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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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As you enter a shop, you could hear the very friendly radio shouting in the background "Download our app now!". Ignoring that, you proceed to buy your groceries then head to the cashier. There's a glaring gigantic ad stating "Download our app for personalized offers and benefits, now!" As you rush to exit the store, you see one big final ad stating that "The app has numerous benefits, download it!"
The short story above is based from my personal experience and events that we've all experienced by now. It has gotten so worse, even your local grocery shop has an "app" now, your city has one, for some reason, your school, your workplace, your local parking lot and the list can keep going on. They all propose the same thing, "benefits, benefits, convenience!" This is yet another act of people being convenient, falling into the trap of modern consumerism.
The word "app" replaced everything computer related. The operating system? App. The web browser? App. Website? Another app. Everyone went from saying the oh-so daunting word of "program," which seemed something complex and unknown, to the word that is friendly to the average Joe, namely "app."
They're usually very woefully designed and programmed, connecting to 20 trackers minimum. Selling your data for a 3% price reduction, what a deal! Not mentioning the fact that they force you to have a mobile device, discriminating against people that choose to own only a computer. Websites that had log in interfaces, now just spam you to get their "app," even if the same, or even better, experience could be achieved in using a web browser.
The "apps" are part of the "phonification" of everything technology related. Mobile devices limit our rights, constraining us, unlike a computer where you can put free software fully. For the sake of accessibility and consumerism, they've sacrificed everything else. A computer can be accessible, too, if the person wants to use his thumb for more than scrolling down.
Another awful anti-feature for us, but wonderful for the data industry, is the fact that you cannot use any of them anonymously. You're forced to register an account even for parking your bike now, which is awful because your data will be flowing to everywhere and anywhere. This exposes you to data breaches, third parties that snoop around combined with other factors.
We should not encourage or endorse this trend of calling programs "apps" under any circumstance. It has been popularized by the Big Tech corporations, in order to market computers to average Joes more easily, to get them into their vicious consumerist cycles. We shouldn't let technology to be eroding our rights.
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