I’ve been trying to work out how so many people got to be obsessed with smartphones to the point of using the tiny screens for tasks where it makes no sense. There are many Lemmy apps for smartphones but just a couple half-assed ones for the desktop.

It’s banks. Banks have been cattle-herding security-naive people onto smartphones designed for obsolescence with huge attack surfaces to push their closed-source app which requires licking Google’s boot to obtain. This seems to strike a parallel with Zuckerberg’s comment: “I don’t know why those dumb fucks give me all their data”.

The number of people willing to resist banks can probably be counted on one hand. From there, most people are easy enough to just say “fuck it, I’ll run the app”. This is what drives the “must have a recent phone at all times” brain malfunction. Most of the population is trapped on this shit like caged animals that can’t see the cage bars.

Many don’t bother owning a PC now. They want an all-in-one device. Then they read large amounts of text on that tiny display. So every industry has to cator for smartphone pawns to stay relevant.

Consumers wise enough to keep the GSM SIM slot empty and use smartphones just for innocuous tasks like offline navigation face this onslaught of app-pushers. Some public operations between ppl and government are becoming “app only”.

We are losing our human right to self-determination and autonomy. Normally we could let fools be fools and carry on. But there is a critical mass threshold by which the foolish consumption of many triggers oppression of the few who had enough sense to avoid it.

The offline alternatives and FOSS alternatives are being silently driven out of existence.

I was an early adopter (AOS 2.2). Thought: great, Android is linux based and under FOSS licensing. I am liberated. Got my update to AOS 2.3. Then I was abandoned. I saw right away the shit show I was baited into. Being at the vendor’s mercy for upgrades sent a stark msg to me that I learned from. And apparently not many others.

I wouldn’t care about the foolish decisions of consumers to keep buying new phones if it only affected them. But it’s fucking up the world.

  • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    There are many Lemmy apps for smartphones but just a couple half-assed ones for the desktop

    On the desktop? A web browser. Why use an app?

    It’s banks.

    No idea aboutbanks, to me it’s people being lazy and behaving like sheep.

    • activistPnk@slrpnk.netOP
      1·
      2 months ago

      On the desktop? A web browser. Why use an app?

      To be clear, the web browser /is/ an app b/c it’s JavaScript. The browser is just a vessle for the stock Lemmy JavaScript app which does not work on terminals. Since the app is JavaScript it does not have decent local drive access, which means all the data is kept exclusively in the cloud. The moment an instance goes down, all the users are fucked. User’s history and comments are gone.

      There are a couple desktop apps that liberate us from JavaScript and the GUI:

      • NeonModemOverdrive – so buggy it cannot be regarded as functional
      • Lem – an emacs client for Lemmy. This may have hope but I cannot try it yet because it demands a very recent version of emacs.

      The selection is a bit poor with at least one of them being ½ baked. This would not be the case if there were not this frenzy of smartphone addicts.

      • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Then why say there is only half-assed desktop ‘apps’? A web browser is not half-assed, even less so compared with most apps.

        As for the offline part, even though I 100% agree, I also see social media as an online activity so I don’t really mind not being able to access it when I’m offline. It’s a very personal thing for sure but I already spend a lot of my time offline so I’m ok with that.

        The same goes with being reliant on javascript, btw: I don’t like that but since it’s so often required… I simply use a dedicated web browser to access those ‘normal’ web sites (I use uBo to block all I can) and next to it I use a different browser to access my own website (no script at all) and the few other sites I know I cna trust likewise.

        The moment an instance goes down, all the users are fucked. Their history and comments are gone.

        Yep. Which is why I also use a personal website for the stuff I don’t want to see go away without me having any control over it.

        • activistPnk@slrpnk.netOP
          2·
          2 months ago

          It would be easier to understand if you had been around in the 90s. In the 90s we were accustomed to text UIs with little use of the mouse. The keyboard is faster and the mouse slows us down. Usenet was the universal forum platform of the time. We had a very rich set of apps which were very well developed because phones and GUI browsers were not competing for developer labor.

          And because many people actually were offline, apps were designed for offline use. In Gnus you could fetch all headers for all the forums of interest. When offline, you could tag the topics that look interesting. The next sync would pull them down. Users automatically had their own local copy of everything.

          A web browser is not half-assed, even less so compared with most apps.

          A web browser is inherently shit software because it tries to be a jack of all trades which makes it a master of none. It has a huge attack service because it tries to suit many purposes. Browsers were meant to be document viewers. They were never meant to be an app execution platform. It’s rife with compatibility problems that plague them.

          As I write this, I cannot see any of the comment interaction icons because the 3rd party app (Alexandria?) doesn’t play well with Ungoogled Chromium. The stock app is even worse which is why I started using Alexandria. Web browsers are a total shit show. It’s a duopoly between Google and Mozilla, and Mozilla has proven to not have the users interests in mind.

          Browsers are bloated. Electron turns any app into a bloated garbage. It’s such a shit show. It’s much better to have a dedicated app for a sprecific purpose. Not a single thing trying to be many things.

          Yep. Which is why I also use a personal website for the stuff I don’t want to see go away without me having any control over it.

          How is your workflow setup? Do you run a piefed instance that syncs with piefed.social? Or is piefed.social your instance?

          • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            It would be easier to understand if you had been around in the 90s

            I was (I’m almost 60 and have been using connected computers since the very early 90s, if not late 80s). And as far as I can tell we’re not discussing what was the norm (or what one would love it to be) but what’s the state of app development nowadays. Regarding that, and only that, I’m just saying that compared to most ‘apps’ (aka, things running on a mobile device) I would certainly not qualify a web browser as half-assed. Far from it.

            A web browser is inherently shit software

            It’s a duopoly between Google and Mozilla,

            Browsers are bloated.

            Electron turns any app into a bloated garbage.

            1. I may agree with all of that.
            2. It doesn’t matter whether I agree or not, because here you’re playing on two levels at the same time which is biased.
              Either we compare existing software only and then, like I was trying to say, browsers are far from being half-assed no matter how shitty their priorities, their obsession with bloat and crap features are (apps also focus on what I would describe as utter crap: tracking, pushing ads, shitty UI and overall subpar experience for many activities that are simply better done on a computer). Or you try to compare exiting apps to your ideal app but then, well, you will always be right no matter what I or anyone else could object. because it’s 100% personal and you can’t be wrong in liking what you like, no matter what other people may think about it.

            It’s much better to have a dedicated app for a sprecific purpose.

            True that. Something that I’m more than willing to discuss and promote my own version of an ideal system (you can get a tiny idea of that by looking at my persona, very lightweight and script-less website) but that’s a different discussion ;)

      • bigfondue@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 months ago

        Cool I didn’t know there was an emacs Lemmy client. On the github I didn’t see any version requirements, so how recent does it need to be?

  • 6nk06@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    2 months ago

    I don’t carry a desktop everywhere I go, and I don’t have a laptop. My phone is good enough for most tasks, it’s reliable, it’s in my pocket, and I don’t need to turn it on.

    I use GrapheneOS, and the banks applications are better on the phone. I only need to check how much I have, and I can send money wherever I am. Also my banks are free.

    People HAVE an all-in-one device. They want that whether I like it or not.

    Some public operations between ppl and government are becoming “app only”.

    It’s not that way in France, we have web sites and it’s a good thing compared to the paper mess we had up to the 90s.

    We are losing our human right to self-determination and autonomy

    Because some banks require phones? Find another bank.

    • activistPnk@slrpnk.netOP
      21·
      2 months ago

      We are losing our human right to self-determination and autonomy

      Because some banks require phones? Find another bank.

      No, banks are just the catalyst. It’s because apps are being forced on us regardless of banks.

      The banks are the cause of masses of people deciding it’s a good idea “chase the shiny” and continously buy new phones, w/data plans and GSM. With so many Google boot-licking people running recent phones, countless corps and agencies have decided it’s okay to marginalise the few who do not.