Because a Linux phone is objectively superior, duh
We want other options to be allowed to exist. This is “you just want everyone to be gay/trans/whatever” all over again.
Oof you’re comparing government suppression of entire classes of people to linux’ failure to attract developers to the platform… How do you not realize you’re in a cult???
Plenty of developers use Linux every day – the problem is it’s not a viable choice for users because of anti - competitive practices by Google and Apple and probably others
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.
