For this reason I have a one strike policy for apps. One marketing notification and permissions are revoked. Missing out on surprisingly little although it has made me stop using some services entirely.
Google and Apple could instantly fix the problem (of co-mingling essential and marketing notifications) if they wanted to. The current situation is like getting opted in to "street signs and flashing billboards". It's stupid.
In general this is a fast way off my handset.
The problem is that these apps are essentially adversarial in their notifications. If you have a mechanism for “only the most essential notifications”, then they simply mark all their notifications as “essential” (looking at you Uber). Try to limit their notifications using “only is summary” or disabling them and the app will gleefully deny you all notifications, rendering it basically useless. Uber is particular is guilty for this - the app is conspicuously free of meaningful notification controls.
It's a bit of pain to turn it on before use, and off again afterwards, but I've realized it's much less stressful than having notifications popping up at all times.
YMMV
That's like getting spam mail from your bank. In the physical world this would be illegal
Apparently that last bit would probably not have survived an actual legal fight, but they never sent him any more junk mail.
(This was pre-GDPR, so perhaps things have changed?)
Perfectly legal.
For example I got an Apple Music notification the other day telling me how awesome the new Classic Music App is, or how the new season of whatever show is available in Apple TV+ is just fresh out of the oven.
I like their products, and even their services, but in this particular case, they're as bad as Uber, just at a different degree (I used to get an Uber Eats notification everyday until I uninstalled the app)
But at first, the app must ask you for notification permission to send any notification in the first place.
You can then turn on/off the self declared notification categories at the Android level but apps can be dicks and either not use the categories or misuse them.
then perhaps Apple should say to them “either don’t mark these kinds of notifications as essential, or you get removed from the App Store”?
I'm sure we'll get that soon. Enforcing notification categories is unfeasible for all apps.
They’re doing the psychological equivalent of slash-and-burn deforestation - there won’t be a next generation of engineers, just a legion of addicts with attention spans measured in microseconds, but it’s profitable this quarter, and that’s all that matters.
But careful the app developer that abuses this position, for they will more likely be the app I remove from my phone.
"But it's not as convenient!" I hear some yell. Then it's obviously not enough of a bother to you, so just suck it up and deal with their bad behavior.
Because until you take your money elsewhere, nothing will change. And why should it? They obviously haven't crossed a line for enough people. Which means it'll just get worse.
Society’s revealed preference is McDonald’s, watching YouTube ads, and letting apps send whatever notifications they want to.
In general people care about the trade offs between cost and convenience, between cost and style, and not at all about anything so mundane as value, privacy, or peace of mind.
Without government restrictions, is society's revealed preference also widespread use of hard drugs?
Ever since opium wars, unadressed drug use was a problem that required active internevtion.
Most of America is a "bait and switch" or a "rug pull." This article basically talks about those issues with workers. [1] America sayssss "work hard, be loyal, be honest, be virtuous" how America acts is "Reward lazy humans, reward dishonesty / backstabbing, reward vice (pride, lust, greed are pretty much America)."
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221... Stanley, Matthew L., Christopher B. Neck, and Christopher P. Neck. "Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 106 (2023): 104442.
Why do you even need a Starbucks app in the first place? Get a physical loyalty card.
Or, you know, have coffee at home
Nescafe Gold Instant coffee. Coffee is coffee, and this one tastes better than Starbucks'
I, as a consumer would appreciate this.
Instagram I had to disable from notifications entirely, so now I miss messages from friends frequently, because the app bombards you with so much unrelated junk.
I suspect these companies know this, they know we don’t want spurious notifications, but they abuse whatever notification policies the OS provides in order to deliver you them anyways.
You can't actually manage these notifications until re-opening the door, re-enabling them.
There are currently six categories in here. Who wants to take bets until these shift, nullifying the point?
I use Apple Pay exclusively at Starbucks. They haven’t a clue who I am.
My phone is a tool, not a boss.
Airline apps haven’t been problematic though. I give location only while using the app. And I’ve never received advertising notifications.
It’s quite nice to pull down an eticket into Apple Wallet and have it on my watch.
Where it's possible to do the thing you want to do with a web browser (also with minimal permissions, natch), never install the app.
Come on, now. You're being unfair. It is also serves the purpose of being better able to collect data on you for sale to other entities which want to push marketing notifications at you.
Yup, this is very easy to do on Android. Long-press any notification, and you can change the notification preferences for that app.
The first time I see a marketing notification, I gag that app permanently. Takes less than 3 seconds. If this also prevents that app from being useful, oh well, time to uninstall.
In theory, Android apps can also categorize their notifications, so I could selectively gag them. But this takes me at least 30 seconds to figure out, and it doesn't prevent that app developer from abusing their categories. So I almost never attempt fine-grained control, unless it's an essential app. Normally I just block all notifications permanently on the first offense.
I like to use the apps to activate pumps to avoid card skimming but lol I'll just use the other gas station chains not run by disrespectful corporate (even though I could just block the notifications in Android)
That is more forgiving than my policy. Under the same condition, that app gets removed from my phone.
Then, yes, the next step is just to remove the app and leave an appropriate review. A demonstrably adversarial app has no place in my life.
Uber is one egregious example of abuse of notifications + SMS spam
Then I call them a jerk, turn off all nonessential notifications and give them one more strike.
Interestingly, this works half the time.
I’m waiting for Apple to eventually fix this and expect this is how they’ll implement local AI with having really nice notification filters of “block messages like this.”
Of course google could do this, but I don’t think they’re interested in reducing notifications and popups based on the number of times google asks if I want to sign in or use my local to improve results. I’ve clicked “no” thousands of times yet they persist in asking.