I have recently started university and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy, for the dining plan, when it would literally work perfectly fine using your student ID and ordering to a real cashier, LIKE HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR DECADES.

I have also read many stories of people that live in apartments that require them to use a mobile app for god damn LAUNDRY. All you need, is a card reader, and it will work perfectly fine like it has been for the longest time.

Privacy concerns aside, it is just annoying that you need this app and that app and this app and that app and it just clutters space on your phone. Security concerns too as now they have all of this additional info on you online, such as your phone number your email your real name, instead of just your credit card info like a card reader would have. And I am willing to guarantee that their security model is absolute horseshit because they have such a small team of engineers working on the app and the servers.

Literal enshitification

  • eumesmo@lemmings.worldEnglish
    40·
    9 months ago

    Can’t agree more. And the issues go beyond data harvesting. For example, recently, I lost my phone and carried on for a while without it, only to realize we’re building a society in which we are slowly losing our citizenship rights if we don’t have a phone. I found myself locked out from many things, and having to go so many alternate routes, that I had to get a new phone quickly.

    It all happened so subtly, and I saw it happening, but still, it’s hard to believe we came to this point without the people manifesting some sort of opposition. I get even more worried about the developing countries, where not everyone can properly afford a phone.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      9 months ago

      I’ve been called a crazy conspiracy theorist since 2009 and my first Android. Hated all the sync/tracking Google was doing that was killing my battery then. Disable Google, and now I get a full day’s battery, back then.

      People still don’t listen to me about this issue, 10+ years later.

      • eumesmo@lemmings.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        Those google apps are also the number 1 reason of phones getting slower over time and leading people to buy new ones. Fuck google.

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Yep. Currently setting up my next phone - Pixel 4a. It won’t have any Google services. Gonna just bite the bullet and move on.

    • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
      3·
      9 months ago

      That’s the reason I stopped using a smartphone in 2020. Never has much problem thus far except for Steam, which required using their app for confirming the trades (even for simple items worth fractions of a penny). I now use an Android VM for this.

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        If Steam could just do that with standard TOTP already…

        2FA is the only reason I’d need the app, but installing it just for this one feature? Not the only service I have this problem with. Just let me use Aegis ffs

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Well, I didn’t use it until I started trading items (and these were cheap items worth fractions of a penny, mind you! The ones that drop for free all the time!) I really wish you could confirm such trades as well by just entering your TOTP code from Keepass.