Doing laundry on campus without a phone
naveenarun.wordpress.com
naveenarun.wordpress.com
I've been that contractor, which is why I will never be the owner of an appliance that requires an app to function.
Compare the permission flow of native applications to the one of web applications explicitly opened in any browser:
You should notice some differences.
That being said, I strongly consider supporting arguments as invalid when "ideological" is part of the brief summary of your refutiation and the supporting argument is first in the enumeration of your supporting arguments.
It's just a subset of the infinite set of useless but convincing "ad hominem" arguments, unless you can specifically point out why exactly some argument is "ideological", rather than rational logic or an attempt at achieving this ideal.
- useful applications don't need "gamification"
- native applications push users into addiction and ease privacy violations
Useful native mobile applications exist too. But they are mostly not superior to PWAs.
I read OPs comment as an observation about the market and society and the conclusion is categorization by correlation (there are technical arguments too, of course).
* The tasks one strictly needs in a smartphone does not require intensive computing, the kind not possible already with JS. Games do. Banking, govt services, online shopping, messaging applications don’t. Name me one such application.
* Applications would consume far less power without compiled binaries or WASM, and without being able to run in the background. This would greatly extend battery life.
* All applications would be properly sandboxed with a permissions model and source-code inspectable.
Embedded software is the absolute worst. Think about the UI of your TV or car radio (unless it's from one of the few manufacturers who have wisely given up on software and licensed theirs from Google or something): My old Toshiba plasma TV's UI looks like literal clip art, with obvious "polish" problems like some of the icons being 32x32 and others being 31x31--that kind of shit. Fixed width text font. UI responds 3 seconds after you press the remote button. The full color palette is: 0xff0000, 0x00ff00, 0x0000ff, 0xffff00, 0xff00ff, 0x00ffff (very creative). The audio feedback that happens when you navigate a menu is 500-1000ms off from the animation. It's a total mess.
These companies look at "Software" as just another line item on the BOM, like a nut or a screw. Source it from the cheapest supplier you can find, and scoop it into the product somewhere down the assembly line. The idea that software is actually a vital part of the creative industrial design of their products is foreign to them.
The lack of release notes is probably just not the effort, or even confusing for users and can deter them, or make them never read the release notes when they happen. I don't think most users know what semantic versioning is.
Like, if the only thing you did last week was refactor some module, add more unreachable code for a flagged feature, and update third party libraries, do the users need that info every week?
But not releasing all those small changes daily/weekly makes the releases more and more dangerous as they stack up.
"Bug fixes and performance improvements"
Phones have very capable browsers.
>I tried doing my laundry without a smartphone. This proved to be difficult, since our laundry machines can only be operated with a smartphone app. After lots of struggle, I finally managed to do it, leading me to reflect on whether technology is actually making our lives better.
The problem, as I have been endlessly ranting on HN. Is that everyone now think of Tech, and uses the word "Tech" to mean Software.
I only wish I am wealthy enough to start a NO-Tech trend. i.e Zero or minimal Software. No more digital panel in a microwave, no more endless menu washing machine, No more Smart TV or Smart Fridge. The actual Technology should be in Atoms, not in Bits. Making Washing machine cleaning cycle faster and cleaner.
Apart from InkJet Printer, the so called Smart Appliance is the next one on my hate list.
I don't buy products that lock me into their app.
Maybe I'm cynical but I think this isn't a downside for the washing machine company, this is actually an upside.
We had like 1/100th the budget of Lyft. It's inexcusable.
An sms interface is super easy. You give it an address, then it reads it back to confirm it's right, gives you a list of price options and sends you updates... You can do the entire rideflow completely over sms assuming the person has already signed up. Even the tips, no problem.
It feels more casual. We definitely got higher utilization after the SMS interface than before. The flip phone interface was actually great for people with old phones or on limited data plans, it too got a lot of use.
This forcing of all the users through the same funnel is total bullshit. Wasn't personal computing supposed to be individuated instead of consolidated? Let's stop 1960s IBMing everything
It's how many profit dollars does it lose.
Most customers are hybrid customers - they will use say, Amazon.com on a desktop and on their phone.
The question is do you want to cater to customers where they're at as that flow changes throughout the day or do you want to force them to come to you?
Obviously it's the first. You want to push your way into their behavior through ubiquity.
You keep it up for the same reason you keep the Denny's open at 3am Christmas morning or you have those 7 Starbucks within a mile radius - there's an important ideological commitment that defines your relationship with the customer as a reliable and accessible partner in their lives. It pays dividends at the macro level even if on the micro level it doesn't seem reasonable.
You're either de facto infrastructure or luxury. Make sure that decision is yours and not the consumers.
As far as what happened to the company, we had some high risk bets in 2020Q1 and bet everything on it and yeah well, pandemic. Shit happens.
Not all customers are equal.
Uber has the same at https://m.uber.com - it actually appears to work well for my Western European location despite everyone here being used to the app, however it still shows artifacts of its primary target markets such as the option to pay in cash (not something we do in my location, and the app does not offer that as an option).
Some of them were frustrating like when I tried to order food on swiggy, it would go through with a credit card then get auto refunded and cancelled. The catch? The order will be delivered anyway and appear back in your order history. The refund will not be processed. Due to this strange behaviour, I ended up ordering the same thing 4x until I received my first order and it magically appeared back in the list as fulfilled.
The security guard asked me next day - why did you not receive all your orders that appeared late night? Was there a party?
Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck).
I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.
I've had to shut down my accounts in two banks because of surprise app requirements (that weren't in the contract) for basic account functionality. Their apps are only available trough App Store and Google Play, no .apk alternative. And even if you install the apps using Aurora store, the app instantly crashes, I suppose because they implement Google's SafetyNet, or whatever it's called now.
So, unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons, I'm limited to only using one bank, the only one in my country that still doesn't require an app for the type of account I want. I've thought of buying a phone just for the apps, but after that, who knows with what other bullshit they may come up with (your device is too old, it doesn't have a phone number associated, etc), so I just give up.
Owning a separate, dedicated piece of hardware for sensitive and critical activities (eg: banking) is a very good idea because it isolates them from all your other mundane, potentially risky activities.
Most people don't do this because of the various inconveniences and expenses involved, but if you can tolerate them it's about as safe as digital activities can get.
Well the answer is that in modern life it's literally impossible to access basic infrastructure of many places without a smartphone. It's an absolute necessity unless you want to be a nomad and live in the wilderness.
As far as smartphones being a necessity goes, I have never owned a smartphone myself, and do not carry any phone at all most of the time. I have just gone on living like I did before smartphones, though I am aware that I am locked out of more and more things. I am beginning to resent things like parking that requires a smartphone. I don't understand the lack of back up options.
Rather than insisting on 'smartphones as a human right', I'd rather see 'opting out' as a human right.
Of course, they are also very wrong. Opportunities to escape poverty are lost when you are only trying to fulfill your immediate needs, then there are the psychological ramifications of being vulnerable and in constant need for aid from others.
There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place.
The reason I ask is that I am concerned. Anything Europeans do eventually parts of the US will mimic.
This works out as "You are required to carry your surveillance device at all times"
Thanks to everyone who didn't care forcing the rest of us into being part of your turnkey facist dystopia. Who do you think will be turning that key? How long? 3 years? 5? 10?
Don't expect to be able to use modern services if you don't want to meet the providers where they operate. It's like refusing to use a card and demanding everyone to use cash, you're going to limit yourself and it's your choice if you think it's worth it.
I think limiting your goods and services to people with devices that have been available for more than two decades and are basically ubiquitous is a reasonable thing to do, considering the benefits that comes with it.
Personally i very rarely talk on the phone, that's never been why I've used mobile phones. I listen to music and use offline maps with GPS far more, but I also use it for payment, camera, text messages, etc.
Apple is making it harder and harder to use an Apple ID (required for the App Store) without using iCloud. iCloud is a privacy nightmare.
We shouldn't have to give up our rights to privacy to participate in society.
Betrays fundamental misunderstanding of both.
My government has to respect free speech but it doesn't mean I have to speak up. Just because something is a human right doesn't mean I have to execute it.
I very much appreciate those people who live without smartphones. As a society, we need these people. It's not only about people with disabilities and other marginalized groups. It's about everyone.
Last year, the smartphone of a friend of mine was stolen. Luckily, it was well protected. But still it was gone with all the 2F apps. This friend had to learn by example that those apps actually second factors. Also luckily, this person didn't enable 2F for Gmail. Otherwise it would have been much more trouble.
A surprising number of things also breaks down when you don't have mobile data — and that happens every time you travel internationally and don't have or want a sim card for that country.
And as a Russian, I also have to mention how terrible it is to travel when you don't have an internationally working debit card. There's so much stuff you simply can't use without one because there's no cash option. Those same scooter rentals are one example.
Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id
You definitely can't. You used to be able to sign up for Vivid, a similar app, with a Russian passport and by telling them that you live in Germany with no proof required, but I heard they cracked down on this since.
People who travel or shop online often, or have to receive payments from abroad, have all got themselves accounts and cards in foreign banks. I did, too. In some countries (Kazakhstan, Georgia, Indonesia, Turkey) some banks would open an account and issue a card for you even if you're not a resident.
* except several "friendly" countries that still accept Mir cards, like Armenia. Russian Visa and MC are truly useless abroad though.
And specifically a non-rooted, locked bootloader, remotely attested version. Running your own code on your own device is suspicious behavior you know! This is already somewhat the case with banking apps, but luckily it's usually possible to hide root for now
And, yes, I get there are legitimate worries about malware and that does kind of solve them, but we've managed with desktop web banking (though not if Google's proposal succeeds). AFAIK most financial scams are executed by social engineering. 2FA (which is now mandated in the EU) is a more effective protection than locking down one endpoint
Barclay's was doing 2FA via an offline code generator (looks like a calculator) where you put in your card and entered a PIN since what feels like at least 10 years ago. I know most users would prefer mobile 2FA, but I wish they'd kept that as an option, whereas AFAIK they're phasing it out
In any case, de facto saying "you must pay dues to either Apple or Google to bank on the go" is quite bad for free competition
Loss of TAM by excluding rooted device: less than 1%
Ratio of problems per rooted device vs problems per non-rooted device: More than 100%
It's not YOUR fault that it's one of the most meaningful heuristics, but that also doesn't stop it from being a meaningful heuristic.
What problems would those be?
Laggard only start using an innovation because they're forced by external factors.
There's an argument that this is quite the reverse: it's innovative behaviour since it demonstrates comparative rarity, leadership (pointing the way), novelty (we should do things differently), etc.
Frankly, I think this thread points to some of the weaknesses in the Diffusion of Innovations theory (which on the whole I quite like). It doesn't neatly model 'luddites', those who are exposed to 'innovations' and understand them, yet reject them for whatever reason.
I certainly don't think I'm a luddite in general but there are a lot of things that I'm just "Meh. Don't need it."
It's using technology to go a step backward in usability.
The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your laundry, swipe your card, and that was it. Instantly started.
They switched to an app by the same service company, and now there were a bunch more steps involved. Put in your laundry, find the app, open it, scroll through their “what’s new in laundry!” news that nobody cares about, click a bunch of buttons until you find the machine number that matches yours, go through the menus to pick washer settings, then pay there, and still need to push the start button on the machine itself.
So much worse, and also more error prone — I would regularly get errors when a machine disconnected from the internet.
Why people think it’s better, I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that credit card fees are cheaper on a $20 transaction compared to 20 $1 transactions
Granted, there are probably better solutions that require neither quarters nor a mobile app, but between those two, the mobile app wins for me.
Check the TOS, children are, generally, not allowed to use the e-scooter rentals. Preventing this situation seems very deliberate.
For example, Lime-
https://help.li.me/hc/en-us/articles/115004915588-How-old-do...
You must be the legal age to enter into binding contracts. For most countries, this means you need to be 18 years or older to ride Lime scooters or e-bikes. In most countries, you can be 16 years or older for our non-electrical bikes. Before signing up for Lime, make sure to review the User Agreement for your country, which states age requirements
Considering that Google is already incorporating Web Environment Integrity API into Chrome, soon we won't be on the internet either, and that's a much more pressing concern imho.
On the other hand, I have no idea how that is enforced. So it is quite possible that liability stays on books indefinitely. Or worse - not recorded as liability in the first place..
Companies don't want never-expiring liabilities and they also want to make money from people not spending account balances.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/taco-bell-fined-for-violati...
Living in one of the highest density areas on Earth, stuff like this blows my mind. Public washing machines are everywhere for those that don't have their own.
I guess the extreme lease costs driven by entirely artificial commercial RE prices put a full stop to it existing in the west.
Sometimes the traditional ways are best.
A bike does not require a minimum age but an e-scooter does. The app probably knows the age of the user, but has no way to determine the age of the user of additional scooters.
It could cross-reference data from social media accounts, and if all friends of the user fullfil the required minimum age then offer additional scooters.
If a simple yes/no prompt is good enough for porn, I guess it's good enough for a scooter too.
A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.
While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
And of course, none of the banking apps will work without Google or Apple account, because if you try to run them on deGoogled Android they just refuse to work.
It will soon be impossible to be part of society without having Google or Apple account. Maybe it is already the case.
Which "classic" banks don't have online banking?
> While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
I'm reasonably sure at least with most major Scandinavian banks you can use plain old OTP tokens.
I always need another app or another account, and those are often impossible to use without a local phone number and an internet connection.
There were also periods of time where I had no active phone number, or no smartphone. Sometimes it was just for a few hours because I ran out of battery. Sometimes it was for a few days because I dropped my phone in a lake.
In the later case I could no longer make bank transfers, and if I wasn't well-prepared I could not log into many websites.
"Sorry I don't have <admin privilieges> so someone else will have to help you with <mundane adminstrative task>"
Obviously only works if your city has multiple scooter providers :)
1. That money will go through a thing called "escheatment" and end up with the California government on your behalf where it will be held for you.
2. I use the Lyft e-bikes and from recently onwards you can rent one for a friend. It doesn't apply your subscription benefits but I suppose that's life.
but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently
Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.
The authorized repair technician at Best Buy made me turn off “find my iPhone” before servicing the device. Turns out, somehow, I had two Apple accounts, one with a user name that is tied to my email address, and the other one where my user name is my email address. To my surprise Apple considers these to be distinct accounts. While I remember the password for my user name, and I assumed it was the same for the account that used my email address as the user name, turns out it was not and I could not turn off find my iPhone.
Attempts to use my phone to reset my password lead to the settings app freezing up and giving me a gave a generic “could not connect to network” error message. Switching from cellular to WiFi did not help the situation. The technician was about to say that they would not be able to replace the battery for the day. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me that day for unrelated reasons and after returning to the store with it I was able to reset my password with the web interface.
Modern technology has introduced a large number of seldom used use cases that are not well handled, but are essential when needed. Had I not had all the devices with me in my digital arsenal, I would not have been able to get my battery replaced. I have to wonder how many people face this issue and end up buying a new device to avoid the hassle.
I love how this would totally feel hyperbolic as a comedy skit
Because it sucked to lug my basket of socks and sweaty t-shirts over to laundry block only to find out there was a big queue and my options were either to lug the basket back to my room and try again a random interval later, or leave my backet lying around in the laundry block, at the mercy of who knows what and come back a random interval later.
https://www.thenewbieguide.se/laundry-in-sweden/
You do not need pocket device for such. Do you really say that in the university - supposedly filled with loads of smart people - no-one was able to come up with a solution for this trivial problem before Steve Jobs introduced the smartphone? Wow!
Do you really say that in the university - supposedly filled with loads of smart people - no-one was able to come up with a solution for this trivial problem before Steve Jobs introduced the smartphone? Wow!
Not sure if you're familiar with UK Universities in the 90s, but no-one was spending much thought making laundry easier for the students. Or making anything easier for the students, for that matter. Least of all the students.
The GPs argument is similar to how full anti-user lockdown of devices is justified for some minor security benefit that could have been achieved without said lockdown.
There is often a web interface to the booking system in addition to a wall-mounted terminal in a hallway. But using that terminal is often more convenient, as you'd often pass it twice every day anyway and you'd only need the key fob to "log in".
(I have worked on developing such a system, but before that I had been a regular user of a competitor's system in my apartment block for years)
But I also think it's easy to take all the incredible benefits for-granted and only see the downsides. I remember what it was like 30 years ago and I much prefer now. Do you remember having to go to a physical location (library or town hall) to look things up? Basically no-one bothered and we all blundered around believing whatever some bloke in the pub had told us about.
We all have the world in our pocket now and it's amazing.
(Yes we have the problem of bubbles and misinformation but I still think information abundance wins out over information drought)
Also no one snoops on your audio or camera despite the paranoia around it, there's no need to. You can get all the info you need much more efficiently and accurately other ways.
Maybe they have no other real choice? This discussion is full of such cases.
Or someone could have written a small client/server app in Access or FileMaker.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...
I am firmly in the browser-over-app camp. One of the reasons I have close to zero third party apps on my phones.
You can save yourself a bunch of R&D, manufacturing and maintenance if you can have the users provide the interface design. That basically what the majority of smartphone apps are for. Sure some of it is convenience for the end user, but for everything that needs to interact with something in the real world it's a cost saving measure.
As to why not webpages.... don't know, seems less serious I suppose. Personally I can't deal with more apps on by phone.
But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it.
It used to be impolite to mess with your phone in a restaurant. Now it's mandatory. Luckily it's not so common anymore now in Spain, only the Asian restaurants still do it. And McDonald's are trying to force their app by removing ever more ordering screens.
In some Chinese cities you can walk all day without finding a restaurant/shop that can give you change if you try to pay with cash or that accepts your western credit card.
Without Alipay/WeChat you will be stuck in your hotel unable to do anything.
However unlike the crappy western solution, where each business wants to have their own app, the experience is extremely smooth: Scan a QR code with WeChat, the menu opens in the app, order, pay.
Want a bottle of water in a small shop? Grab it from the cooler, scan the QR code on the cooler, type in 2 CNY and hit send money. Cashier gets a ding that you paid 2 CNY. Confirm with a nod and just leave.
Ride hailing (Didi - which ate Uber's lunch here), airplane&train tickets, and much more is also done right through WeChat/Alipay.
It's cheaper than having to deal with paper that gets dirty, torn apart by kids or outright stolen. And "daily special" doesn't need to be manually inserted into menus any more.
I've mentioned it in another thread about ice cream machines already: restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. Whenever a tiny avenue opens that saves them money, they'll do it, legal or not - the only thing that matters is that it looks acceptable to customers.
Phone based ordering, which can include pictures of all menu items, is a huge win in comparison.
Also the washers and dryers take quarters too but that can be a pain too
Then they "upgraded" and every machine got a little bluetoothy card reader dongle on it and a QR code, and they "upgraded" the box on the wall so that it stopped accepting cards. So that's fine, I guess, but it was a pain in the ass to start 3 machines at once, because now I needed to run my card 3 separate times, and hope that the readers were all working OK. There was also a mobile app, but the Android Lollipop tablet I had never worked with the app. You needed to activate both WiFi and BT (and it would force those on) but it still didn't work, despite my valiant efforts to contact their Support idiots. They also shut down the good monitoring page, and the only way to monitor machines was to pay for a load and use the app only. That sucked. A major use case for monitoring was to see who was using machines already, before I lugged everything downstairs!
So I got a new Android 10 phone and the app worked okay. I didn't really use the app. Then I noticed that the laundry room was really going downhill. Machines went out of order and weren't fixed. The same with pipes and such. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, I began to outsource to a wash'n'fold service, which has worked great.
Then a few months ago, landlady announced that we were switching laundry services, so that was all swept away and new machines were installed. There is a new app. The little box on the wall now sells reloadable cards, too. And you can pick those up at the leasing office. I sort of used the app just to test it. Obviously, there's no world-readable monitoring page on the web. Thankfully, I think the machines are still accepting quarters. But I'm still going with my outsourced hassle-free laundry.
* Apps that offer any form of social login must also offer Apple ID login * Apple ID login can anonymise your email address per-provider * Every app already gets a distinct device ID, and indeed every app install gets one. Reinstalls regenerate it. * Wifi APs and Bluetooth scans require location privileges, which you can decline. * Apps are required to continue functioning (minus functions that clearly require the permission) if you decline them.
I strongly disagree. I feel like involving my smartphone into any activity that existed in 1990 (like jogging, or riding a bike) tends to make things more complicated, not less. When I go for a jog wanting to listen to podcasts, battery status, headphones, Bluetooth and playlist ordering are additional complexities that, at the very minimum, add additional steps to the process and, at worst, require several minutes of problem-solving before I can get started.
In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler.
Finding businesses that match some profile in the area, finding out that business' hours and offerings, then getting directions there from wherever you currently are -- all MASSIVELY easier on a smartphone compared to doing the same in 1990/pre-web. Doing that stuff with yellow pages and a map was a huge pain in the ass that took forever.
Grabbing a playlist to listen to music on a jog is also way easier in the age of music subscriptions and smartphones, compared to going around with a walkman+tape, especially if you factor in getting variety in song choice.
Also, remember communicating with people at arbitrary times? If they're at home, that's fairly safe, though if you're not home you may need to find a payphone. But if they're away from home on errands, lol, good fucking luck getting a message to them.
Finding information about just about anything pre-Web was massively harder. Sources were limited, physical, probably out-of-date, etc. This isn't a smartphone thing as such unless you're talking about real-time discovery while you're not at home. But the smartphone and the real maturation of information sources online were coming together at about the same time.
People forget--or they never knew--what it took to do most kinds of research.
Right, but at least for me this happens all the time. Especially on trips, but even when I'm in my home area to an extent.
Beeline is an alternative to a paper map, and having seen many people try to navigate with a map I'm pretty sure everyone would agree than a smart phone is massively less complicated.
If you're going on a journey where you wouldn't need a map, just adding in some tech is obviously going to be more complicated than not adding tech.
- tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change
- banks are declining to accept unrolled coins
- better accounting between owners and property managers
Personally I would have welcomed anything that freed me from rounding up quarters. Though would prefer tap to pay on the machine over an app.
Requiring a smartphone and network connectivity to wash laundry is crazy. It should at best be an option.
But I suppose people have less loose change in their pockets these days.
I have a couple old change buckets that probably still have a fair number of quarters buried in them, but I don't get given coins in the US more than a few times a year. If I didn't have old change at home, I'd have to go to a bank.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
- you get the money in advance - you don’t pay commission to CC network for every transaction - casual users will give you much more money than what they need to
> Real Time Data
> Demand Based Pricing
> Real-time performance analytics
> Optimize price per load
> Shareable data & reporting
Despite personally liking my iPhone, I’m looking to help protect the rights of my relatives to live their lives and access public services without smartphones or personal internet access.
The Elements of Style
really, i'm not trying to sound rude, theres no other way to put it, you deserve it. its unfortunate that people value "politeness" over reason. this is the hard truth that people in this bubble have not been able to face for 20 years now. the web is an abomination which was never created for anything other than corporate interests and serving magazines. of course it's practically inoperable. same exact story for smartphones, it was created by some scum web company to carry out the old trope of making a software ecosystem where shitty devs that cant make their own software come to and said scummy company gets to rule over. none of this implies any good or even reasonably working software
also laundry is a trivial task, it was only hard before washing machines. also this is one example of where technology actually made our lives better but all kinds of idiots like environmentalists and corpos are trying to ruin it.
In fact, the OP mentions that he has a Razr flip phone, but uses it without a SIM card?!
And whoever thinks that using an app for controlling the washing machine is smart...isn't very smart.
...about being locked out of your appartment when your phone is discharged.
It's so much nicer to be able to card into the laundry room, throw your clothes in, hit start, and leave without having to fumble with Enshittification.
A phone is >1000x that and comes with distraction, surveillance, and is easy ti brake.
For some reason, the laundry app would not run without crashing on his phone.
The Uni could provide a loadable smartcard for the machines - but they had run out. The machines did not work with regular credit/debit cards or NFC phones.
Result: For several weeks, son has to haul laundry on the bus to an off-campus launderette.
After spending a few minutes looking around, I finally asked the guy if there's ANY product that works without an app. Surprisingly, there was - an electric shaving device (razors?). I couldn't stop laughing. Even things as simple of cheap pole/standing fan require apps.
Details?! I do not carry a cell phone and this would be incredibly convenient.
Modern systems don't seem to even try working with my numeric pager.
Kids these days.
Installing a communication program widely used by friends on my bulkier computer that I only check periodically."
Yes, it does make sense.
On the current maniacally forced through and intentionally neglectful way (arbitrarily picking the superiority of a narrow concept over all else) it is not. Not at all.
In the past 10-15 years the usability of technology is degrading. Got only overcomplicated, unnecessarily overwhelming (using it in places unnecessary or harmful), not better in making life easier. Just relocating the difficulty and complexity somewhere else, to some previously unkown domain. Be it gadgets, operating systems, home appliences, vechicles. Things went wrong somewhere by some reason. (rampage of clueless investment money? huge technical organizations serving only themselves? ...)
: (
Most apartments aren't getting individual laundry equipment either.
And you can't wash your clothes down at the river anymore.
When I lived on campus (in the Netherlands) every apartment (6-18 people) had at least one washing machine. These weren't provided by student housing, but there was at least one small room in every group that had all the plumbing needed for a washing machine. You'd go out and buy a cheap used one as a group and run it until it died. Same thing applied for everything in the group's shared space: refrigerators, freezer, gas stove, oven, microwave, TV. You'd have a gas hookup in the kitchen but the group itself was expected to provide the stove, just like in any normal apartment.
I use the laundrette around the corner as I don't have a washing machine or dryer (it's really just as easy, and the washers and dryers are crazy fast compared to home ones) and my clothes are just fine at 60C. Bedding and towels I do at 80.
Isn’t the point of washing clothes to get rid of this kind of stuff?
I’m not sure I want the answer to these questions, maybe ignorance is bliss.
Can fungus grow in your washer? Sure. My washing machine growing up as a kid was gross and my clothes constantly stunk because of my family's inability to take wet laundry out of the washer. Then I went away to college, the machines were maintained, I'm not a moron and can handle getting clothes out of the washer when they're done, and my clothes no longer stunk.
Wash your clothes with detergent (no, you don't even need hot water), dry them promptly, and you will be fine. Use a hot air dryer instead of line drying if you're really worried.
Same, already second-guessing my regular runs to the laundromat
At least credit card isn't a continuous and multi-sensor surveillance device.
The biggest problems are loss of autonomy, privacy, and redundancy. Whole life dependent on G and A corps? Accounts that can be banned on a whim with no recourse? No thank you. ((extends middle finger))
Needed to use an old smartphone in a drawer recently, due to current one failing.
Unfortunately they tend to be too old to install current apps. Good for calls, text and web, but not for random laundry app of the week. Same with friends' old drawer phones.
If you're poor the phones you buy are often second hand too, which exacerbates the problem of the old one in the drawer being out of date for current apps by the time you need to get it out again as a backup.