> Thank you for reading! If you would like to comment on this post you can start a conversation on the Fediverse.
No, I want to be left alone.
I feel this so, so much. The internet was so much better before it got commercialized and polluted with non-stop politics, hype, influencer crap, etc. I just want to be left alone, I know what I want, I don't want you to try and force it on me, trick me into it, etc. I want to have a functioning email account my friends can use where the messages won't get drowned in a sea of spam. I want a phone that only rings when someone I know calls.
We've created such a shithole, a perfect mirror of society I guess.
Not an option with modern UX. It's yes or maybe later.
Don't forget when you choose to opt-out but then start getting random spam from other businesses because they sold your email address. Also fun is when they send email anyways.
McDonaldās app is the sleaziest and clumsiest example of spammy user hostile anti patterns . It takes at least 12 screens to order. The app actually locks you out when a coupon is used , and warns you.
They took the cheerful and effortless order experience and turned it into filing taxes .
Since moving the GrapheneOS and basically re-setting up the phone from scratch, I've been choosing No to the inevitable "allow Notifications" permission request upon successful install (or first run).
There are just so many fewer distraction events coming from the damn device. It's almost peaceful. I can forget that it's there and get on with the things I want to, or should be, doing. I've also had mini-rants before about the unimportance of email communication; having notifications about the receipt of an email is as useful as a reminder to breathe (with some edge cases that if you set things up correctly, can be managed). Email, SMS, chat apps aren't real-time communications. If it's important I'll get a phone call - and only my chosen contacts cause the device to make a sound.
(This isn't about GrapheneOS, it's about choosing sanity at the time the initial choice is requested after having the experience to know what I want and what I don't. But GrapheneOS is great, for separate reasons).
From where I'm from, there's a saying (badly paraphrased): "only the shopkeeper who talks well can get his stuff sold". Most of which the OP talks about is marketing, and marketing is a given, else the business will have a hard time existing.
If businesses need to make an effort towards marketing, it follows that counterparties will need to make an effort to block out that marketing if they do not want it. And the more aggressive marketing I get, the more aggressive I become about blocking it:
- giving more or all my business to companies who do leave me alone
- throwaway / hide-my emails
- unsubscribing, or even better, marking as spam
- not downloading unnecessary apps, and turning notifications off for most of them
- complaints to telecom operator for spam calls and messages (government has actually started taking strict action against these recently)
- complaints for bad behavior, in very public platforms
- actively making sure to delete accounts when no longer needed
Companies spend real money to reach me. So I return the favor and spend some time to ensure that I throw them off my lawn.
I waste so much time deleting spam mail (which I have to scan through to make sure nothing actually important got caught in the filter), deleting ultra-personalized spam marketing that isnāt caught by a filer and which I have to scan to determine that itās not from a valid business contact, answering/not answering robo calls (again requires determining whether to answer or not), clicking away subscriber popups, turning off all notifications for some service (all on be default of course, and these are paid services), sorting through and throwing away 90% of the postal mail to my house. Itās exhausting and I hate it all.
A certain sense of "being invaded" in modern digital lifeāwe are constantly surrounded by advertisements, promotions, notifications, and requests for data collection, with our personal space being continuously eroded. People long for peace, freedom, and the right to decide for themselves what information enters their lives.
No one commenting here wants to be left alone.
No one reading the piece in the first place wants to be left alone. If you wanted that, you wouldn't say to yourself "I wonder what this guy has to say" and then click his thing.
I read and leave comments on Hacker News for two reasons: I want to know I'm not alone, I want to be helpful.
I actually love text reminders of doctor appointments so I donāt forget them. The rest I can pretty much agree with.
I want to go back to buying devices where I don't have to maintain some kind of stupid relationship with the manufacturer for the product's lifetime, like requiring an account or an app with constant updates. Manufacturers, leave me alone! No, I don't want to have to create and maintain a fucking Sonos account, I just want a speaker that plays music.
The most valuable thing you have is your attention, everyone out there is going to fight tooth and nail for it, especially if they can make a dollar.
Bartleby was right.
One of these things is not like the others!
> Do you want to go ad free? No, I want to be left alone.
The ads, by definition, won't leave you alone.
This would be a good checklist self test. Because I bet you most of us say yes to a bunch of these but not always the same ones.
Companies do have an ego-centric view of relationships. Of course our customers want to know what's happening. Of course they want to sign into our website and see their account.
And all of the measures that the article is complaining about do help with usability metrics - especially when measured in a fake corporate study.
It's much harder to consider the role we want technology to play holistically as a part of an entire life.
How people feel about the government.
Thank you for reading! If you would like to comment on this post you can start a conversation on the Fediverse. Message me on Mastodon at @cinimodev@masto.ctms.me. Or, you may email me at blog.discourse904@8alias.com. This is an intentionally masked email address that will be forwarded to the correct inbox.
This reads like something Bo Burnham would write/perform.
Sorry you can't freeload in peace?
Everything this guy complains about is to some degree how the entity they are interacting with pays their bills. If he hates it so much, maybe he should leave.
Heard, felt, strong agree. It's like trying to explain how irrationally upset I am that Liberty Mutual is sending physical mail to my parents house. I do not reside there. I do not reside in the US. I am neither a candidate nor even able to take advantage of any of their products.
But they bought my info, and so now USPS is delivering this trash into "my" mailbox (my mom texts, opens it, scans it, etc). I will NEVER buy anything from a flyer.
So I'm going to idle, every working hour next week, on the phone with Liberty Mutual sales staff. If they can harass me and waste my time, why can't I do it right back?
It's like last year when 3 different airlines opted me into text alerts. I was already getting them in-app and in-email.
Honestly I think people are so absent minded, distracted, ADHD-Y that they don't even realize how intrusive and annoying this deluge of consumerist capitalist sludge is to your mental state. Of course people also think I'm crazy when I tell them my phone stays in DND mode.
TBH I have a full family and I want to be left alone for at least half of the time.
Damn I was so stupid and weak to NOT stay alone.
> Do you want to sign up for our credit card? No, I want to be left alone.
Wrong answer!
"I already have one!"
Instant pitch snuffer-outer.
Apple gets this better than any other company IMO.
You literally pay a premium to be bothered less than the alternatives.
My boomeritis flares up when Iām asked to āconfirmā my appointment. It was confirmed when we made it. Are you asking me to āre-confirmā the appointment ? Now Iām not sure if we had one to begin with.
No I donāt want to confirm it. I want to show up and have you ready , like youāre supposed to
> Do you want to pet my cat? Yes. Yes I do.
:)
This gives a little "old man yells at cloud" vibes. Like, I get that some people are more misanthropic than others, but I personally have forgotten about appointments so text reminders were nice, I'm in plenty of Discord servers, getting help can be nice sometimes, etc.
Even if you're not religious or spiritual (which I would bet the author isn't), at the very least the natural process of evolution seems to value the idea of community and togetherness, so shunning it seems a bit shortsighted.
You seem to be a minority. Consider for a moment that the default behavior of the gmail app is to make a notification for each and every incoming new email.
Look at a normal personās email inbox sometime.
Most people use default settings and are barely even aware that itās configurable. They just put the info in the boxes until it stopped giving red exclamation marks and smashed the big button at the bottom without reading the field labels, the checkbox labels, or even the big button label.
Users donāt read, and most people arenāt as busy as us. They spend 3 hours a day watching television, a few more playing video games, have never heard the term āinbox zeroā, and donāt know any of the steps to make that red bubble that says ā65,535ā on the gmail icon go away.
I bought a 5 year old Lenovo x13 and installed Debian on it, havenāt used linux in years but wanted to play around.
Installed, logged in for the first time and got the āwelcome to KDEā screen, dismissed it and thenā¦ nothing.
Every time I log inā¦ nothing.
It just sits there waiting for me to do something. It doesnāt tell me to do anything. Iāve been mostly using it to play Civ2.