[matrix_overload]

Well, the elephant in the room is that an app these days is a packaged version of a website with one twist: notifications. Unless you explicitly disable it via settings, it will try to get a small chunk of your attention every now and then.

- Would you like to enable notifications to see when your EV finishes charging?

- Yes.

(in a couple of days when you're thinking about a completely different topic)

- SPECIAL OFFER! 20% OFF THE FATTY FRIES IF YOU GET A CAR WASH FROM US!!!

And that's everywhere. It pays off due to the scale, just like spam. It costs nothing to send an annoying notification to a horde of users, and even if 1% of the users go for it, it is still 5+ figures of revenue out of a handful of characters pushed to users' devices, and hours of human time wasted dealing with useless annoying distractions.

[left-struck]

Idk why more people don’t do what I do. I call it notification hygiene, or maybe attention hygiene. If an app has a legitimate reason for notifying me, like it’s a messaging app and a human being has messaged me, then the app gets to notify me, otherwise it does not. The first time an app shows me a notification that is useless to me it gets deleted from my phone if I’m not using it anymore. On the spot. Drop everything I’m doing and delete the app. If I am still using the app I disable notifications for it. I get almost no notifications that aren’t people messaging me.

[MrMember]

I was an Audible subscriber for like five years when they started spamming my notifications with ads. I unsubscribed on the spot and haven't looked back. I couldn't believe it, I had probably given them $1000 by that point but apparently that wasn't good enough. Even if you give a company a significant amount of money they'll still do everything they can to squeeze even more money out of you.

[accurrent]

Cant do that with my banking app, payment app or government apps :(. Unfortunately where I live almost everything requires a phone.

[jauntywundrkind]

Android kindly has notification channels. Apps can setup whatever categories they want & users can turn individual channels on and off as they like.

Alas it seems like few apps have it implemented. Hiss boo. Wish this was available of Web Push.

[chrismartin]

It's not only notifications, it's permissions (that the app won't work until you accept) to track your location, exfiltrate your contact list, and so forth. It's an invasion of privacy. It should not be required to, e.g., order food at a restaurant or configure your headphones.

[zzo38computer]

> It's not only notifications, it's permissions (that the app won't work until you accept) to track your location, exfiltrate your contact list, and so forth.

My idea of an operating system design (it is intended for desktop and laptop computers, but a variant could also be possible for smartphones and stuff if wanted), that all I/O (including determining the current date and time) must use capabilities (and can be proxy capabilities). The built-in programming language allows users to define new proxy capabilities and configure existing ones, and the C programming language can also be used. This can avoid such invasion of privacy but also is useful for other purposes, e.g. for testing, or to allow programs that expect a camera to work even if you do not have a camera, or to filter or redirect notifications, etc. Therefore, permissions can be as fine and as faked as you intend it to be. And, furthermore, the standard package manager would exclude programs that are designed to be invasion of privacy and other antifeatures like that (users can still install them manually, and the security features of the system still ensure that it would protect against many kind of malware and misfeatures).

> It should not be required to, e.g., order food at a restaurant or configure your headphones.

You shouldn't need a app or a web browser to do either of those things anyways.

[wlesieutre]

One under the radar change in iOS 18 is that contacts permissions are now more like photos have worked for a few years now. Instead of having to give the app all your contacts and then pick within the app, there’s now a system picker and you can choose specific contacts to grant permission for.

[scarface_74]

I have never had an iOS app that won’t work if you don’t give it your location, contact list data, etc except for obvious things like Maps.

[eep_social]

> one twist: notifications

I’d argue the second twist is data collection, which for an app can be much more invasive than what a web client leaks depending on permissions.

[scarface_74]

What “private data” can an app leak that a website can’t if you don’t explicitly give it permissions?

[aembleton]

I wish Android would let me filter notifications and add rules to them.

I know that you can switch off certain types of notifications, but thats only if the developer has added those in. For example Revolut uses one notification type and sends payment notifications and marketing through that same channel. So, I just don't use Revolut but it would be good if Android could let me set up keywords to block notifications.

[dqv]

You can do this sort of filtering with third party apps, which is why I'm probably going to be switching to Android pretty soon.

[godelski]

What's worse is when you're forced to use the app.

In my apartment complex we're forced to use an app for laundry (no cash, no card). The fucking app doesn't even sort the rooms (I'm actually impressed. I didn't know you could do any programming without knowing what sort is. Like not even one line of code...). It also has a 30 second load time because it redraws everything during the startup when it tries to connect to the network. Luckily their API got exposed, in May... and someone made all the machines free.

They also wrapped up their sales notification with the one that tells you the laundry is done. So you disable both. Not an issue though because the latter never even worked anyways.

But it's like when people send spam through the same email you send necessary information. Universities pull this shit all the time. Guess what? It all is spam now. And these people wonder why they emails get blocked.

Or when you go to a restaurant and they make you use their app. I'm autistic enough to try hard not to use them but often I give up because people I'm with get upset I'm taking so long (but I'm not the one at fault. It's like yelling at a cashier when corporate increases price on an item. Wrong target, but I get it). I think this is why they get away with it though. Because blame is often targeted at what is right in front of you, and they're often small. But a lot of small things add up. 1 shitty app can be ignored, but a hundred is overwhelming. And I swear, it gets worse every day

[attendant3446]

Oh, I used to live in a building where the laundry was operated by a similar app (and unfortunately there were no alternatives nearby). To make matters worse, the laundry room was in the basement, where there is no internet connection (no WiFi and no mobile signal). And you had 30 seconds from the moment you "booked" the washer or dryer. So the workflow was 1) go to the laundry room, load the clothes into the machine and close the door, 2) run upstairs and start the wash cycle via the internet, 3) repeat the process for the dryer. Hated it.

[zzo38computer]

> What's worse is when you're forced to use the app.

Yes, especially if you do not have a compatible smartphone (or any smartphone, or any computer) or if it had run out of battery power. But also just in case you don't want to, or if the app is defective, etc.

(I had read on Usenet that there is a German word "Digitalzwang" if you are forced to use computers with specific software.)

> The fucking app doesn't even sort the rooms ... It also has a 30 second load time ...

Yes, also that, that they are badly written and badly designed.

> Or when you go to a restaurant and they make you use their app.

I had only been at one restaurant where this was required, although they provided a iPad for this purpose, to any customers who required it. Furthermore, the restaurant was mismanaged and not such a good quality anyways. I do not intend to go to that restaurant again.

[m463]

Can they actually force this on people?

[dqv]

This is a big gripe of mine with iOS. There is no way for you to filter notifications by contents (e.g. if Wallet says "weekly spending" dismiss the notification [Apple Wallet has two options for notifications: on or off, there is no way to disable weekly spending notifications that I've been able to find]). Android doesn't have it either, but Android allows third party apps to do it. I'm strongly considering switching to Android for this reason alone.

[underbiding]

The real elephant in the room is all the apps that are basically packaged web browsers but also want all sorts of absurd permission privileges so it can harvest user data to sell.

[dzhiurgis]

It's becoming obvious operating systems needs to give us more options to control our devices - i.e. firewall, caller and notification filters, etc.

[ProxCoques]

The weird thing is that companies will pay for entirely separate engineering, product and marketing departments for their apps which duplicate their web apps in every way (or usually a bit less), not to mention being under the thumb of the app stores - all for the sake of notifications.

I'm no bean-counter, but that seems very odd to me.

[wlesieutre]

Uber is the worst about this. I make a point of disabling notification permissions any time I’m not actively hailing a car.

[orev]

Every time I see an app do this, I go to the App Store and give a one-star rating with a comment that this is why (app is using notifications for spam). I feel like using that method is more likely to be seen by the right people than complaining another way.

[anonzzzies]

I just have my phone and laptop on do not disturb 247. Works great. I have one chat app open and people who really need to reach me send a message there. Been doing that for 10+ years; it's excellent.

[strijelac]

Take look at this app (I know, one mora app to install :) )

https://www.minimalistphone.com

[gruez]

>Unless you explicitly disable it via settings, it will try to get a small chunk of your attention every now and then.

It's been opt in on iOS and Android for years

[smcleod]

I don't understand why you'd have notifications enabled for any app that you don't need them from?

[m463]

No, really it's identification and tracking on a mass scale.

[Dalewyn]

>Unless you explicitly disable it via settings,

You don't?

I disable notifs like the fucking plague.

Notifs? Yeah, because it's not a question of if; that shit is dead on arrival.

[OsrsNeedsf2P]

App stores should start treating notification blocks as a signal the app is low quality

[lukev]

The problem is when it’s an app that sometimes you want notifications from. I deleted Uber, for example, when it started spamming me.