Tech should serve us, but meanwhile instead of having terminals to the internet we are now the terminals to the internet. Push notifications and all manner of intrusive interaction have become the norm, not the exception that they should be.
Tech should serve us, but meanwhile instead of having terminals to the internet we are now the terminals to the internet. Push notifications and all manner of intrusive interaction have become the norm, not the exception that they should be.
It should, but it's becoming more and more obvious that it won't and can't. Literally every economic incentive it pushing towards 1) making it crappier until it's just good enough to buy, 2) maximally exploiting its users.
The market won't save us, because a competitor who tries to gain market-share by not doing that crap will eventually turn around and join in the fun, once it's in their interest.
Mobile internet may end up as being a giant mistake. It opens up an entire superhighway of enshittification, makes us more dependent on centralized control, and doesn't provide a much better communication experience that the telephone network.
Literally, we could start fining phone manufacturers who allow notifications that aren’t direct messages.
Ban ads from public spaces while we’re at it.
Doesn't this imply, though, that there is some kind of market force which would allow such a competitor who isn't doing that to grab market share in the first place? What happens to that market share when the competitor eventually decides to change their trajectory - does it just disappear?
Imagine the food industry 20 years back. It looked like the end of the world - literal poison everywhere you look. Your arguments back then would never foresee today's organic food hype and vegetables craze.
Believe.
I'll believe it when I see it. But it's not looking good. Subscription streaming was supposed to be like that: you pay to get a "responsible sustainable and boundary-respecting products." But it turns out showing people ads makes more money, so those products are pushing users in that direction.
> Imagine the food industry 20 years back. It looked like the end of the world - literal poison everywhere you look. Your arguments back then would never foresee today's organic food hype and vegetables craze.
Isn't that mainly an affluent consumer thing? And often subject to lies and nonsense?
I expect the digital equivalent to be something like Google's doing: changing their products to ostensibly "protect" user privacy, but in reality giving all the data to Google and locking out its competitors.
> Tech should serve us
This problem isn't really the tech, it's the people behind these messages. Complain to them. You shouldn't be getting "OMFG IMPORTANT MESSAGE" alerts that, when you click on them say "LOL PTA meeting is this Thursday, and we need someone to bring coffee." That decision is being made by a person who you should be able to find and share your concern with.
Good point, and it generalizes to pretty much all the social problems "created by" tech. The technology is fine. Behind each misuse is a person or a group that commissioned said tech, and/or is applying it in malicious ways. Focusing on ills of technology, while ignoring the people wielding it for wrong, is just a distraction.
“I don’t use email anymore. I need you to communicate any important information about my child’s education to me through other means. Would you rather send notices home with my child or call my home phone?”
Or some variant thereof. “I reviewed the privacy policy and have serious concerns, no longer agree with the terms of use and cannot use this platform.” (I’m sure if you go read it it won’t even be a lie; all the ones I’ve seen have been awful.) Or “My phone broke and I can’t afford a new one so I can’t check my email.” Or “I’ve had a religious revelation and will no longer be making use of any technology created after 1970.”
Once someone has to make an active decision to contact you instead of just mass-spamming the entire school with a button press I guarantee nobody goes “Yeah, I really should call jacquesm and ask if he can bring coffee to the PTA meeting.”
You might be the first person to ask for an accommodation but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, just that it hasn’t.
My daughter is a bit younger, but I’ve never used the various platforms, Facebook pages, etc that all the daycares are trying to use. They figure it out. Hasn’t caused any problems yet.
Instead, they make the decision to call you at 3:30pm to inform you that your child needs picking up asap today when they realise your kid hasn't been picked up yet, whilst every other parent found out about the need to arrange an earlier pickup in advance via the after school club's mailing list.
This may be more inconvenient than receiving a few irrelevant emails. Other stuff like being the only kid not in fancy dress or sports kit because nobody would ring you about that even if they were competent at handling the essential stuff may only be inconvenient for your child, of course.
How many cases of misuse implicates a structural flaw in a larger system? It's absurd to point the finger, over and over, at this or that "malicious" person. It's exhausting! They somehow keep getting incentivized to appear.
Ahhh, Librus. Worse than useless.
Here's a email with a PDF containing important dates and updates about the cursive program.
Lol, great.
I suggested maybe a calendar instead but got the standard “it’s all too hard” responses.
Me: What does it do?
Calendar and notifications about new posts
Me: The website already does that, there's a button to click to subscribe to the calendar, another to subscribe to notifications, and you can "install" the website if you want, all with open standards
Surprising, I actually won the argument and they didn't waste their money.
Let’s go back to physical letters and notes in backpacks.
I've had an intuition that much recent ouroboric "technology for technology's" sake is actually more pernicious that it appears to be (at first glance).
Reading that essay helped crystallize the "why" behind that feeling.