after a long day out it san francisco watching the fighter jet air show and navy fleet ships and boats, my wife and i decided to order food delivery when we finally arrived back home late at night. she used a popular ride hailing app that also integrates food delivery. the amount of dark patterns in the selection and checkout flow was absurd and placed with predatory precision. tired us ended up paying 30% more than we thought while coming close to also subscribing to some unwanted membership. it took both of our brains, four eyes staring at the screen and scrutinizing every click while being very tired.
1 month ago 路 馃憤 greg, teekay, chirale, space_elf
@danrl Being intentional is a big win in general. 路 1 month ago
however, i migrated to an older, smaller phone and have removed all apps that don't do something small and useful (unix philosophy like) but employ patterns to make you use it more. for example, the stocks app also displays click-baity news, so it needed to go. the calculator app is useful and fine. so is the weather app, mostly. youtube had to go. whatsapp is next, people can call me or send a text. social media i don't have aside from station. 路 1 month ago
@whixr i am so torn between ditching the phone and not. i don't think i can live without a phone (audiobooks, quick research when doing impovement projects and be stuck, browsing gemini every now and then, making all kind of calls as part of the building project, etc.) 路 1 month ago
@danrl Phone users only have other phone users to compare themselves to. It is hard to see the handicap which comes with an addiction when everyone around you is also abusing the same substance.
We never adopted any of this tech. So far we've accumulated 15 years X 2 people *extra* time and capital saved. We never stopped using skills like navigation, being bored, face to face social skills, math, situational awareness, long form writing, etc.
Phone users swear up and down that phones are useful tools. I fully agree, but they never seem to understand the joke ;) 路 1 month ago
thank you for reading my rant. 路 1 month ago
in case it doesn鈥檛 come across, i am so mad at the harm that technology is doing. this was meant to bring us all closer together not tearing us apart and preying on each others reptilian brain functions. fuck technology (exceptions apply) 路 1 month ago
(cont鈥檇) after that we were so mad that i decided to uninstall the app on my phone immediately, only to remember i had done this before on a trip where something similar had happened.
i was contemplating installing it again just to uninstall it right away for the satisfaction. but that would be absurd. so i went looking for the next best thing that gave me dark pattern vibes, which was a video platform鈥檚 app that started sucking up too much of my time anyway despite the occasional high value and deep content. so that app just went to the trash bin. had to do something here. dark patterns and predatory ui and algorithms have no place in my life! 路 1 month ago