One significant problem with making your hardware dependent on an app is that if you are a washing machine company, you probably don't make mobile apps. So, you hire a contractor. They design an app without any expertise in the product or the domain, and program it on the cheap. It is trash. Later, the contractor goes out of business and you give the code to another contractor. They notice that the code is garbage, and not even garbage that somebody there made. Feature work is impossible, the app languishes. 1.5 stars in the app store. Every time there's an iOS update, people can't do their laundry for a couple weeks, until the one programmer working half time on the app can push an update. Later, you (the washing machine company) decide to sunset that product line, which means there's no updates to the app. iOS changes, the app stops working altogether, everybody has to buy a new washing machine.
I've been that contractor, which is why I will never be the owner of an appliance that requires an app to function.
Better yet, don’t install apps. Cell phone apps are the enemy of good software and ethical computing and a threat to human freedom. They are well established as national security risk and the source of emerging health problems for our youth. If you are a programmer, consider whether working on cellphone apps is ethically sound. The entire industry from sweatshop production of the devices to the addictive mind numbing video game apps, it’s all very anti-human.
You really took OP’s point and ran with it to make a deeply radical and ideological argument. I can only imagine that the only way that you maintain this view whilst finding HN a palatable community is by drawing fairly artistry distinctions between technologies that you enjoy and those that you have declared “for the kids” or whatever. We were talking about an application for a washing machine, not TikTok. What if TikTok was implemented as a web app?…which it is I must add. Or is this all some deeply impractical RMS-style Lynx fetishism?
Compare the permission flow of native applications to the one of web applications explicitly opened in any browser:
You should notice some differences.
That being said, I strongly consider supporting arguments as invalid when "ideological" is part of the brief summary of your refutiation and the supporting argument is first in the enumeration of your supporting arguments.
It's just a subset of the infinite set of useless but convincing "ad hominem" arguments, unless you can specifically point out why exactly some argument is "ideological", rather than rational logic or an attempt at achieving this ideal.
- native applications push users into addiction and ease privacy violations
Useful native mobile applications exist too.
But they are mostly not superior to PWAs.
I read OPs comment as an observation about the market and society and the conclusion is categorization by correlation (there are technical arguments too, of course).
I have never considered the idea that native apps can be objectively evil. Thinking about it, it has its merits. Consider a smartphone with only a web browser which doesn’t support WASM and Web Workers, but supports installable PWAs.
* The tasks one strictly needs in a smartphone does not require intensive computing, the kind not possible already with JS. Games do. Banking, govt services, online shopping, messaging applications don’t. Name me one such application.
* Applications would consume far less power without compiled binaries or WASM, and without being able to run in the background. This would greatly extend battery life.
* All applications would be properly sandboxed with a permissions model and source-code inspectable.
In general, companies that are hardware manufacturers provide the worst software, with one or two obvious exceptions everyone here can point out.
Embedded software is the absolute worst. Think about the UI of your TV or car radio (unless it's from one of the few manufacturers who have wisely given up on software and licensed theirs from Google or something): My old Toshiba plasma TV's UI looks like literal clip art, with obvious "polish" problems like some of the icons being 32x32 and others being 31x31--that kind of shit. Fixed width text font. UI responds 3 seconds after you press the remote button. The full color palette is: 0xff0000, 0x00ff00, 0x0000ff, 0xffff00, 0xff00ff, 0x00ffff (very creative). The audio feedback that happens when you navigate a menu is 500-1000ms off from the animation. It's a total mess.
These companies look at "Software" as just another line item on the BOM, like a nut or a screw. Source it from the cheapest supplier you can find, and scoop it into the product somewhere down the assembly line. The idea that software is actually a vital part of the creative industrial design of their products is foreign to them.
I turned off automatic updates a few years back and it’s amazing how many apps have a required update each day that I use them. Almost none of them include meaningful release notes.
Even more amazing are the apps that require updates to run, yet they fail to display any meaningful 'you should update' message; instead, they abruptly crash with a catch () {throw new Exception("An error occurred");}.
That's completely un-amazing. If the ecosystem ensures 99.9% of your users are on the latest version, I wouldn't waste bandwidth on defensive programming for the 0.01%.
That is just what Continuous Delivery is though. Quicker release cycles keeps breakage short. It's a lot easier to manage "this edge case broke because of something we changed in the past day/week" compared to "something we changed in the past 3 months broke this edge case"
The lack of release notes is probably just not the effort, or even confusing for users and can deter them, or make them never read the release notes when they happen. I don't think most users know what semantic versioning is.
Like, if the only thing you did last week was refactor some module, add more unreachable code for a flagged feature, and update third party libraries, do the users need that info every week?
But not releasing all those small changes daily/weekly makes the releases more and more dangerous as they stack up.
There's a reason why we don't do Continuous Delivery in a high reliability embedded context: the costs of bugs can be very high if it turns out to brick the device or physically damage it. As the other poster put it, it's continuous beta, and I personally am not a fan.
I like my releases thoroughly tested.
You updated some third party libraries, and maybe there's some subtle thing that changed in them to cause a break. Maybe that refactor wasn't zero impact the way it was intended to be. As a user, sure I want to know about third party libs being updated. All of that is useful information for us to decide to take the update or not. Back in the good old days it was all information everybody gave as a matter of course. These days, especially on phones, it's opaque and you're forced to take it whether you want to or not.
edit: and the interface changing out from under us unexpectedly is incredibly off-putting. I hate that these days I never know when an application I use every day is going to decide to remove its menus or something similarly asinine inflicted on me because that's the latest trend in UX design.
A couple of places I have worked had a ton of extra work when Apple would want detailed information about each release note item, and it just became easier to make the notes generic. Which I would guess is one of the reasons, with the other being tracking/ads.
It’s more than that. The app likely has some backend dependencies that require some ongoing maintenance or cost. It’s not just that your washing machine depends on an iOS app, but on some DynamoDB table somewhere.
Leaving data uncollected is just leaving money on the table. It's far better to steal peoples data and flog it off. Making a product and selling it for a fair price is very 20th century.
>One significant problem with making your hardware dependent on an app is that if you are a washing machine company, you probably don't make mobile apps.
>I tried doing my laundry without a smartphone. This proved to be difficult, since our laundry machines can only be operated with a smartphone app. After lots of struggle, I finally managed to do it, leading me to reflect on whether technology is actually making our lives better.
The problem, as I have been endlessly ranting on HN. Is that everyone now think of Tech, and uses the word "Tech" to mean Software.
I only wish I am wealthy enough to start a NO-Tech trend. i.e Zero or minimal Software. No more digital panel in a microwave, no more endless menu washing machine, No more Smart TV or Smart Fridge. The actual Technology should be in Atoms, not in Bits. Making Washing machine cleaning cycle faster and cleaner.
Apart from InkJet Printer, the so called Smart Appliance is the next one on my hate list.
Well said! Fortunately, you can still buy internet-connected devices with "Our app is no longer supported" fallbacks. I have a washer and dryer that can be controlled via app, but they also have physical dials and buttons. My Roomba isn't connected to the internet at all, let alone to an app; I just push the big button on top when I want my floor cleaned. My cats' litter box is connected to the internet to let me know when there's a problem, but I can also configure it by navigating the on-device menu. Et cetera.
> One significant problem with making your hardware dependent on an app is that if you are a washing machine company ... everybody has to buy a new washing machine.
Maybe I'm cynical but I think this isn't a downside for the washing machine company, this is actually an upside.
Just a few months ago, I was still able to get Lyft rides using a desktop browser; but, despite the web page still being very functional -- letting me select the endpoints, see nearby cars, and get pricing-timing information for the various options -- when I tried to do that this morning they made the button to do the actual booking process say something like "book using the app" and presented a dialog when I clicked it telling me they no longer supported booking from the website and I would have to use the app on a phone. I am pretty sure the web site even correctly tracked my ride after I booked... this one just feels particularly egregious to me as it clearly is almost fully still functional but they decided to explicitly not allow this use case anymore?
That's so bull. I was a cto of a small ride sharing company where you could book through sms, a web page designed for flip phones, one for desktops, or a smart phone app - and this was in 2020.
We had like 1/100th the budget of Lyft. It's inexcusable.
An sms interface is super easy. You give it an address, then it reads it back to confirm it's right, gives you a list of price options and sends you updates... You can do the entire rideflow completely over sms assuming the person has already signed up. Even the tips, no problem.
It feels more casual. We definitely got higher utilization after the SMS interface than before. The flip phone interface was actually great for people with old phones or on limited data plans, it too got a lot of use.
This forcing of all the users through the same funnel is total bullshit. Wasn't personal computing supposed to be individuated instead of consolidated? Let's stop 1960s IBMing everything
Most customers are hybrid customers - they will use say, Amazon.com on a desktop and on their phone.
The question is do you want to cater to customers where they're at as that flow changes throughout the day or do you want to force them to come to you?
Obviously it's the first. You want to push your way into their behavior through ubiquity.
You keep it up for the same reason you keep the Denny's open at 3am Christmas morning or you have those 7 Starbucks within a mile radius - there's an important ideological commitment that defines your relationship with the customer as a reliable and accessible partner in their lives. It pays dividends at the macro level even if on the micro level it doesn't seem reasonable.
You're either de facto infrastructure or luxury. Make sure that decision is yours and not the consumers.
As far as what happened to the company, we had some high risk bets in 2020Q1 and bet everything on it and yeah well, pandemic. Shit happens.
> Most customers are hybrid customers - they will use say, Amazon.com on a desktop and on their phone.
Metrics that I've seen on projects I work on tell me otherwise. There are a small number of people who use desktop or laptop computers, and a smaller number that use multiple devices. The vast vast _vast_ majority of users use a smartphone.
I just want to caution about programmers looking around at their well heeled technical friends and then either assuming the world is like that OR imagining some crude caricature of Joe six pack idiot and assuming the world is like that.
It's often weird, organic and complicated. People are going to find unexpected killer uses for your stuff only if you give them the space for that magic to happen.
That, Lyft's behaviour, is what get by using endless VC money in the pursuit of building a customer data based monopoly of sorts. Well, VC money isn't endless anymore, is it?
It's hard to attribute replicable causitive agency to any success.
If say Dolly Parton started a successful restaurant chain with line dancing waiters and barrels of hay everywhere, that doesn't mean country time jamborees are the things to be copied. There's a greater context that all these things exist in and they work holistically and specifically in a way that's codependent on everything else including uncontrollable external factors.
You can't extract and replicate and expect success. If only it was that easy...
I think it would still would be likely close to zero. The ride share concept generally relies on easy booking from a mobile location. So a huge % of your revenue would come from mobile just by the very nature of the service.
You may have some (probably a very small) percentage of users who prefer desktops, but of that desktop preference group most would simply opt to use mobile in lieu of a desktop app if it was not available. That would leave a tiny fraction who would simply not use the service at all. Their potential revenue minus the cost to maintain a desktop platform is what is lost. Quite honestly, I’d wager that you would barely break even in the cost to dev/maintain a desktop version vs the revenue specific to service that “only will book by desktop ever” use case.
I'd think a common use case is traveling/remote workers. Request the ride before you log out of your workstation for the day, and the car is at the building by the time you get to the front door.
I've found a decent number of exec assistants that have this issue booking on behalf of their bosses. Uber Black is preferred by the boss but they wind up using Addison Lee or similar for this desktop booking. So there's money left on the table from fairly price insensitive customers.
My dad can use a smartphone when he wants to, e.g. ordering from Amazon. But he deeply resents and resists having to use web or native apps to do things like interact with his bank that he would historically have handled by calling them or going into a branch.
She can call you, and you could use your Uber account to book a ride for her. At least, I succeeded in helping an elderly friend the one time I tried that.
Too unweildy. Drivers cancel. I have to wait on the phone until she gets in the car. I'd also have to figure out exactly where she is so I can set the location.
Have you every had to deal with a 90 year old? It's not simple.
Yes, that's what happened: the first 2 drivers cancelled because they showed up 100 yards away from where my elderly friend was. Then I figured out exactly where my friend was and changed the pickup location to one small enough that Uber and my friend were unlikely to not be able to see each other, then the trip went smoothly.
I suppose Uber uses GPS data to guide the driver to the rider when GPS data is available from the rider's smartphone, but I'm glad that Uber doesn't insist on the presence of the GPS data or the smartphone.
Or they're good customers and you're servicing them wrong.
There's definitely ~10% that aren't worth welcoming back, but I'm playing interlocutor here.
There's plenty of companies who tossed all their cash cows into volcanoes for the difficult customer belief which really stemmed from an inability to listen. Here, read up on the fall of WordStar for a premiere: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroPro_International
Old software companies were famous for this: Lotus, VisiCorp, Digital Research - running away from their existing customers who they thought were atrophying to some presumed greener pastures that didn't exist only to end up with nobody because the problem was they had their heads up their asses the whole way.
In this problem space there's 3 levels which are both of increasing accuracy but also increasing work.
1. Imagine your customers
2. Measure your customers
3. Know your customers and almost-customers, like personally.
3 doesn't scale but ignoring it is what can snag even the biggest companies
It's seems quite common for software to seriously rot after success. At the start, technical excellence goes a long way. At some later point, the selling point is no longer the software itself, and instead just the network of existing users.
It's frustrating how "mobile-first" has become "mobile-only". I've encountered several utility companies, banks, and other important services, who have fairly important features only present in the mobile apps (whereas I prefer to do "important business" like that sitting at my desk with a large screen and physical keyboard). The worst is when they don't even tell you this, offering a desktop web UI that is essentially in maintenance-only mode, and you only discover things are missing if you happen to install the app
The irony of this, for me, is that when the iPhone came out, I was annoyed that people kept building "mobile-optimized" web UIs that had some trivial sliver of the functionality that their desktop website had... even though the iPhone pointedly comes with a full browser capable of rendering the full website: someone had just decided "people on their phone will only want to do these four things so let's make a simpler website with painfully-large text that only has four buttons on it to make that easier for them".
Mobile apps can be useful but please let me do tasks from desktop web browser if I want to. Sadly, with the general shift to esp. younger people mostly using smartphones for many things, I expect the trend will continue.
All of these bullshit "growth & engagement" operations often have to meet the real-world and dial down the user-hostility in certain markets where it just won't fly. This explains why the web UI is there and why it ultimately worked - it's made to serve markets where high-end smartphone penetration is low or where bandwidth constraints wouldn't allow people to download the app.
Uber has the same at https://m.uber.com - it actually appears to work well for my Western European location despite everyone here being used to the app, however it still shows artifacts of its primary target markets such as the option to pay in cash (not something we do in my location, and the app does not offer that as an option).
Recently, I did not have a phone for a couple of days so I was using my laptop for everything. I came across so many bugs on the desktop equivalent of apps if they existed at all.
Some of them were frustrating like when I tried to order food on swiggy, it would go through with a credit card then get auto refunded and cancelled. The catch? The order will be delivered anyway and appear back in your order history. The refund will not be processed. Due to this strange behaviour, I ended up ordering the same thing 4x until I received my first order and it magically appeared back in the list as fulfilled.
The security guard asked me next day - why did you not receive all your orders that appeared late night? Was there a party?
Lyft also requires the ability to receive an SMS text at account creation (or more precisely if there is a way around that requirement, I couldn't find it) which is why I use Uber.
Lyft generates additional revenue through tracking and selling data points not available through standard browsers and non portable devices.
Using a browser for booking literally takes money out of Lyft’s pockets. How long should Lyft allow such profit adverse behavior to continue? Indefinitely?
On a trip to California last year, my wife and I rented a house in which the washing machine required a mobile app to start. I don't have a cell phone. Fortunately my wife has an iPhone, so we were able to install the app on her phone, connect it to my credit card, and charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall). I'll never use that specific app again, so we deleted it, meaning the app company got to keep most of the money.
Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck).
I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.
I think that thanks to your valiant efforts to remain cell phone free you seem to have missed the memo that the "not too distant future" you described arrived like a decade ago lol. We're well into the "smartphones are a human right" era
Even if you have a smartphone and you carry it around with you, you're going to be blocked out from some services if you don't have access to either Apple's App Store or Google Play.
I've had to shut down my accounts in two banks because of surprise app requirements (that weren't in the contract) for basic account functionality. Their apps are only available trough App Store and Google Play, no .apk alternative. And even if you install the apps using Aurora store, the app instantly crashes, I suppose because they implement Google's SafetyNet, or whatever it's called now.
So, unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons, I'm limited to only using one bank, the only one in my country that still doesn't require an app for the type of account I want. I've thought of buying a phone just for the apps, but after that, who knows with what other bullshit they may come up with (your device is too old, it doesn't have a phone number associated, etc), so I just give up.
How common is it for financial institutions to require the use of a mobile app? In the US, none of mine do and, in fact, I use the mobile apps quite rarely. (The main thing I do once in a blue moon is to deposit checks using my bank's app on my phone.)
> How common is it for financial institutions to require the use of a mobile app?
In .cz, about third of banks require a smartphone app, about third allows SMS authorization at an extra fee and about third has SMS authorization free. However, this all happened in the last few years and every few months some bank announces it's moving towards the app group.
The spicy part is that most banks use the app as the only factor, not as a second factor (as it was with the SMS, where you had password for web banking + SMS authorization as a 2FA). You therefore cannot use a noname-brand Android with vendor-provided crapware, as your security depends on it. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have an employer-provided iPhone.
How do they do it? For example, there is no "authorization" app, only a full-blown mobile banking with full permissions that has the "authorization" as one of the features. Or there is no password for the web banking (wtf!), only a username which is your national identity number and therefore widely known.
The even spicier part is that many banks give you pre-approved loans which are impossible to reject, and therefore if someone hacks your account, not only they steal your balance, but even overdraw.
>unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons
Owning a separate, dedicated piece of hardware for sensitive and critical activities (eg: banking) is a very good idea because it isolates them from all your other mundane, potentially risky activities.
Most people don't do this because of the various inconveniences and expenses involved, but if you can tolerate them it's about as safe as digital activities can get.
It is even better idea if it is not a smartphone at all but a dedicated simple security device! Smartphones are a constant security risk alone!!
I had multitudes of non-smartphone based security devices in my life, cheap and dedicated small secure things, but those are endangered species now regrettably.
I did get a dedicated device specifically for banking apps. I installed GrapheneOS with sandboxes Google Play Services.
The banking apps still won't work. They insist on some signal from a SIM card "for my security," and I'm not willing to put a SIM card in a device that won't ever leave my house.
That's the only one I know of at my bank that's mobile only. (And for how frequently I deposit checks, going to an ATM wouldn't be a big deal.) I realize other banks may have more de-featured web sites.
Because sometimes you want to check banking services on the go. Or you get a notification on your email and want to open the app to check. Or it's much quicker to log in with fingerprint. Or so you can quickly zelle someone on the go. Or because why do you want to go and pull out our computer and turn it on and log in and waste all that time when you have mobile computer in your pocket that's always on and always connected and not in your backpack in the corner somewhere. I know a lot of people who only have a work laptop and use their phone for everything else.
A device with required connectivity to network, built in eavesdropping and tracking - that hardly qualifies as dedicated to sensitive and critical actities.
It doesn’t take much effort to remain relatively safe on the internet so you don’t have to resort to dedicated hardware just for banking. Don’t install sketchy apps that you don’t need and stop clicking on every link that you see – that’s pretty much it. I found that this basic internet hygiene has a nice side benefit as well – it forms a habit of avoiding superfluous and/or crappy content altogether.
You might be fine having apps as closely tied to your real identity as your banking app on a device that's constantly collecting location and other data about you, but privacy is important to some other people.
That's relatively logical. Banks have to issue payments on your behalf, and the most common signal of scams is attempts to make purchases from random new locations.
no other app does this with far greater number of users so i don't see how this is relevant. so i cannot use my banking app because i am on a vpn? nice
> so i cannot use my banking app because i am on a vpn? nice
Bank's goal is to prevent access by people other than account owner. When it comes to the VPN usage, there are a few risk factors:
- Concealment of connection. Malicious actor will likely use a measure to hide the request origin.
- Accessing from another country or region, human factor (a common use case of VPNs). Instant thousand miles away teleportation is usually a sign of access attempt with stolen information. While you may be smart, a lot of people aren't and will gladly tell all the info to "bank security agent calling to ask for some information to prevent your account from being suspended".
- Accessing from another country or region, legal factor. Banks in some countries may even legally require a notice in advance before using its cards or services abroad.
- Usage of known publicly available service. Multiple users using the same address makes it harder to tell genuine and malicious users apart, so it's better to not leave it to the chance.
the thing is, these apps at least in india are TIED to your SIM and phone.
if you remove your bank linked sim card from your phone, the app wont work. if you change your phone, the app has to be re-registered so its like that.
what i am saying is, the threat model of concealment and another region or another person is already dependent upon the owner owing their phone. if its stolen, the first thing to do is to disable access
That's why it's so frustrating when people point at homeless people having smartphones and snarkily say oh they aren't really poor, why would they have a smartphone if "allegedly" they can't afford food.
Well the answer is that in modern life it's literally impossible to access basic infrastructure of many places without a smartphone. It's an absolute necessity unless you want to be a nomad and live in the wilderness.
I've read that they have to be reachable in order to get any kind of state benefits, and being unreachable leads to automatic disqualification - which is a big problem as homeless people often lose their phones or have them stolen.
As far as smartphones being a necessity goes, I have never owned a smartphone myself, and do not carry any phone at all most of the time. I have just gone on living like I did before smartphones, though I am aware that I am locked out of more and more things. I am beginning to resent things like parking that requires a smartphone. I don't understand the lack of back up options.
Rather than insisting on 'smartphones as a human right', I'd rather see 'opting out' as a human right.
In a sense, they are right. Survival is about meeting your immediate essential needs.
Of course, they are also very wrong. Opportunities to escape poverty are lost when you are only trying to fulfill your immediate needs, then there are the psychological ramifications of being vulnerable and in constant need for aid from others.
There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place.
"There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place."
"We" haven't built anything. A group of very powerful people planned this locked-down, dystopian world we currently live in and worked on achieving that plan.
You and I are simply living in the world they envisioned.
Is this a European thing? Or maybe a recent big city thing? I am in the US and I have no apps on my phone. I use it for texting and phone calls, nothing more. Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone. For context a couple of years ago I had to take BART into SF to visit some overpriced lawyers. Paid cash for my BART ticket at the ticket machine. I stopped at a coffee shop and bought a coffee, paid with cash.
The reason I ask is that I am concerned. Anything Europeans do eventually parts of the US will mimic.
>Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone.
I think it's a few things.
- Integration of stuff like GPS that can be done on a dedicated device but are easily done better on a phone through an app.
- Ready access to information on the go. (Much of which wan't really available on the go until the 2000s.) There's a lot you could do once the smartphone came out that you didn't have access to before. But there's a lot in general I can do today that I couldn't in the 1970s/80s.
- And yes, there are apps for things like parking, public transit, rideshare, airline notifications etc. that are more generally relevant if you're traveling and in cities.
That's not so bad. I still use dedicated GPS. I suppose the downside is that a couple times a year I have to pull down map updates for it. All of the other things you mention don't sound like requirements but rather additive data or interaction but not strictly required. Nice to have's I suppose.
As someone else mentioned, it's probably also true in Europe that a lot of people would see having WhatsApp as close to essential. But, in the US, SMS is pretty universal and certainly for any service you need.
I honestly can not think of any service I need that I must use my phone with. Plenty of things use SMS 2FA but I can also talk to people, face-to-face in most cases. Probably the closest would be the IRS if I have questions because calling them means being on hold for a few hours, otherwise I have to use snail mail which I have done.
> As someone else mentioned, it's probably also true in Europe that a lot of people would see having WhatsApp as close to essential.
What are you referring to? While it may be the most popular messaging app, it's not in any way, shape, or form essential. SMS is also universal, mostly unlimited, and much less weirder than it is in the US.
I only know what Europeans tell me. I assume different people have different takes on what is essential. And my understanding is SMS can still be pricey. (Not sure what's weird about SMS in the US? It's on my phone. I use it. It can piggyback on iMessage but that's not necessary and is transparent, bubble color notwithstanding.)
Both outgoing and incoming SMS used to have charges but (AFAIK) all the major plans now include unlimited SMS. I think the US went to mostly "free" SMS before much of Europe did which probably explains WhatsApp becoming the most common thing. (The only people I use WhatsApp with from the US are international.)
> Everything I could do in the 1970's, 1990's, 2010's I can do today just fine without a phone.
In the 1990s, I remember payphones being conveniently available, but now I need to keep an eye on my battery if I'm going to phone home.
In 2010, I could log into any of my accounts with just WiFi and a password, now I need 2FA and often SMS is the only supported option. Sometimes a phone call. So in order to, say, check my bank account, I now need data and cell signal. That combination can be hard to get in a concrete building or while traveling abroad.
Some cities have been installing concrete filled pipes to close of what used to be access streets into parts of cities forcing them to be "foot traffic only". This started in the EU and became trendy. Now its spreading in the US in big cities. I am not complaining. In some places this actually works out. In some places it hurts business. I guess that is a matter of city planning. Even the really old town I grew up in is doing this now in the part of town that has a bunch of small businesses to encourage more foot traffic.
Another example is roundabouts. Some of the small cities are putting these in new developments. I think it's still somewhat experimental in the US as not every small city is doing this.
Fancy [1]. I wish they were that decorative. I've only seen pipes filled with concrete. I think we lack the artistic influence at least in some cities here. I suppose they are a "make-shift bollard". Redneck bollard? I'll go with redneck bollard. But you taught me a word, thank-you!
Wasn't it 5-10 years ago that people said that? I think it's understood these days that smartphones are important to have (for better or for worse) and dirt cheap if you just need a smartphone, any smartphone.
Yep, that is common argument against refugees. "They come on foot with smartphones, they are not poor". They keep translator app, map, documents, priceless memories as photos, contacts with relatives - it is all they own apart of backpack of cloths. I wouldn't step onto another country's soil without that.
This works out as "You are required to carry your surveillance device at all times"
Thanks to everyone who didn't care forcing the rest of us into being part of your turnkey facist dystopia. Who do you think will be turning that key? How long? 3 years? 5? 10?
And increasingly attempts to resist the surveillance are being treated as suspicious and leading to access being blocked. Using a VPN is becoming increasingly difficult, with a lot of websites outright blocking you rather than giving a CAPTCHA, and more Android apps are requiring SafetyNet verification
Oh, it hasn't taken any effort on my part. I've just always been fortunate enough to have:
-Always lived in a house with a phone
-Always worked at a business with a phone
-Never been important enough that anyone needed to reach me when I wasn't at home or at work
In the same vein I think that people were making jokes about how it is even possible to use smart phones to make phone calls like 5 years ago lol. Wouldnt be shocked if some folks had not made a single phone call in the past 3 or 4 years. Smartphones are small mobile internet connected computer plus camera hybrids first, and also if you really want you could use them to make phone calls too I guess but you could drop that feature and the other 99% of the use vases people actually use smartphones for (work, reddit, YouTube, slack and other chat, internet browsing, apps, ordering food through delovery apps, etc) would be unaffected
The only outgoing phone call I've made within the past 12 months is to the taxi company when their app said there were no cars available. The person on the phone said the same thing, so the call was just a waste of time and money.
I have gotten incoming phone calls, mostly from daycare when a kid has been sick.
As you got to experience, smart phones aren't mainly phones, they're mobile computers with a phone app. They have Bluetooth that let's them connect to bikes close by, biometrics that let's them be used for relatively secure payment, modems that allows them to communicate with servers, GPS that makes it easy to see that you're not riding or parking the bike where you're not allowed, etc. If one person was able to unlock multiple bikes who is responsible for how the bike is used? A while back someone on a rented scooter hit an elderly man and then left the scene. He was found and convicted, because the scooter was personally rented by him.
Don't expect to be able to use modern services if you don't want to meet the providers where they operate. It's like refusing to use a card and demanding everyone to use cash, you're going to limit yourself and it's your choice if you think it's worth it.
I think limiting your goods and services to people with devices that have been available for more than two decades and are basically ubiquitous is a reasonable thing to do, considering the benefits that comes with it.
Personally i very rarely talk on the phone, that's never been why I've used mobile phones. I listen to music and use offline maps with GPS far more, but I also use it for payment, camera, text messages, etc.
I'm not the OP, but for me it's email, phone calls, instant messaging, paper mail sometimes.
Surely your pocket computer isn't your only computer? Like, you do own a computer with a physical keyboard, right?
Pre-COVID, when I made plans to go out with folks, we arranged a time and place to meet, and, like, arrived at that place roughly around that time. It's pretty easy, really.
>Surely your pocket computer isn't your only computer? Like, you do own a computer with a physical keyboard, right?
More and more people, particularly the younger generations, don't have anything besides their smartphone because what's the point? It's additional expense, additional maintenance, additional clutter, additional mess.
> More and more people, particularly the younger generations, don't have anything besides their smartphone because what's the point? It's additional expense, additional maintenance, additional clutter, additional mess.
I’m 40 and if I wasn’t a software engineer I wouldn’t own a desktop / laptop computer. As you say, what’s the point? Everything except for software development can be done on a smartphone. Why even bother installing an instant messaging application on the computer when you can just take the phone out of the pocket instead of walking to the room where the computer happens to be? Even when I’m working at the computer I use the phone for music, messaging and news.
> Everything except for software development can be done on a smartphone.
That sounds like a little too broad a generalization.
A typical office worker who creates or consumes documents, presentations, accesses corporate apps (half of them still 90s tech with lipstick), submit proposals to clients, review others' work, attending multiple hours long zoom calls with screenshare, etc ... are still using at least 13" laptop screens to do a lot of their day to day work.
Sure a sales executive or a senior manager might get away by just typing one liner commands to minions on their smartphone, hitting approve buttons on expense apps, and just listening into team calls, etc. -- but lower in the hierarchy where the real numbers and usage are ... we still have physical keyboards and mice, and decent sized screens (often multiple monitors) to help us stay productive.
I know several households which don't have a traditional laptop or desktop computer. Smartphones and maybe a tablet. Maybe a work-issued laptop, but usually that stays at the office and isn't for personal use.
e-mail and my work phone. I'm a married man, so my wife does most of the social arrangements anyway.
Recently I got a JMP.chat number so I could send and receive text messages, and have been very happy with it.
When I leave my job and have to give up the work number, I'll probably break down and buy either a Pinephone or Librem (maybe there'll be other options by then).
Most of iCloud is, by default, not end to end encrypted. The e2ee is opt in and approximately nobody uses it.
Apple can and does read most of the data in iCloud (due to it lacking e2ee by default) including all your iMessages, all your iMessage attachments/photos, all your iCloud photos, all your call logs, all your iCloud files, all your contacts, calendars, etc. iMessage's e2ee is effectively backdoored by all the iMessage sync keys being backed up in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup.
Apple turns over user data (including all of the aforementioned) for 17,000+ user accounts to the US government without a search warrant under the FISA (aka PRISM) system. They turn over even more user data on top of that each year when provided with actual search warrants - the 17k users figure is just the ones without search warrants!
They don't protect most of the data in iCloud from themselves, and Apple is forced to spy for their national government thanks to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA702), which allows the US to read anything in iCloud without probable cause or a search warrant - point and click access.
It is not society that wants you to give up privacy, it is a few rech giants, and all the small wannabes, that want you to. And they are basically able to, since those tech giants control all online aspects of modern society.
Society so could step in via elected governments and stop this behaviour through laws. Not that I am holding my breath on this.
When are you going to understand that many people go into government to get power over others, not out of generosity? I don't mean civil servants (although some of them do chase power at the upper levels) but politicians, many of whom are as psychopathic as any corporate raider.
Nobody ever accused me of liking politians. The alternative to the various forms of democracy so is oligarchies, totalotarian rwgimes and even more rampant, exploitative capitalism than we see now. I know what I prefer.
> We're well into the "smartphones are a human right" era
My government has to respect free speech but it doesn't mean I have to speak up.
Just because something is a human right doesn't mean I have to execute it.
I very much appreciate those people who live without smartphones. As a society, we need these people. It's not only about people with disabilities and other marginalized groups. It's about everyone.
Last year, the smartphone of a friend of mine was stolen. Luckily, it was well protected. But still it was gone with all the 2F apps. This friend had to learn by example that those apps actually second factors. Also luckily, this person didn't enable 2F for Gmail. Otherwise it would have been much more trouble.
Lots of us probably come to rely too much on our smartphones. I still carry a little cash (and a few other things in a small wallet) and usually do things like print out trip itineraries but, even so, But, even so, I know if I lost/had stolen my smartphone on a trip there's still a lot more information I probably would wish I had with me.
I was robbed once in Spain, lost my laptop, tablet and passport. Thankfully, I retained my smartphone which made everything a lot easier to deal with. For instance, the local consulate was super helpful in getting me issued a temporary passport but I would have had a hell of a time even finding her without my phone.
bro this may shock you but there's a whole contingent of people out there who still pick up the phone when their friends call
and IME cats don't self organize into a herd, it's usually one person figuring out a time and place that works for everyone, unless you're one of those insufferable people who sends out a "when are you free" survey of checkboxes ;P
>there's a whole contingent of people out there who still pick up the phone when their friends call
That's increasingly rare. My elderly dad still uses voice calling pretty much exclusively and there's a friend who I'll exchange voice calls with. But I don't think there's a single other person who would call me out of the blue socially absent an emergency--and at least some of these are people I would have regularly called 25 years or so ago.
For that matter, no one at work would just call me on the phone either.
Seems the correct etiquette these days is to arrange a call days in advance at a time that will be mutually convenient. My younger self would never have believed this would be the case yet here we are?
The prevalence of messaging probably has a lot to do with it. "We still on for tomorrow night?" works fine as just a text. "Have time to chat on phone later?" seems to work pretty well too.
In any case, the goalposts for calling someone out of the blue have moved for a lot of people.
I don't think you understand what a human right is. If you don't have freedom of speech, you're not suddenly not human lol. The point is that if you're human you should have access to your rights, not the other way around which wouldn't make any sense
Some scooter rental apps allow getting more than one scooter at a time.
A surprising number of things also breaks down when you don't have mobile data — and that happens every time you travel internationally and don't have or want a sim card for that country.
And as a Russian, I also have to mention how terrible it is to travel when you don't have an internationally working debit card. There's so much stuff you simply can't use without one because there's no cash option. Those same scooter rentals are one example.
Have you tried using apps like Revolut? Even if you can't link a credit card of your own you could find someone with an international credit card that will top up your account if you give them cash.
Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id
> Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id
You definitely can't. You used to be able to sign up for Vivid, a similar app, with a Russian passport and by telling them that you live in Germany with no proof required, but I heard they cracked down on this since.
This is where digital money comes in. You can buy an anonymous card with digital money on it and you can buy it with cash money. Then you have your debit card.
You bring cash. Russian cards are useless* abroad.
People who travel or shop online often, or have to receive payments from abroad, have all got themselves accounts and cards in foreign banks. I did, too. In some countries (Kazakhstan, Georgia, Indonesia, Turkey) some banks would open an account and issue a card for you even if you're not a resident.
* except several "friendly" countries that still accept Mir cards, like Armenia. Russian Visa and MC are truly useless abroad though.
The Western electorate is indifferent about you. But it's only fair, because you are indifferent--at best--about them. If there were a strong domestic Russian opposition movement there would be much more sympathy. But the Russian population has been successfully depoliticized. Those who care are dead, imprisoned, emigrated, internally-exiled, or live as serfs bound to a genocidal Tsar. Oh well. Bummer, bro.
The financial sanctions are not about you. They're about constraining the resources of a genocidal mafia regime waging direct war against its neighbors and hybrid war against "The Collective West(tm)".
With that in mind, a far better argument in favor of loosening sanctions to allow Russians to spend abroad is that those foreign currency outflows will put further pressure on the ruble and Russia's limited forex liquidity.
Bitching about sanctions is ultimately pointless, though, as CBR would almost certainly restrict foreign payments on their own even if sanctions weren't in place, exactly because of those financial constraints.
Ultimately your payments problem boils down to Russia wasting all its resources and potential on a genocidal war of imperial aggression and that is what you should spend all your energy to address.
I'm definitely pro Ukraine, but Grishka also has a point here. I think it's well worth it to take a few steps back and consider that the war was indeed somewhat provoked by NATO (although I am truly a NATO supporter, let's not convince ourselves that they are completely innocent all the time).
Putin won't be in charge forever, and they can stop the war literally right now by ceding some territory to Russia. After which NATO membership can be given to Ukraine. No more sanctions for our Russian HN members.
I just want to clarify — I do oppose this war and this government. The only point I'm making here is that some of the sanctions disproportionately affect regular people who have no say in the matter (the government doesn't take any feedback and trying to protest anyway gets you jailed) and are bypassed easily given enough will and resources. Some other sanctions, especially the personal ones against the government elites, do have the intended effect of forcing those people to fully immerse themselves into the country they themselves have built over the decades.
The problem I see is that there's no process going on to evaluate whether each particular sanction has its intended effect, and repeal those that clearly don't.
I think it's difficult for a lot of Russians to understand that the tried and true political strategy, "keep out of politics and they'll leave you alone" has been taken off the table. It turns out that letting a criminal regime do whatever it wants might have some personal blow-back after all.
Like it or not, if you are in Russia you are making a political choice to be part of this regime. You contribute to its economy and tax base and contribute, directly or indirectly, to an organization which is right now committing atrocities in Ukraine to steal their land and children and erase their history and culture.
When I look at the injustices that exist in that part of the world, the plight of the well-off holidaying Ivan from Moscow or Peter ranks near the bottom of my list.
What's more, the relative volume of Russians' complaints about sanctions compared to the (almost nonexistent) volume of Russians' complaints about the wide-scale torture of Ukrainian PoWs, systematic kidnapping of Ukrainian children, murder and 'filtration' of civilians, etc. reveals a disheartening reality: Russians only care about themselves.
So why should we care about them?
Any time or energy spent worrying about Russians is far better spent worrying about Russia's victims: Ukrainians.
> running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS
And specifically a non-rooted, locked bootloader, remotely attested version. Running your own code on your own device is suspicious behavior you know! This is already somewhat the case with banking apps, but luckily it's usually possible to hide root for now
And, yes, I get there are legitimate worries about malware and that does kind of solve them, but we've managed with desktop web banking (though not if Google's proposal succeeds). AFAIK most financial scams are executed by social engineering. 2FA (which is now mandated in the EU) is a more effective protection than locking down one endpoint
Barclay's was doing 2FA via an offline code generator (looks like a calculator) where you put in your card and entered a PIN since what feels like at least 10 years ago. I know most users would prefer mobile 2FA, but I wish they'd kept that as an option, whereas AFAIK they're phasing it out
In any case, de facto saying "you must pay dues to either Apple or Google to bank on the go" is quite bad for free competition
You're the embodiment of "laggard" in the theory of Diffusion of innovation which IMHO is quite rare on HN, mainly used by innovators and early adopters.
Laggard only start using an innovation because they're forced by external factors.
I'm not sure this is laggard behaviour. Laggards are defined as having no thought leadership qualities, they are literally late to the party.
There's an argument that this is quite the reverse: it's innovative behaviour since it demonstrates comparative rarity, leadership (pointing the way), novelty (we should do things differently), etc.
Frankly, I think this thread points to some of the weaknesses in the Diffusion of Innovations theory (which on the whole I quite like). It doesn't neatly model 'luddites', those who are exposed to 'innovations' and understand them, yet reject them for whatever reason.
Yeah. If you look at a list of technical innovations I expect that there is a whole list of often perfectly rational reasons why some inventions took longer to hit high penetrations levels than others. It's not just "I hate change."
I certainly don't think I'm a luddite in general but there are a lot of things that I'm just "Meh. Don't need it."
I'm the "meh don't need it type" but whatever the feelings I have, I can't rent a car or buy a plane ticket without a credit card.
Some shops don't even accept cash anymore.
Don't get me started about the worst recent innovation : a Friggin 21" monitor for the "infotainment" in a car.
But I know that if I have to change my current car, it would be almost impossible to have a car without a television on the console. Unless I buy an old car which pollutes too much.
I think that "meh don't need it" is the first step to "I'm gettin too old for this shit"
Agreed. I lived somewhere that switched from a credit card reader on the machines, to an app.
The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your laundry, swipe your card, and that was it. Instantly started.
They switched to an app by the same service company, and now there were a bunch more steps involved. Put in your laundry, find the app, open it, scroll through their “what’s new in laundry!” news that nobody cares about, click a bunch of buttons until you find the machine number that matches yours, go through the menus to pick washer settings, then pay there, and still need to push the start button on the machine itself.
So much worse, and also more error prone — I would regularly get errors when a machine disconnected from the internet.
Why people think it’s better, I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that credit card fees are cheaper on a $20 transaction compared to 20 $1 transactions
Credit card fees are exactly the reason why the switch happened. Do you really think the washing machine companies would bother building an app when they could continue charging without any investment whatsoever?
The cost for a vendor processing CCs is something like (iirc) 3% of purchase price + $0.10. The benefit to vendor of selling you credits (aside from the fact that you might not use them all), is that they only have to pay the $0.10 portion of the fee once for every, say, $20 worth of washes instead of paying the flat part of the fee every single wash.
intermediation. they get a chance to have their own laundry bucks currency. they get better tracking. they get to show you ads, and have marketing touch points with you every time you need to do laundry.
I’d certainly prefer to use an app rather than having to hunt for quarters. If the app didn’t exist, I’d probably have to go to a bank to get quarters or an ATM to withdraw cash and beg the closest convenience store to give me change.
Granted, there are probably better solutions that require neither quarters nor a mobile app, but between those two, the mobile app wins for me.
There is an in between. Our buildings laundry has a payment machine that takes credit cards and either gives you a credit card sized laundry card or recharges it. You tap the card to start that machine. You can also use the smart phone app, but I don’t think it’s used by many.
It works pretty well.
Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route. I use one locally but when I travel it’s usually not the same network so its figure out how to do it.. (website, payment kiosk, another app…)
Apps tend to be a pretty good solution for regular local users. They're less good when you're dealing with different apps/kiosks/etc., with different interfaces, and different ways of storing value in different cities.
Adding app operation alongside coin operation would have been an improvement in useability. Replacing coins with apps is just making it suck in a different way.
From the consumer perspective, probably. But from a laundromat's perspective, even if only a fraction of users use coins, they still need to deal with coins.
Once you're below some use threshold, a lot of places would prefer to ditch cash entirely.
It reminds me of the cycle of enshittification: once you have a captive audience, you start bumping the profits at the cost of the user experience.
It looks like something similar is in effect here: instead of meeting the different customers where the customers alrady are, it's the company's preferred way or the highway.
It is an either or for some businesses. Coins in the USA are in a massive shortage the last few years. Change machines aren’t cheap and repairs can be costly. It makes financial sense to switch to these apps or people wouldn’t do it.
Yeah, getting quarters is a real problem, especially when all of the banks in your area are only open during business hours and not on weekends. That said, I'd personally prefer quarters over an app, since quarters are much more fail-safe. The system that I'd prefer overall though would be some kind of prepaid account and an NFC card. UCLA had this system when I was a grad student there and it was really easy to use. You just tap your card on the reader by the door and select what machine to use. Everything ran smoothly.
Gotta disagree that it's rare on HN. There's a strong privacy contingent, but there's also the natural conservatism about technology you develop as an experienced engineer ("how is this gonna break and bite me in the ass?")
It's definitely way more common to be anti-technology here than in the real world, because of the number of weirdos here that are hyper paranoid about security, and because of the number of "If I could set screen modes manually in X86config then it's good enough for you!" stuck-in-the-muds.
You must be the legal age to enter into binding contracts. For most countries, this means you need to be 18 years or older to ride Lime scooters or e-bikes. In most countries, you can be 16 years or older for our non-electrical bikes. Before signing up for Lime, make sure to review the User Agreement for your country, which states age requirements
>those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.
Considering that Google is already incorporating Web Environment Integrity API into Chrome, soon we won't be on the internet either, and that's a much more pressing concern imho.
I am not an accountant, but I believe that such unused balance can not be treated by the company as an asset, and instead as liability. And I believe there are laws in every state where such money eventually should be returned to you or to the state's "unclaimed property", if they can't contact you. Search for "unclaimed property <state>" and see if you can locate anything there.
On the other hand, I have no idea how that is enforced. So it is quite possible that liability stays on books indefinitely. Or worse - not recorded as liability in the first place..
> charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall)
Living in one of the highest density areas on Earth, stuff like this blows my mind. Public washing machines are everywhere for those that don't have their own.
I guess the extreme lease costs driven by entirely artificial commercial RE prices put a full stop to it existing in the west.
There are still some launderettes around, but it isn't the cost of running them that matters, it's the inconvenience. Having your own washing machine is dramatically more convenient (and cheaper). The only reason not to have one is if you are extremely short on space.
It’s interesting you mention scooters, because Lyft allows a single user to unlock two bicycles, at least in Chicago, but not two scooters. I wonder if the risk profile is somehow different?
I mean, or they were different teams and the product person on the bike team was like sure, two bikes, while the scooter team was like let's unlock one scooter, and there was no reasoning of any sort of communicating and sometimes stuff is just inconsistent because people don't talk and don't care about things they think don't matter
> I wonder if the risk profile is somehow different?
A bike does not require a minimum age but an e-scooter does. The app probably knows the age of the user, but has no way to determine the age of the user of additional scooters.
It could cross-reference data from social media accounts, and if all friends of the user fullfil the required minimum age then offer additional scooters.
I’m sure you can find a lot of edge cases and work around but at some point you get to “we don’t need passwords because someone can crack them anyway”.
The fact is that there’s nothing potentially dangerous about minor watching porn where there is about minimum age requirements for electric scooters.
Depends on who you ask - some people are really anti porn. Some might say silly things like underage driving may threaten the body, but porn threatens the immortal soul.
Worse, due to regulations on security, this is the case for banking in EU.
A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.
While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
And of course, none of the banking apps will work without Google or Apple account, because if you try to run them on deGoogled Android they just refuse to work.
It will soon be impossible to be part of society without having Google or Apple account. Maybe it is already the case.
> A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.
Which "classic" banks don't have online banking?
> While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
I'm reasonably sure at least with most major Scandinavian banks you can use plain old OTP tokens.
I always need another app or another account, and those are often impossible to use without a local phone number and an internet connection.
There were also periods of time where I had no active phone number, or no smartphone. Sometimes it was just for a few hours because I ran out of battery. Sometimes it was for a few days because I dropped my phone in a lake.
In the later case I could no longer make bank transfers, and if I wasn't well-prepared I could not log into many websites.
My big trouble is that my bank account is reacahable remotely either by mobile app or receiving a security code to my mobile. Essentially my fragile to physical impacts, constantly outdating (about every 6 weeks I have to update the app, just to have changes in the UI making me lost or adding features never missed), non-waterproof, expensive enogh (still on the cheaper side compared to average) to be attractive to thives, can go out of signal range (the cell companies provide the bare minimum of towers making inside reception unreliable), may have account troubles (carrier locks out by mistake, it happens to others), depletes without proper charging cable or possibilities, have no access to foreign carriers abroad, ...who knows if I miss some other limiting or risk factors, so this single point of multiple potential failures is the sole key to my bank account (remotely). I am genuinly paranoid about my mobile. I am living for it, not it for me this way. I want to live like you, without degrading quality infalting priced smartphones, but it was quite difficult and in many cases impossible. I am not happy about technology, not at all, it is holding me hostage! Instead of helping me.
1. That money will go through a thing called "escheatment" and end up with the California government on your behalf where it will be held for you.
2. I use the Lyft e-bikes and from recently onwards you can rent one for a friend. It doesn't apply your subscription benefits but I suppose that's life.
That's cool and all, but what if something happens to your wife and you're unable to do anything about because of your purity spiral? Do you want to be telling people 'yeah I couldn't call 911 because I refuse to own a mobile device due to my philosophical principles.'
you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private")
but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently
> you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private")
Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.
Yes, it does. That is the definition of "legal tender". Usually there are some restrictions on the amount and the denominations, so you don't have to accept a truck full of 1 cent coins.
* The seller does not state they do not take cash before the transaction happens,
* And the buyer attempts to pay for the transaction after the fact with cash in good faith,
* And the sold goods cannot be returned to their original condition prior to sale,
Then the buyer is okay (FSVO okay) to leave and go about his day because the seller refused to take money that was presented in good faith by the buyer. Because cash, at least in the US, is "legal tender for all debts public and private" and a transaction to which you owe money is a form of debt.
Obligatory not a lawyer and not an accountant disclaimer. I'm way too lazy to go and properly research and cite this.
This was definitely a meme going around during covid as more places were going cashless
In real life there's not a lot of cases where someone gives you goods before you pay, and anywhere i've been to that don't accept cash clearly posts "this is a cashless business" (sweetgreen and the like, SF/NYC, YMMV) so good luck making the argument that you're entitled to your free salad
Yeah, as I said if the buyer makes a good faith payment in cash and if the seller didn't inform him beforehand they don't take cash then the onus is presumably on the seller to take it or leave it because the buyer is willing to do his part and make the pie whole.
Usually this isn't a problem because "We don't take cash." signs are prominently posted, but we are speaking in the hypothetical after all.
Yes, it seems like a lot of misunderstandings here hinge on not paying attention to or making incorrect assumptions about the word "debt". You cannot refuse cash payments for an existing debt, but you can make non cash payment a condition for engaging in a transaction at all.
These companies don't care about you. There is no reason to defend brazenly bad practices. You're grating and attacking everyone in this thread who doesn't agree with you.
Wow what a weird take. I think it's the same attitude that leads to modern technology being inaccessible to people with disabilities - after all why plan our systems for anything other than "readily accessible technology". If you refuse to use it you're just an asshole, that's your problem, right? If you physically can't use a smartphone because you're blind that's your problem, and not the problem of the idiotic system built so that it can't be accessed in any other way, obviously.
That's beyond ridiculous. A smartphone is by definition a usability nightmare, it's a purely visual design that presents as a featureless slab to a visually impaired user.
It's great it has some accessibility features to enable such users access to some smartphone specific functions, that they can't have in other ways, such as audio directions. But that doesn't mean we should be actively push this audience to smartphones and destroy actual accesibile designs for things that haven't required a smartphone in the past. let alone berate people for failing to get on with the times and embrace the clearly inferior "evolution".
Ah yes, an iPhone works so the problem is solved, despite the fact that iPhones are a minority of devices out there and in most places they are luxury devices. Android is nowhere near as good when it comes to accessibility and that's what majority of devices are.
>>Do you also complain that you can’t use Uber without a cellphone?
I do actually, it's one of the major problems with Uber in my opinion, and that's why a lot of people still stick to local taxi companies that you can just call. But Uber is generally completely shit for accessibility, where law forces local taxis to be accessible Uber usually does their usual bullshit of skirting these regulations and saying absolutely crazy things like "if there is demand for wheelchair accessible taxis then the market will respond".
>>But are less forgiving for those who won’t
Who won't what? I don't understand what you're alluding to.
>>You can order Uber WAV - Wheelchair Accessibility Vehicle.
That's cool - wish Uber would have that option worldwide.
>>If you choose to use much less convenient taxis instead of an Uber because of a refusal to use cellphones that’s on you
If you think my message is about refusal rather than physical impossibility of using a smartphone, that one is on you I'm afraid.
>>And Google not having accessibility options as good as the iPhone sounds like someone needs to be suing Google under the ADA.
I don't live in the US, I don't know what ADA is.
>>But do you really think blind people are not buying devices that actually work for them?
I know some blind people and they are all on government benefits and way too poor to afford an iPhone. They all have those "old people" mobiles with huge buttons and braille on them. A modern smartphone is both out of reach financially and as far as I understand it just doesn't work for someone who is completely blind.
I think taxis in NYC are much more convenient than ubers. No wait, no need to fiddle with my phone or worry about whether it’s going to die, can pay in cash or card.
I always laugh when I see people standing on the side of the road staring first at their phone and then out into traffic as they wait for an uber to show up, and meanwhile at least five taxis have gone by that they could have hailed on the spot.
I’m just leaving NYC right now. We went between the boroughs and everywhere else using public transit. I’ve never used public transit in my life. But even I could navigate public transit using the Apple Maps app. I had no need for Uber.
Yeah most of the time the subways and busses are the way to go! Taxis are great for late at night when only the late trains are running, or when you’re in a hurry and in an inconvenient spot to catch a train.
> Do you also complain that you can’t use Uber without a cellphone?
I don't hear it (the harshness of responses like yours it would engender might have something to do with it), but I don't see anything wrong with the complaint. I can make HTTP requests from my laptop.
Uber's smartphone requirement is an unnecessary one.
As an illustration of the requirement not being necessary, you can use Lyft (for cars only, I think) via a browser at ride.lyft.com.
Outside of questions of accessibility, having web-based access is also very useful for unexpected problems: I think people often have many ways of accessing the web, but usually only one smartphone. My partner recently needed to get to a train station when an OS bug suddenly stopped most apps from working on her phone; being able to use her laptop to call a car was extremely helpful.
So these are college students on a college campus who can’t get a hold to smart phones and you’re worried about them getting locked out of societal functions?
If those people who don’t “wan to use a cell phone, then they are free to suffer the consequences of their decisions. No need for society to bend to their whims.
Dude, come on. You can surely see where this line of argument leads. Are you seriously defending a society that continually and arbitrarily raises the barriers to accessing services?
On what criteria are those barriers raised? Those decisions are being outsourced by states -- which (democratic) societies elect to act in their best interests -- to monopolies that have none of those responsibilities. In fact, as your comments illustrate, market pressure and competition provide neat justifications to avoid those responsibilities. They lead to a race to the bottom, not the top.
It’s called progress. You can always become Amish. You make the choice - you suffer the consequences of your choice.
If you can’t for some reason use a smart phone, then yes the college should offer assistance just like most colleges offer assistance for people with disabilities.
Progress implies society is becoming better, more equitable, and a heathier environment to live in. O don't see how mandating smartphone ownership works towards any of those.
I think I should remind everyone that scooters are actually amusement rides, just like coffee-to-go (“Imagine yourself as part of those laughing young people wearing bright clothes!”). The city won't grind to a halt if they disappear. They are much more expensive than general transport, and that's the reason they spread like wildfire across the world: there is enough money in there to win officials' hearts (unlike slow and expensive city projects that never satisfy everyone). And, yes, enough money to pay IT teams and loud-mouthed evangelists, too.
This reminds me of my experience of getting the battery replaced for my iPhone.
The authorized repair technician at Best Buy made me turn off “find my iPhone” before servicing the device. Turns out, somehow, I had two Apple accounts, one with a user name that is tied to my email address, and the other one where my user name is my email address. To my surprise Apple considers these to be distinct accounts. While I remember the password for my user name, and I assumed it was the same for the account that used my email address as the user name, turns out it was not and I could not turn off find my iPhone.
Attempts to use my phone to reset my password lead to the settings app freezing up and giving me a gave a generic “could not connect to network” error message. Switching from cellular to WiFi did not help the situation. The technician was about to say that they would not be able to replace the battery for the day. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me that day for unrelated reasons and after returning to the store with it I was able to reset my password with the web interface.
Modern technology has introduced a large number of seldom used use cases that are not well handled, but are essential when needed. Had I not had all the devices with me in my digital arsenal, I would not have been able to get my battery replaced. I have to wonder how many people face this issue and end up buying a new device to avoid the hassle.
This doesn’t sound right. You should be able to reset the password or at least start the process using the Apple support app or the website on the iPhone itself…setting is not the only way.
I omitted the step where the technician had me install the Apple support app as an alternative pathway to a password reset, but that had the same issue where a network connection could not be found regardless of being on WiFi or cellular.
Thirty years ago I would have given anything for a pocket device that could tell me whether any washing machines on campus were empty and ready to use.
Because it sucked to lug my basket of socks and sweaty t-shirts over to laundry block only to find out there was a big queue and my options were either to lug the basket back to my room and try again a random interval later, or leave my backet lying around in the laundry block, at the mercy of who knows what and come back a random interval later.
Probably they should have reached out to smart people from somewhere available who could come up with some sort of booking systems like all shared loundry services of residential houses do in Sweden since perhaps the 70's and before.
You do not need pocket device for such. Do you really say that in the university - supposedly filled with loads of smart people - no-one was able to come up with a solution for this trivial problem before Steve Jobs introduced the smartphone? Wow!
Thats interesting about the Swedish system, I've never seen that before.
Do you really say that in the university - supposedly filled with loads of smart people - no-one was able to come up with a solution for this trivial problem before Steve Jobs introduced the smartphone? Wow!
Not sure if you're familiar with UK Universities in the 90s, but no-one was spending much thought making laundry easier for the students. Or making anything easier for the students, for that matter. Least of all the students.
Plus reporting which laundry machines are in use, and paying for their use, are two different things, so an app could show you which machines are available, but the machines still let you pay with coins.
The GPs argument is similar to how full anti-user lockdown of devices is justified for some minor security benefit that could have been achieved without said lockdown.
It is becoming more common that this function is part of an apartment building-wide electronic lock system. Still using the same model but using a RFID key fob which also opens many other locks: front entrance, mail box, basement, etc.
There is often a web interface to the booking system in addition to a wall-mounted terminal in a hallway.
But using that terminal is often more convenient, as you'd often pass it twice every day anyway and you'd only need the key fob to "log in".
(I have worked on developing such a system, but before that I had been a regular user of a competitor's system in my apartment block for years)
Would you still have, if you knew the strings that would come attached? Tracking your every move? Enabling governments to surreptitiously snoop on your audio and camera? Constant exposure to experiences designed to addict and immiserate you?
I think it's good that people are aware of the downsides to everyone-has-a-smartphone and I'm glad there are people like Snowden who have made us all very aware of that. And I think it's good people are trying to find ways to avoid the downsides.
But I also think it's easy to take all the incredible benefits for-granted and only see the downsides. I remember what it was like 30 years ago and I much prefer now. Do you remember having to go to a physical location (library or town hall) to look things up? Basically no-one bothered and we all blundered around believing whatever some bloke in the pub had told us about.
We all have the world in our pocket now and it's amazing.
(Yes we have the problem of bubbles and misinformation but I still think information abundance wins out over information drought)
The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes.
Also no one snoops on your audio or camera despite the paranoia around it, there's no need to. You can get all the info you need much more efficiently and accurately other ways.
So, maybe, the washing machine could have a... web page? No proprietary app store (where the app disappears when not updated to support the new OS version), no installation, usable from any device?
I think the easiest answer is that a majority of consumers prefer it that way, if you don't have an app you don't exists as far as they're concerned. Remember that a lot of students doesn't understand file paths[0], they're so used to smart phones that they've never learned basic computer skills. Add to that that even before smart phones a lot of people didn't understand URLs or even used bookmarks, they just googled whatever site they wanted, like facebook login. Having the app icon on your home screen is much easier for them, and they're more likely to use it again and not forget it.
I don't understand why this is being downvoted, from my casual observations I think pretty much the same. Every day when I step out of my social bubble of people daily working in/with IT, I get reminded that so many things that I consider obvious are a puzzle to the common folk
I keep seeing this posted on HN. What information do you think they can collect in an app without your permission that they can’t collect over the web?
Nah; apps can share data. If you log in to a dedicated video browsing account in the YouTube app, Google Maps and Google Docs can now associate your YouTubing account with your work and personal accounts. The ad company can now connect your personal email correspondence, your browsing, your work documents, your work travel, your personal travel, and the videos you watch. Share link trackers give them parts of your social graph even if you don't share contacts permission, but they build that up ad hoc from your email contents anyway.
The sandboxing inside of apps is mostly an illusion.
Welcome to the app for my Fujifilm camera (only required because I wanted to update the firmware) that refuses to run unless you grant fine-grained location access. After upgrading the firmware I deleted the app because it has literally no other benefit.
Did it update the firmware over Bluetooth? Up until Android 11, Android required fine location permission to perform Bluetooth scans[1] because knowledge of nearby devices can be used to derive location.
Support apps for digital cameras generally require location access since a feature that many customers want, is geotagging the photos. Only some camera models have a built-in GPS, while other models rely on the presence of a nearby smartphone to provide the coordinates for the photo. Apps are typically developed to support a whole range of models, so they need the location access to support the non-GPS-equipped models.
This was the Android version. The Apple policy sounds more sensible. Even better would be a way to fake the permission (which I understand some non-Google Android variants allow).
I presume it’s mostly on Android, on iOS apps seem to not be approved if they don’t run without clearly optional permissions. One of my bank apps absolutely refused to run without having scanned the full filesystem of an Android phone, yet on iOS it requires nothing for all operations.
Walled gardens with their HOA-like behaviors are bad in theory, but sometimes the gangsters in the streets are much worse.
What do you mean look at them? If they mindlessly click yes to allow an app to have permission when it asks them, why wouldn’t they mindlessly click yes on the same confirmation on a website?
You're misquoting Max Weber's definition of government.
The state's monopoly, qua Max Weber, is on the claim to the legitimate use of violence. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.
Absent this, one of three conditions exist:
1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.
2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious.
3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.
The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy
Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.
The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.
I see nothing about your explanation that says we should give the one entity that has the power to take away our liberties with violence more power then necessary.
Again: The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy.
Using force outside prescribed circumstances, beyond necessity, or to serve perverted ends (e.g., benefiting a specific politician, bureaucrat, or political supporter or special interest) would be a capricious use.
Again, read Weber's definition, and I strongly recommend listening to David Runciman's explanation. I came across it long after coming to a similar conclusion myself, he addresses virtually all my own understandings and concerns especially clearly.
The irony is that it probably is a webpage, displayed in a webview, in an app wrapper. Very few companies with these tiny apps built them as native apps.
You can block a lot more in an browser - like links to surveillance stat systems (mixpanel). It still possible to do that with an app, but it’s much more involving
My non evil take: Because design interfaces for humans to interact with is expensive.
You can save yourself a bunch of R&D, manufacturing and maintenance if you can have the users provide the interface design. That basically what the majority of smartphone apps are for. Sure some of it is convenience for the end user, but for everything that needs to interact with something in the real world it's a cost saving measure.
As to why not webpages.... don't know, seems less serious I suppose. Personally I can't deal with more apps on by phone.
But it’s fairly trivial to run the same logic on two routes (on the app and on the web) Especially simple stuff like bookings and so on. It all goes into the same data storage.
Our apartment uses one of these "services" for laundry. It requires you to be online to start the washer and my phone can't connect to my wifi from the laundry room. FAIL.
There’s a lot of underground restaurants and bars in Sydney, and many of them have started using QR code only ordering. Only problem is phone reception is really spotty in a lot of the basement venues, and not all of them have wifi.
Yeah the QR crap was understandable during the pandemic (though a bit stupid because surface spread was discredited very soon).
But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it.
It used to be impolite to mess with your phone in a restaurant. Now it's mandatory. Luckily it's not so common anymore now in Spain, only the Asian restaurants still do it. And McDonald's are trying to force their app by removing ever more ordering screens.
> But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it.
In some Chinese cities you can walk all day without finding a restaurant/shop that can give you change if you try to pay with cash or that accepts your western credit card.
Without Alipay/WeChat you will be stuck in your hotel unable to do anything.
However unlike the crappy western solution, where each business wants to have their own app, the experience is extremely smooth: Scan a QR code with WeChat, the menu opens in the app, order, pay.
Want a bottle of water in a small shop? Grab it from the cooler, scan the QR code on the cooler, type in 2 CNY and hit send money. Cashier gets a ding that you paid 2 CNY. Confirm with a nod and just leave.
Ride hailing (Didi - which ate Uber's lunch here), airplane&train tickets, and much more is also done right through WeChat/Alipay.
Do they let non-Chinese people use WeChat or Alipay’s payment services these days?
Last time I was there (2019) you had to tie your account to a Chinese bank account. You can only get a Chinese bank account if you have a resident ID. You, for obvious reasons, cannot get a resident ID if you’re not a resident or there on a work visa.
Effectively, I couldn’t even go down to the corner store and grab a snack without an escort because I had no ability to pay for anything.
> But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it.
It's cheaper than having to deal with paper that gets dirty, torn apart by kids or outright stolen. And "daily special" doesn't need to be manually inserted into menus any more.
I've mentioned it in another thread about ice cream machines already: restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. Whenever a tiny avenue opens that saves them money, they'll do it, legal or not - the only thing that matters is that it looks acceptable to customers.
I have never run a bar, but worked in stage lighting, as a bartender and as a cleaner.
And no matter where I worked at, if you'd send in the health department, fire safety inspectors, plumbers, electrical inspectors or cybersecurity experts, you'd find a truckload of code violations, not to mention constant issues with getting paid.
Also, not sure about the US but hospitality industries in Holland tend to be a front for money laundering of criminal enterprises. Especially the really busy city bars/discos. All the cash going around and hard to track numbers of visitors makes it easy to do a number on the tax people.
Also, they can use their enforcers as doormen. Where I'm from most of them had a criminal record even though they managed to obtain the "Tickmark" security logo (though I don't know whether that was legit or fake). Really, that should never be granted to anyone with any kind of violent crime history.
It's the same with a lot of Chinese restaurants. Lots of laundering there :(
It saves time, potentially a lot of time during busy hours. I've waited an easy 10+ minutes for a server to come and ask for drinks and another 5-10 to come back and take orders.
Phone based ordering, which can include pictures of all menu items, is a huge win in comparison.
They also never made sense after May 2020 at the latest, when it was clear to the well-informed that surface spread was not a significant vector (nor were droplets, only aerosols).
> Covid still exists, but most everybody has natural or induced immunity
That’s why I compared to 2021, not 2020. In 2021 anyone who wanted a vaccine could get one.
> it just isn't as severe (new strains)
AFAIK this is still unproven, do you have a source?
> If you want to live in a state of emergency in perpetuity, go for it
I don’t, and never did. You’ve understood my point exactly backwards. I don’t think QR code menus make sense, and, along with a lot of other pandemic theatre, I don’t think they ever made sense, as evidenced by the fact that once people decided to stop using them, nothing catastrophic happened, despite the fact that the state of the pandemic is not meaningfully different from 2021.
Yeah if anything we could have stopped caring when the South African variant came out. That was really the turning point and many countries kept ignoring the evidence of how mild it was.
I have a love-hate relationship with those kinds of restaurants. I hate having to look at the menu and order using my phone, but on the other hand, I love that I don't need to tip them (because there's no service being provided to me -- no, carrying my food over from the counter doesn't count).
When I moved in 8 years ago, our laundry service accepted coins or cards. There was a nice box on the wall where you swiped your card, and then you could activate up to four machines at a time, which was great, because I usually ran three loads at once. They also had a fantastic web-based machine monitor page, which was accessible by anyone from anywhere, with no auth required.
Then they "upgraded" and every machine got a little bluetoothy card reader dongle on it and a QR code, and they "upgraded" the box on the wall so that it stopped accepting cards. So that's fine, I guess, but it was a pain in the ass to start 3 machines at once, because now I needed to run my card 3 separate times, and hope that the readers were all working OK. There was also a mobile app, but the Android Lollipop tablet I had never worked with the app. You needed to activate both WiFi and BT (and it would force those on) but it still didn't work, despite my valiant efforts to contact their Support idiots. They also shut down the good monitoring page, and the only way to monitor machines was to pay for a load and use the app only. That sucked. A major use case for monitoring was to see who was using machines already, before I lugged everything downstairs!
So I got a new Android 10 phone and the app worked okay. I didn't really use the app. Then I noticed that the laundry room was really going downhill. Machines went out of order and weren't fixed. The same with pipes and such. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, I began to outsource to a wash'n'fold service, which has worked great.
Then a few months ago, landlady announced that we were switching laundry services, so that was all swept away and new machines were installed. There is a new app. The little box on the wall now sells reloadable cards, too. And you can pick those up at the leasing office. I sort of used the app just to test it. Obviously, there's no world-readable monitoring page on the web. Thankfully, I think the machines are still accepting quarters. But I'm still going with my outsourced hassle-free laundry.
Speaking of the evils of internet-reliant devices and bad engineering: those MIT washing machines actually went down for two weeks. MIT changed the authentication configuration of their wireless network, the software couldn't re-connect, and all hell broke loose. They had to turn on some emergency operating mode that allowed students to use them for free, without any app.
During lockdowns my country required phone, to get permit to leave house. If I followed rules, I would not be able to buy food, and would starve to death!
A similar thing happened in Korea, to enter establishment there was a requirement to scan the business QR code then collect name and phone number on a government portal before entering, however the vast majority of people travel in Korea are assigned a sim with no number attached, so a lot of forigners just couldn't go out. To be fair, you couldn't enter the country for tourism at the time, but you could for business- so meetings at restaurants became a real challenge.
I want a safari private browsing mode equivalent for apps on iPhone. I would turn this on by default for all apps. And I would use Apple ID generated per-app user-id and iCloud private relay and private email for every app by default. I'm hopeful that Apple will do it as they are a privacy focused company. Basically iPhone should behave like TorBrowser for every single app. I also want the location service to feed an address based location or a previously saved location to the app. And I want to deny any attempts to fingerprint via device ids and names like wifi access point names or bluetooth devices etc. Someone at apple, if you are reading this, please get it done. Thanks!
Not quite the same, but Android has a Guest User mode (similar to macOS). If you switch to the Guest account, it'll create a new user separate from the main one. Then when you log out, it deletes all the data.
* Apps that offer any form of social login must also offer Apple ID login
* Apple ID login can anonymise your email address per-provider
* Every app already gets a distinct device ID, and indeed every app install gets one. Reinstalls regenerate it.
* Wifi APs and Bluetooth scans require location privileges, which you can decline.
* Apps are required to continue functioning (minus functions that clearly require the permission) if you decline them.
I recently landed on beeline's website (GPS navigation devices for motorbikes and bicycles). For bicycles, the tagline was "Simplify your ride".
I strongly disagree. I feel like involving my smartphone into any activity that existed in 1990 (like jogging, or riding a bike) tends to make things more complicated, not less. When I go for a jog wanting to listen to podcasts, battery status, headphones, Bluetooth and playlist ordering are additional complexities that, at the very minimum, add additional steps to the process and, at worst, require several minutes of problem-solving before I can get started.
In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler.
You think this because the cases where smartphones are worse stand out more.
Finding businesses that match some profile in the area, finding out that business' hours and offerings, then getting directions there from wherever you currently are -- all MASSIVELY easier on a smartphone compared to doing the same in 1990/pre-web. Doing that stuff with yellow pages and a map was a huge pain in the ass that took forever.
Grabbing a playlist to listen to music on a jog is also way easier in the age of music subscriptions and smartphones, compared to going around with a walkman+tape, especially if you factor in getting variety in song choice.
Also, remember communicating with people at arbitrary times? If they're at home, that's fairly safe, though if you're not home you may need to find a payphone. But if they're away from home on errands, lol, good fucking luck getting a message to them.
Finding information about just about anything pre-Web was massively harder. Sources were limited, physical, probably out-of-date, etc. This isn't a smartphone thing as such unless you're talking about real-time discovery while you're not at home. But the smartphone and the real maturation of information sources online were coming together at about the same time.
People forget--or they never knew--what it took to do most kinds of research.
In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler.
Beeline is an alternative to a paper map, and having seen many people try to navigate with a map I'm pretty sure everyone would agree than a smart phone is massively less complicated.
If you're going on a journey where you wouldn't need a map, just adding in some tech is obviously going to be more complicated than not adding tech.
It was a huge hassle to have enough quarters 20 yrs ago when I last used coin laundry. These days when many people don’t use cash at all it’s far harder to find them. During the peak of the pandemic restrictions in the US there was a massive shortage of quarters because of limited commerce. There are a lot of people where I live in the Boston area who depend on coin laundry who had a hard time getting any done.
Personally I would have welcomed anything that freed me from rounding up quarters. Though would prefer tap to pay on the machine over an app.
My apartment building’s laundry uses quarters and just has a change machine in the laundry room. It is almost a closed loop token system since people tend not to use the quarters for anything besides laundry. You stick a bill in the change machine to get quarters, put the quarters in a laundry machine, then every few days the staff empties the quarters from the laundry machines and uses them to refill the change machine.
A laundry near me costs £4, which is $5. Feeding 20 coins into a machine is unappealing, so I can see why apps and so on might be more popular in the USA.
$1.75 in my building! Most standalone commercial laundromats do cost more, in the $3-4 range, and those almost always take credit cards. I don’t think I’ve ever had to use an app though, just a card.
>- tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change
I have a couple old change buckets that probably still have a fair number of quarters buried in them, but I don't get given coins in the US more than a few times a year. If I didn't have old change at home, I'd have to go to a bank.
Somewhere in HN there's a post about disrupting or revolutionizing the laundromat industry, where some person is showered in praise (and later money) for setting up this lousy system.
And now the LavaWash server could be hacked to steal user data that a washing machine would never need, but the implementer chose to store without reasonable protection.
This feels like it could have been much better achieved through contactless payment than a proprietary app. Moving from coins makes sense, moving off standards less so.
- you get the money in advance
- you don’t pay commission to CC network for every transaction
- casual users will give you much more money than what they need to
I'm extremely confident their top up mechanism will incur fees just as much as contactless payment would. And clearance is soon enough. Unclaimed balances would not show on their P&L if they are following GAPP, in fact they'd be a liability. And it's at a school?! Priorities:D
This is something that AARP should be on. Yes, I know that most seniors, even very old ones (over 80) have smartphones, but an awful lot do not, and many who do have a rather uneasy relationship with it. Every update comes with user interface changes that have to be learned, and I see my older relatives who do have smartphones having various levels of trouble learning them each time. Eventually, they give up on functions that change too much (Apple, I’m talking about Camera and Photos on the iPhone)
Despite personally liking my iPhone, I’m looking to help protect the rights of my relatives to live their lives and access public services without smartphones or personal internet access.
There are seniors; there are also those who simply will not carry a
device that constantly broadcasts their position and contains
microphones and cameras that are ultimately controlled by some
company.
Did this article trip anyone else’s “is this GPT?” senses? I thought the prose style was very strange - quite verbose with a lot of redundant descriptors.
It tripped my “trying to hard to write eloquent, witty prose” senses. I proofread a lot of papers in college and wrote a lot of columns in the school newspaper. This is a common style. Thesaurus-driven word choice.
I don't know if it's the guy's case, however, there are people who actually delight themselves in writing complex sentences comparable to a mathematician's delight in doing mathematics or a painter's artistry on canvas.
I'm noticing it's mainly an US-centric trend to have negative feelings towards good and complex writing.
i used to do exactly this as an undergrad! i thought it made my writing sound whimsical or whatever, as if emulating the style of Lemony Snickett or _why the lucky stiff
i've since replaced this (bad imho) habit with other bad habits, fortunately
It goes without saying you shouldn't imitate the style of other people but have your own. Also, there's actually a feeling of joy in writing good prose and seeing the result, which is something I never mastered in English, as evidenced for example by my repeated use of "but", but (yeah..) kind of did in my native language.
Reading this was nostalgic for me as this was how we'd write essays in my Indian high school. It's not so strange when we grow up developing our style to look like this :)
To me it sounds very self conscious, just like a high schooler or youthful university student who has not yet found an authentic voice but wants to sound literate. So probably more about the "high school" than the "Indian" part of your observation. I didn't finish the article.
1. stop putting software in things
2. especially dont put webshit in things
3. especially dont put smartphone shit in things
really, i'm not trying to sound rude, theres no other way to put it, you deserve it. its unfortunate that people value "politeness" over reason. this is the hard truth that people in this bubble have not been able to face for 20 years now. the web is an abomination which was never created for anything other than corporate interests and serving magazines. of course it's practically inoperable. same exact story for smartphones, it was created by some scum web company to carry out the old trope of making a software ecosystem where shitty devs that cant make their own software come to and said scummy company gets to rule over. none of this implies any good or even reasonably working software
also laundry is a trivial task, it was only hard before washing machines. also this is one example of where technology actually made our lives better but all kinds of idiots like environmentalists and corpos are trying to ruin it.
I feel like it'd be easier to rally your student body to get rid of the stupid payment systems altogether and do what some other schools do: $free.99 laundry, paid for by a per-semester lump-sum "laundry fee". The washers and dryers are standard fare - still commercial units, just set to $0.
It's so much nicer to be able to card into the laundry room, throw your clothes in, hit start, and leave without having to fumble with Enshittification.
Fine, an app for laundry is overkill but man is the particular conclusion dumb. Imagine I said "I tried opening a door without a key!! Is technology making our lives better after all? Metallurgy is unnecessary!!"
My son had a near-identical experience at Uni in the UK, except for 'pod' substitute smartcard.
For some reason, the laundry app would not run without crashing on his phone.
The Uni could provide a loadable smartcard for the machines - but they had run out. The machines did not work with regular credit/debit cards or NFC phones.
Result: For several weeks, son has to haul laundry on the bus to an off-campus launderette.
Just today I went into a Xiaomi only store, branded as Mi store something.
After spending a few minutes looking around, I finally asked the guy if there's ANY product that works without an app. Surprisingly, there was - an electric shaving device (razors?). I couldn't stop laughing. Even things as simple of cheap pole/standing fan require apps.
If in the United States, the thing to do is call an attorney and file an ADA lawsuit against the school. Find a disability that makes it difficult to use a smartphone and claim you have it. For example "Internet Addication" or "ADHD"
They are good for logging in from a laptop. Never seen them on location. Get two of the cheaper ones to start with. Keep one as backup in a safe place.
this has nothing to do with bad engineering, it's about stupid greedy investors/managers with to much power on decision making, decisions that they should not make. this is sad and an embarrassment to tech people. this industry is a joke.
tl;dr: He got a smartphone substitute from some desk, which works with the washing machines. After a bit of trouble working that, he managed to access his account and wash.
> I tried doing my laundry without a smartphone. This proved to be difficult, since our laundry machines can only be operated with a smartphone app. After lots of struggle, I finally managed to do it, leading me to reflect on whether technology is actually making our lives better.
On the current maniacally forced through and intentionally neglectful way (arbitrarily picking the superiority of a narrow concept over all else) it is not. Not at all.
In the past 10-15 years the usability of technology is degrading. Got only overcomplicated, unnecessarily overwhelming (using it in places unnecessary or harmful), not better in making life easier. Just relocating the difficulty and complexity somewhere else, to some previously unkown domain. Be it gadgets, operating systems, home appliences, vechicles. Things went wrong somewhere by some reason. (rampage of clueless investment money? huge technical organizations serving only themselves? ...)
Sorry, but this story reads like an AI generated text and the subject matter is ridiculous. The person in the text is narrow minded, selfish etc. There are a multitude of reasons public/commercial laundry would want to have an app. If one wants to have it tailored to their old-fashioned ways they have to own their own laundry machine.
It’s not always possible to have a personal laundry machine available. Is it too much to ask that the machines also accept a credit card scanned in-person?
> Dorm rooms aren't going to get individual laundry machines
When I lived on campus (in the Netherlands) every apartment (6-18 people) had at least one washing machine. These weren't provided by student housing, but there was at least one small room in every group that had all the plumbing needed for a washing machine. You'd go out and buy a cheap used one as a group and run it until it died. Same thing applied for everything in the group's shared space: refrigerators, freezer, gas stove, oven, microwave, TV. You'd have a gas hookup in the kitchen but the group itself was expected to provide the stove, just like in any normal apartment.
In other countries these appliances are provided with rented apartments. In Denmark and Britain I'm provided a washing machine, dryer, fridge, stove, oven.
Especially for students it sounds a hassle to make them install and remove these.
Appliances are only provided in as far as they are fixed. So a kitchen may have a built-in stove top and oven, but often there is just a space for a separate oven/stove combination. Basically anything that isn’t fixed doesn’t come with the apartment. This includes flooring.
You can rent furnished apartments but this usually for short term use (think a few months).
For students it’s a little different. The appliances belong to the group and are in the shared spaces. When someone moves out they only need to clear out their room. You only need to install/remove anything when it breaks and needs replacing. Not a huge problem.
Most apartments around here have their own washing machine, often the tenants buy their own. I understand that some people are fine with shared machines, but I think at least for families, a washing machine (+ dryer maybe) is a good investment.
This is very culture dependent. Is this true in the US? When I was a student in central Europe, every apartment had a laundry machine, same goes for most dorms. I think it's not even legal to have a permanent place to live (like a dorm) without a toilet here.
A warning would seem helpful. There is no alternative to suffering if people accept the conditions. Some choose not to go to university; some are trapped in slums.
Not so likely with 60-80 degrees Celsius though. Also professional washers have disinfectant cycles.
I use the laundrette around the corner as I don't have a washing machine or dryer (it's really just as easy, and the washers and dryers are crazy fast compared to home ones) and my clothes are just fine at 60C. Bedding and towels I do at 80.
If shared laundry were a significant vector of transmissible diseases, it would be pretty damn obvious.
Can fungus grow in your washer? Sure. My washing machine growing up as a kid was gross and my clothes constantly stunk because of my family's inability to take wet laundry out of the washer. Then I went away to college, the machines were maintained, I'm not a moron and can handle getting clothes out of the washer when they're done, and my clothes no longer stunk.
Wash your clothes with detergent (no, you don't even need hot water), dry them promptly, and you will be fine. Use a hot air dryer instead of line drying if you're really worried.
I understand the argument that you shouldn't need a smartphone for everyday tasks but you can get a perfectly serviceable one for $100-$200 and I feel like this shouldn't be a burden for a college student.
Price is not the only reason to not get a smartphone, not participating in surveilance captalism also plays a part for some. I have found a compromise with a de-googled phone, but I have considered switching to a dumb phone more than once.
> And then they have to hire someone to go by and get cash from each of the machines.
Are hiring costs really such a deciding factor? By relying on an app, they have to hire teams to develop and maintain at least two mobile apps, probably another team to develop and maintain the 'Laundry Pod' device, at least two teams to develop and maintain the laundry machine endpoints (hardware and software), teams to develop and maintain the backend services, technical support staff to offer first-level customer support for any IT issue, and (hopefully) a competent infosec team to keep their platform secure. And that's without taking into account the IT infrastructure expenditures.
If they can afford all that, they can afford some low-wage cash-picker-uppers... but why would they even need them? They could simply provide the organisation that is renting out the laundry equipment with the keys to get the cash themselves. Washlava can invoice the renters for whatever flat or per-usage fee, with no need to even touch the cash.
That’s a fixed cost versus variable cost. That’s just like asking why you can’t call Google when you want to perform a search and have someone do it for you.
I don’t believe people on HN don’t understand why you shouldn’t do things that don’t scale.
I think you missed the part where I pointed out that hiring somebody to "pick up the cash" is not even necessary.
If scaling is the issue, invoicing the institutions hosting the laundry equipment a flat or a per-usage fee (whatever best suits the business model), and having them deal with the cash still scales much better than the whole infrastructure and headcount required to unnecessarily shoehorn an app into paying for using a washing machine.
Come to think of it, I have never bought a new smartphone, it has always been second hand devices. I do use a debit card for everyday shopping though, but having a google-enabled phone on your person at all times that you constantly interact with is another level of potential for surveillance.
Price hasn't been the main problem in years. Everyone likely has a cousin or friend with an old smartphone collecting dust in a drawer that could be had practically free.
The biggest problems are loss of autonomy, privacy, and redundancy. Whole life dependent on G and A corps? Accounts that can be banned on a whim with no recourse? No thank you. ((extends middle finger))
> The biggest problems are loss of autonomy, privacy, and redundancy. Whole life dependent on G and A corps? Accounts that can be banned on a whim with no recourse? No thank you. ((extends middle finger))
This all applies to credit card companies. Try running a porn site and accepting payments with credit cards
I'm not okay with that either. (Although PCI DSS and banking regulations do present a limit to their potential shenanigans.)
A secondary in any case, as issues have well-developed remediation strategies. Few regular folks are banned from the financial system without recourse.
I get it. You wanted to be edgy and shoot from the hip, but this time pulled the trigger too fast.
> secondary in any case, as issues have well-developed remediation strategies. Few regular folks are banned from the financial system without recourse.
Try running a perfectly legal porn website or anything controversial and try getting a merchant account.
I had a friend who ran party buses that catered to the LGBT community and had a hard time getting a merchant account while others in her same industry didn’t have a problem.
> an old smartphone collecting dust in a drawer that could be had practically free.
Needed to use an old smartphone in a drawer recently, due to current one failing.
Unfortunately they tend to be too old to install current apps. Good for calls, text and web, but not for random laundry app of the week. Same with friends' old drawer phones.
If you're poor the phones you buy are often second hand too, which exacerbates the problem of the old one in the drawer being out of date for current apps by the time you need to get it out again as a backup.
My 6s was supported for seven years or more. While what you say is true, it seems a bit overstated. When an individual is motivated, they will find one cheap if not free.
I've been that contractor, which is why I will never be the owner of an appliance that requires an app to function.