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Comment by rhazn | Hacker News Reader

(article author here): Fair comment, but at least for me the https://www.gov.uk/eta flow still just leads into the double upsell of the mobile app. My problem is more with governments (all of them, this is just one instance) increasingly pushing people to use native Apps and with that to the mercy of Google/Apple.

The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs. Your opinion can vary on if I have succeeded or overshot on that.

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> My problem is more with governments ... pushing people to ... Google/Apple.

It's worse than that. Many municipalities and schools etc only post public notices to Facebook/Twitter or some similarly hostile environment.

> The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs.

But. Your headline contradicts your story. The only excuse for that (and it is weak) is when writers don't get to write their own headlines (this is common) and the editors who do write the headlines are corrupted for clicks or drama (but I repeat myself).

This way lies madness, the road to hell, etc.

This is not the way of the honest writer.

I wrote about my thinking here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168225). I do not have a story and I am not a writer that has editors so I have no excuse but my personal taste ;). You will disagree with that, but just wanted to mention it so it does not seem like I am ignoring it.

I appreciate your response, and your candor.

I'll push back on one point: when I said "contradicts your story", I meant that the headline and the story (article content) are in conflict. So you do have a story/article, and yes your headline is squishy enough to argue misinterpretation, but it's clearly not honest.

So the tension is that the boring but honest headline of "Applying for a UK visa without a smartphone requires a few extra clicks that are easy to overlook" doesn't serve the (apparently higher) purpose of drawing people in.

I was expecting outrage in your article, but I only found inconvenience. That's manipulative in my opinion, and I would avoid reading future articles on your site based on that experience. Do as thou wilt, obviously, but that's my take!

Your topic (smartphone/appstore requirements) is a real issue! I'm glad to hear that the UK hasn't gone all-in, yet.

What you're saying is sort of fair. It's 4 clicks from https://www.gov.uk/eta to get to the beginning of the online application process:

1. The first hyperlink in the Overview section takes you to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply

2. Now click the big green button marked "Start now" in the "Apply online" section

3. Then click the link at the bottom of the page marked "I cannot apply on the UK ETA app"

4. Then click again "Continue application online"

And now you can start.

Realistically this is probably 2 clicks too many and, whilst on the face of it it's not that much effort, it might be enough to bamboozle the tech phobic/less capable - of which there are still many (and not just older generations, either), or your grasp of English isn't great. There's just a bit too much going on - too much content - with some of these pages, and I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.

But it will be simpler on a phone, as you don't need to do the same manual entering of data, and don't need to get a photo of your passport and a photo of yourself onto your computer.

> I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.

I'd not be surprised if the number of issues when using the app is significantly lower than doing it online. Particularly if lots of people are using phones to visit these sites anyway.

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