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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why everything needs to be an app. Why not a webpage? And always these user agreements that require approval..

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I think the easiest answer is that a majority of consumers prefer it that way, if you don't have an app you don't exists as far as they're concerned. Remember that a lot of students doesn't understand file paths[0], they're so used to smart phones that they've never learned basic computer skills. Add to that that even before smart phones a lot of people didn't understand URLs or even used bookmarks, they just googled whatever site they wanted, like facebook login. Having the app icon on your home screen is much easier for them, and they're more likely to use it again and not forget it.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

I don't understand why this is being downvoted, from my casual observations I think pretty much the same. Every day when I step out of my social bubble of people daily working in/with IT, I get reminded that so many things that I consider obvious are a puzzle to the common folk

Companies seem more keen on worming their way into your life and collecting information about you than making it easier to purchase their products.

I keep seeing this posted on HN. What information do you think they can collect in an app without your permission that they can’t collect over the web?

Access to data on the phone for example. Just from top of my head: camera, stored data, contacts, location, microphone...

I am firmly in the browser-over-app camp. One of the reasons I have close to zero third party apps on my phones.

And none of that information is available unless you explicitly give the app permission.

On the other hand using standardized APIs, a web page can access everything you mentioned except for contacts

Good. And now how many people out there do look at app permissions exactly?

What do you mean look at them? If they mindlessly click yes to allow an app to have permission when it asks them, why wouldn’t they mindlessly click yes on the same confirmation on a website?

You just showed so little worda why consumer protection laws are so god damn important.

Yes because we really need to give the government more power…

When it comes to prtect from unhinged capitalism and greedy corporations, well, yes, we absolutely do.

Only the government has a legalized monopoly on power. I can avoid any one tech company much easier than I can avoid government.

You're misquoting Max Weber's definition of government.

The state's monopoly, qua Max Weber, is on the claim to the legitimate use of violence. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.

Absent this, one of three conditions exist:

1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.

2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious.

3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.

The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy

Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.

<https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>

There's an excellent explanation of the common misunderstanding in this episode of the Talking Politics podcast: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership>

The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.

I see nothing about your explanation that says we should give the one entity that has the power to take away our liberties with violence more power then necessary.

Again: The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy.

Using force outside prescribed circumstances, beyond necessity, or to serve perverted ends (e.g., benefiting a specific politician, bureaucrat, or political supporter or special interest) would be a capricious use.

Again, read Weber's definition, and I strongly recommend listening to David Runciman's explanation. I came across it long after coming to a similar conclusion myself, he addresses virtually all my own understandings and concerns especially clearly.

Welcome to the app for my Fujifilm camera (only required because I wanted to update the firmware) that refuses to run unless you grant fine-grained location access. After upgrading the firmware I deleted the app because it has literally no other benefit.

Support apps for digital cameras generally require location access since a feature that many customers want, is geotagging the photos. Only some camera models have a built-in GPS, while other models rely on the presence of a nearby smartphone to provide the coordinates for the photo. Apps are typically developed to support a whole range of models, so they need the location access to support the non-GPS-equipped models.

If (have location) then geotag Else dontgeotag

Rather than

Else quit

It’s not rocket science.

Isn't that what Apple requires apps to do by the way? Does Fujifilm have an iOS version that does that and an Android version that quits?

This was the Android version. The Apple policy sounds more sensible. Even better would be a way to fake the permission (which I understand some non-Google Android variants allow).

Did it update the firmware over Bluetooth? Up until Android 11, Android required fine location permission to perform Bluetooth scans[1] because knowledge of nearby devices can be used to derive location.

[1] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/blue...

You cant use the app if you dont give permission.

I presume it’s mostly on Android, on iOS apps seem to not be approved if they don’t run without clearly optional permissions. One of my bank apps absolutely refused to run without having scanned the full filesystem of an Android phone, yet on iOS it requires nothing for all operations.

Walled gardens with their HOA-like behaviors are bad in theory, but sometimes the gangsters in the streets are much worse.

Nah; apps can share data. If you log in to a dedicated video browsing account in the YouTube app, Google Maps and Google Docs can now associate your YouTubing account with your work and personal accounts. The ad company can now connect your personal email correspondence, your browsing, your work documents, your work travel, your personal travel, and the videos you watch. Share link trackers give them parts of your social graph even if you don't share contacts permission, but they build that up ad hoc from your email contents anyway.

The sandboxing inside of apps is mostly an illusion.

You realize a website can do the same thing don’t you?

Only with third party cookies enabled, or if you don't use multiple profiles/containers.

Sandboxing on the web is fairly good because it has to be. The holes deliberately punched in app sandboxing are the problem.

And they can still do enough via the server

The irony is that it probably is a webpage, displayed in a webview, in an app wrapper. Very few companies with these tiny apps built them as native apps.

A decent chance that it’s a React Native shop that’s pumping these apps. Worked with some subcontractors that did those.

Apps give cleaner/more trusted usage stats, which are important when the product you are optimising is your share price.

How so?

You can block a lot more in an browser - like links to surveillance stat systems (mixpanel). It still possible to do that with an app, but it’s much more involving

That’s also a permission on iOS to allow tracking.

But there is still nothing stopping a company from doing server side analytics and tracking.

My non evil take: Because design interfaces for humans to interact with is expensive.

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.

Apps exist on your homepage, websites don't. (And yes you can turn bookmarks into app icons but most people never use those)

There is only so much place on the home screen. Most apps will never live there no matter how much effort the company puts in it.

But it’s fairly trivial to run the same logic on two routes (on the app and on the web) Especially simple stuff like bookings and so on. It all goes into the same data storage.

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