Ask HN: Uber's rampant abuse of push notifications for spam
In short, if you turn off push notifications, you don't get buzzed when the car you ordered has arrived. However, in addition to the transactional messages that I want to receive, Uber abuses this channel and the permission I've given it to send advertisements for food delivery - often multiple times per day.
It seems to be getting worse over time, and when I've contacted their support channels, they claim to either not understand what I mean by native iOS push notifications - claiming to not understand that they are separate and distinct from SMS messages - or they are simply lying about same.
Either way, it's clear that they have no intention of implementing fine-grain controls within their application to allow us to opt-out of spam unless they are forced or shamed to do so.
Short of remembering to disable push notifications after each ride, and turn them on again before each ride, is there any hope of turning this trend around? It's low-level harassment, and they are hiding behind the fog of most people simply not understanding what a push notification is.