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Comment by _carbyau_ | Hacker News Reader

The crazy thing was during COVID everyone seemed to launch an app - iOS or Android.

What happened to websites? Did they suddenly become impossible to secure or communicate with?

Don't remind me. I tried to fight it for a decade. I was mad. MAD.

We are being actively PUSHED into this shit and almost everyone seems to be totally fine with it. They are herding us into complete obedience. A phone is more secure because when you install their apps, they can monitor everything you do. Banking? Mobile. Document signing? Mobile. Toilet paper? Mobile.

I am making a bet here: buy the end of the decade, every EU citizen will be directly required to go either Android or Apple. Two platforms under complete European control.

Frankly, I blame the masses for falling for it. It's always the masses. Once the cabal swoops in the vast majority, the rest is taken care of by society itself.

Indeed, it's becoming hard to avoid it.

Here in Spain we have the problem of this interpersonal payment system called "Bizum". It's like a local paypal but owned by the banks. So many people use it that it can't be avoided.

But my bank (and others too) only offer this functionality in their mobile app, not on their website. So if you need to use it you're really forced to use the mobile app.

In my case I have an old iPod Touch which I use only for this, nothing else. It works ok. But I wish I could just use it from the website from whatever device I want.

I have a dumb phone (Nokia 8110 4G) that I wouldn't trade with the latest iOS/Android model, and during Covid restrictions I downloaded and printed the pass at home with no problems. I also pay a small fee to my bank so I can keep using SMSs for transaction confirmations instead of surrendering to their app. Also using SMSs with PayPal and a few other online services. The day they force me to use smartphones which, privacy aside, to me are next to unusable crap, to do things I can easily do on a PC, is the day I'm retiring to a technology-free place for the rest of my life.

EU regulations now forbid SMS-based authentication. I tried explaining to the bank clerk several times how I am not using the Google Play Store but it was only when I held my Nokia "dumb phone" in their face that they gave me a hardware token generator (for free actually!).

For context, I use a Nokia 8110 and a LineageOS device.

The sales pitch is that you get to "own" the customer, in the sense that you have more control over the user experience. Fewer ad blockers, notifications to keep the user "engaged" etc. With more control over the device there is also the potential of easier support. There are plenty metrics collected so there is data to show that all these are true.

But all this is now inherent to the market. The few agencies who didn't offer apps went mostly out of business. So nobody needs to know why they want it anymore, it's just what is being offered and the world moves on.

The open web may prove to be a historical curiosity. Just like personal universal turing machines. The jury is still out, hopefully there will be a movement back in our lifetimes.

Curiously, most of these apps are web-based anyway, just wrapped inside an app.

This is a case where I want to mention Austria as a positive example: The vaccination certificate app is open source on Github, so you can compile it yourself and not need to use the Play Store.

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