The problem is the tech is no longer addressing and solving existing problems. It is only being inserted into working systems to collect data and fees, breaking the processes.
My phone struggled to load the site to order a single cold brew, pop-ups to install the custom App kept obscuring the options, and I had to register with my phone number, email address, and first and last name to buy a $5 cup of coffee.
Then walk out. Don’t reward the bullshit with your money. The coffee shop ain’t gonna give a shit if you keep buying coffee just to go home and complain on your blog.
Or… ask the staff for a menu, order with them, respectfully let them know how you feel about the qr/app thing (unlikely it was their decision to implement but they can pass on the complaint), and if they’re unwilling to take your order (which is hopefully unlikely at this point) feel free to make a little stink (if you feel inclined) and walk out. Still ok to complain on your blog about being spammed with the app but I’d rather try the obvious options first rather than expect the owners to heuristically discover via non-returning customers that we really don’t want the app.
That is, if the coffee/food/service is good, otherwise yea fuck em
Boy do I have a story for you.
I tried to order a quesadilla from chipotle. An online exclusive. Turns out online ordering for the location nearest me was broken so I went in and explained that I was unable to order it, and I asked if I can just get one anyway. They flat out said no.
They refused to sell me a cheese quesadilla simply because it wasn’t ordered through their app/site which was broken. I just left and got food somewhere else.
I’ve been boycotting chipotle ever since.
Lemmy really needs a community for good fast food copycat recipes so we can make it ourselves instead of having to rely on fastfood establishments
Mate, it’s a cheese quesadilla. It’s two tortillas, cheese, and heat…
Joking aside, there are a few out there. A lot of people are surprisingly into figuring out copycatting popular fast food.
That’s assuming the employees give enough of a shit to pass the feedback on to the owners, and that the owners give enough of a shit to listen.
Yeah, it’s better if you make it known why you’re not giving them your business, but if it doesn’t appreciably impact their revenue then most owners won’t care either way.
Maybe they did? You’re kinda missing the point though, which is that this stuff is becoming more and more common and will be nigh-unavoidable in the future.
It’s clear they did not walk out.
By the time I placed my order - paying a 1% fee to the app makers in the process - I would have happily paid double for the experience of simply flipping through a menu and talking to another human being.
(Emphasis mine.) This is from the very next paragraph after what I quoted.
You also clearly missed the point of my comment, which is that unless consumers start refusing to take this bullshit lying down, this stuff will be unavoidable in the future because there will be no other choices left.
You also clearly missed the point of my comment
I understood your point completely. Yet mine somehow still zipped over your head. This is not a choice any particular individual can make. Other people make that choice for you.
Came here to say this. I will never be compelled to install an app on my phone by an eatery the first time I go there. That is severely hostile design. Don’t willingly inconvenience yourself just to freely provide them your tracking info to sell.
tech is not the problem, corporations are.
More specifically, it’s capitalism that is the problem, not tech.
Tech enables capitalism to take the exploitation to new lows.
We don’t blame the whip, we blame the slaver
yes, that is the core of the problem. But its also too abstract to target at the moment. Those who understand dont need pointing out that it needs to go and those who dont might be able to at least see the “boils” if they cant see the disease.
focusing on the boils is meaningless; you take out one, another popus up.
the root problem needs to be addressed. i understand that people might have a difficult time understanding that, but capitalism is ultimately targeted towards making progress, and if there’s no more healthy progress to be made, it starts making unhealthy progress instead. Similar to a toe nail that won’t stop growing until you end up with an in-grown toe nail. And you know how painful that is.
but how to get people to understand that it even is a problem? So many seem to be content to constantly go against even their own interests. Its like most have been brainwashed so they attack you if you dare even suggest there is something wrong with all this. Or if they dont they will just be apathetic and throw canned “it is what it is” at you.
Agree. It’s not the tech it’s how it’s used and how business owners drive the product development and timelines.
I understand the complaint, but the big picture of tech has a ton of upside.
Tech itself is not the issue. How it’s applied is the issue.
Once tech takes hold, there is massive pressure to monetize the asset.
That’s where this complaint lives. Amazing advance becomes ubiquitous, then two things inevitably occur. Companies are formed that apply the technology on unnecessary and unpopular ways (parking app is a perfect example) or the pressure to make more more MORE MONEY triggers the enshittification spiral, where “wow, you can print wirelessly now!?” becomes “my printer won’t take any cartridges but brand name, and I have to watch an unskippable 30-second ad every time I print now??!!!”
It follows that as tech saturates our lives, the inevitability of enshittification will also saturate our lives.
The year is 2044, you don’t feel old but the ticker is starting to skip several beats a day. Your doctor is forced to use the product at his disposal to help you, which is the PaceXMaker produced by the Tesla-Cola conglomerate. The device is a true miracle of modern science. The size of a fingernail, it pulses electricity into your heart in carefully measured bursts to support proper function of all valves, and ensures that any plaque is dissolved harmlessly away. Your iEye tracks the device status, and alerts you when it starts to run low on fuel, a proprietary enzyme designed by Tesla-Cola. When the iEye app notifies you that the enzyme is running low, simply crack open an ice cold, refreshing can of Tesla Cola Zero to refuel your device for another two hours. Need to sleep? We got you. Hook up the Tesla Cola Zero-Venous BeautyRest to your ArmDock (patent pending) for up to five hours of relaxing enzyme replenishment. You can remove the arm dock after you confirm six ad-watch minute credits on your iEye.
Tesla-Cola: We Got You
I would say Tech with a capital T includes not just physical or cloud tech, but the whole process, down to shitty Product Owners and business teams, delivery crap features to customers.
Transmetropolitan had in-dream advertising. I think you got it from breathing in some sort of gas when walking around in public.
The most unrealistic thing about the Transmetropolitan series was the fact that Spider was able to make a living as a journalist.
Tech itself is not the issue. How it’s applied is the issue.
At this point, I would argue that technology is the issue. Or, at least, the current iteration of it.
Internal Combustion Engines, always-on internet connections, and digital financial systems are generating real physical hazards that stretch beyond their benefits. This isn’t just an issue of use. There is no “proper” method of employing - for instance - cryptocurrency or single-use plastics or a statewide surveillance network that doesn’t result in a degradation of quality of life for the population at large. To take a more dramatic angle, there’s no safe application of a nuclear bomb.
When the iEye app notifies you that the enzyme is running low, simply crack open an ice cold, refreshing can of Tesla Cola Zero to refuel your device for another two hours. Need to sleep? We got you.
Except this isn’t a technological innovation, its a Science Fantasy. iEye isn’t a real thing. Tesla Cola Zero isn’t a real thing. Not needing sleep isn’t a real thing. You’re not a cyborg and you will never be a cyborg.
But the science fantasy is still having its own cost. People are making real material nationally-transformative (or de-transformative) decisions based on the fantastic promises we’ve been sold about Tomorrow. We’re underdeveloping our mass transit infrastructure and relying entirely too much on unregulated air travel to speed up travel. At the same time, we’re clinging to old bunker-fuel laden container ships and decimating the aquatic ecology, because we refuse to adapt proven nuclear powered shipping that’s over 60 years old at this point. We’re investing more and more and more money in digital surveillance and personal tracking. We’re off-loading our ability to collect and process information to unreliable digital tools (LLMs being only the latest in overhyped AI as a replacement for professionalized human labor). And then we’re trying to justify the bad decisions we make as a result by claiming secret wisdom inherent in machines.
We’re eating our seed corn after being told technologists will eliminate our need to eat ever again.
This is a direct result of technological developments we have made (or promised to make and failed to deliver) over the last twenty years. Revolutions in racial profiling, viral marketing, planned obsolescence, military expansionism, and genocide have not improved our quality of life in any material sense.
The cow has not benefited from industrial agriculture. And the prole has not benefited from de-skilling of labor.
…always with the verification cans.
I prefer the saying “technology is a tool and a tool can be used for good or evil” or something like that
You can use a hammer to hammer nails or to injure someone
Technology can make the world better if its in the right hands for example open source hardware & software
You could say the same thing about splitting atoms.
That’s also technology. Used for good and evil.
“La science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme”
Agreed, but things act differently at scale and it’s not like there’s 10 billion+ hammers being used at the same time, almost all of the time, for years on end
I disagree about such a generalization.
There are very few instances where people decide to be dumb and use technology for it but in general my life is much better thanks to technology.
My job exists due to technology, the Internet allows me to work from home, a washing machine washes my clothes, I can order food in the middle of a meeting and have it delivered on my lunch pause, I can speak to my family half a world away everyday, with video, for free, I can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket, my car brakes automatically if I’m distracted (and heats up before I sit down in the morning)… you get the deal.
I agree. Tech is like fire, handle it responsibly.
I hear you, but the writer isn’t concerned with “can”: If you replaced “can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket” with “must” then you can see their dissatisfaction.
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I’d have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes “can” with “must”.
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I’d have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes “can” with “must”.
That’s not really the fault of technology though, that’s the fault of how companies are implementing technology through their policies and procedures.
Companies can have stupid, arbitrary rules and requirements and policies and do stupid or harmful actions regardless of technology or not.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame tech for company policies.
I agree, and good for you for leaving the restaurant. You could open a competing restaurant that doesn’t use apps and let people vote with their wallets. It’s not the nature of technology, its the decision of some people who are bad at knowing their customers. I don’t “have to” wash my clothes in the washing machine, but you bet I won’t even think about doing it manually. Forcing the use of an app is like only offering a vegan selection. If your customer didn’t ask for it you are going to have a bad time. If you are the only place in town is a monopoly problem, and a different discussion.
Having to use an app to order food might be slightly annoying, but it beats working 12h a day in the field to feed my familiy. It’s the firstest of first world problems.
but it beats working 12h a day in the field to feed my familiy.
btw, people didn’t work 12 h a day in the field
the long work days are a result of capitalism. yes, progress has increased average work hours, instead of decreasing them.
People back then didn’t have Healthcare, cars or iPhones. I like all of those.
Communist countries work even longer hours, look for instance 996 in China.
In fantasy land you can open a competing restaurant. Back here on earth not only is that not an option for 99% of the population, most people are stuck with the couple choices they have in town and when tech comes in and forces the enshitificstion of services in order to pump stock price you’re stuck just eating this shit forever. That’s the problem. You seem to believe in “the invisible hand of the free market” when that simply doesn’t exist. Consumers aren’t rational. Investors aren’t rational. And the market is anything but free. Big tech is working really hard to make sure they have a stranglehold on every industry to make it worse and trap people into using their platforms.
most people are stuck with the couple choices they have in town and when tech comes in and forces the enshitificstion of services in order to pump stock price you’re stuck just eating this shit forever.
Is that the fault of the technology, though, or is that the fault of the companies?
Companies can have stupid, arbitrary rules and requirements and policies and do stupid or harmful actions regardless of technology or not.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame tech for company policies.
I keep hearing about it’s just “fault of companies” as if companies weren’t lead by the tech bros. By that logic all the pollution BP and other oil companies cause is just company decisions ! It’s not the fault of oil that greedy oil barons exist… yet it’s the burning oil causing the pollution (admittedly not best example but sort of holds)
Often times the tech companies try to “disrupt” a particular industry by providing a tech based approach and then lobbying the legacy business out of existence thus limiting your choices. This is why the tech enshitification works, because there is no real competition. The uber wealthy simply force feed you what they want. Uber, Netflix, and Amazon all operated at a loss specifically to be able to starve out legitimate businesses and limit your choice to only what they provide. Now we don’t have much of independent book stores, taxis outside of big metro hubs, and god only knows what’s going on with streaming service prices.
The ultimate fuck you from modern tech is the “if you don’t like it, don’t use it” while at the same time they work tirelessly for their tech “solution” to be the only choice.
So yea a ton of tech sucks and exists only to extract value out of its users and not solve any concrete issue
Again, tech doesn’t FORCE anything, people choose to fuck customers (and workers) and sometimes happen to use tech as an excuse. You don’t need any tech to raise prices or lower wages, and those are some of the biggest problem we have. Whether I use an app or coins to pay for my parking is not the issue.
In a world with lobbyists, monopolies, big corporations donating billions to politicians, a QR code is nowhere near the top of the problem list.
And consumers are quite rational, the go consistently for the cheapest option that fulfills their need. You see it in online services, electronics, flights, etc.
Surely you can have your cake and eat it too, right?
I don’t understand the question…
If consumers were rational Tesla stock wouldn’t be where it is, meme coins wouldn’t exist, nft craze wouldn’t have happened (btw all examples of tech spending money to trick dumb people). Consumers routinely DO NOT go for the cheapest possible option but frequently get tricked by stupid gimmicks and smoke and mirrors. For example - Colgate started wrapping their toothpaste boxes in a clear plastic that sparkles under grocery store lights. Despite raising prices, introducing wasteful plastic, and increased packaging costs they increased market share and profits - that’s not rational. You seem to have been sold on libertarian delusions.
I never mentioned salaries and I very distinctly did mention that majority of the people in the world live in smaller communities with limited choices. If a tech overlord buys out their businesses (e.g buying all local newspaper and replacing them with mostly ai slop and agenda articles) there are not many alternatives. Insisting that because you have some choice in some matters it means everyone does is naive … and also another example of an irrational consumer lol
Consumers don’t buy stock, and deifnieltely not enough to influence trillion dollar company valuation, let’s begin with that.
I never said they go for “the cheapest option, period”. They are willing to spend extra if they get perceived, or real, value, like aestelhetics (your example) , social status (cars for instance) or functionality (iPhone).
I’m very far from libertarian, so let’s abstain about speculating about each other’s beliefs and let’s talk about ideas.
Majaority of people in the world do NOT live in smaller communities, first, and tech only increases choices, second, so even if the first was true it’s still an argument in favor of tech. I can get the new York times (or the helsingin sanomat) in the smallest village of Germany, again thanks to technology.
So you’re just gonna make stuff up as you feel it’s true?
“Consumers do not buy stock” lol yes they do “iPhone can be the cheapest option” (as long as you don’t care how much you spend and it has perceived value” “Tech only increases choices” (biggest laugh I had in a while) “Most people in the world do not live in smaller communities”
Fucking lol my dude. Sounds like you’re really projecting your life into facts of the world which is a common disease among programmers.
You know that places outside of US exist right? You know that the tech created in US cities disproportionately adversely affects 3rd world countries. If you ignore all that and go full bootlick mode on tech oligarchs then yes all you say is true, but back in the real world you couldn’t be further off base
This is the problem with capitalism. What a sick world view.
The solution is… more monopolies? Please enlighten me.
How was that your takeaway from this thread
You attack capitalism in an article about tech, so let’s ask how is that your takeaway, then I’ll answer.
First of all, follow the thread brother, I’m not the same person you originally replied to.
Second of all, this article is just as much about capitalism as it is about “tech”. If you actually read the article and just thought “this is just about tech” and not “this is about tech and how it has leaked unnecessarily into nearly every transaction”, then IDK what to tell you
…but just like you chided the person you replied to, none of that is true or real. The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn’t exist, and it’s not the only restaurant in town. None of that is even because of technology, it’s because of capitalism.
The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn’t exist
Here is one such restaurant (have to use their website via QR code, but same idea) near where I live: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6LhBMo5duVzSB9HE9
That said, it’s clearly not the only restaurant in town, and nobody is forcing a gun to your head to eat there.
lunch pause
car brakes automatically if I’m distracted
These two lines paint a very sad picture.
What’s sad about a lunch pause? Do I need to keep working 8 hours straight?
Or about a car braking automatically? I has saved me twice in four years, I was looking to see if someone was coming from one direction while the guy in front of me braked suddenly. Car stopped before I rear ended the other guy.
I must be missing something…
Yeah, idk what the other guy was talking about. But, I’ve ridden with someone that apparently got dependent on that automatic braking feature. He “used” something like 5 times during a 1.5 hour trip.
That sounds super uncomfortable, the emergency braking is quite brutal…
The sad part as I read it is that you actually have to work 8 hours at all. Productivity has increased more than thrice in the last few decades, yet, the early industrialization 8+ hours are still the norm while it has been proven to be unproductive for most jobs and defiantly unhealthy. Or at least that is what I interpret into it. There are different models of work breaks, I think the french have a somewhat long lunch break because they celebrate it more while other work cultures are more on the nutrition acquisition road
I don’t have to, I could go half-day and have a decent living, maybe downsizing the house a bit, but I like the big house and the fast car, and the sushi for lunch.
I think you hit the head on the nail.
Tech =/= megacorps
That’s like saying food doesn’t make the world better where you mean food industry megacorps producing hunger & poverty.
As someone who grew up before the negative effects of computer/internet technology became apparent, and who was excited and impatient for it to develop, I agree with the points made in the article. It didn’t have to be this way; in a different kind of society it could have been a boon to everyone. But in our society all the benefits of good things are appropriated by the powerful so they can more readily exploit the less powerful for profit.
So many wonderful possible benefits that might have come from these technological advancements, to help people lead better lives, to address many of society’s issues (hunger, climate change, disabilities, education, etc) simply never happened, because in our society money must be invested to develop them, so only things that would make more profits for the greedy were able to be developed. Yes, some things did get funded by governments or foundations, but they’re only a drop in the bucket to what could be done.
It didn’t have to be this way; in a different kind of society it could have been a boon to everyone.
Please continue to espouse this viewpoint even under serious argument from those opposing it. Technology isn’t inevitably shit. There are other types of software we can write, and other types of technology we can develop that isn’t the result of some sweaty CTO hovering over our shoulders demanding that we make the world shittier for the sake of the shareholders.
We have to imagine the worlds we could’ve created through better choices. We have to imagine that we can change the course of things.
Literally just one billionaire could end world hunger. It’s such an easy way to go to history forever as a good guy. But they all become corrupt in the soul as soon as they have more than they can use. It’s a systematic problem and the problem is the demonic capitalist entities known as the megacorps
Well said.
Thanks Adam Smith…
I’m tired of people seeing everything as binary good or bad. We have more than two brain cells, and life isn’t a fucking meme.
I dont know… This Linux thing is pretty great, IMO.
I get their point, but it feels like it’s more about tech being abused by large corporations, trying to squeeze another cent out of you.
I feel like that’s the entire point of the article. These technological “solutions” are being forced on us more and more and they are often I’ll conceived. Like QR ordering only systems.
“Science” and technology under capitalism are regressive forces for violent control.
I had an Amazon bot lie to me. I told it some item didn’t show up and I wanted a replacement. It said it would send one and it would show up in my orders. It never did. So I requested a refund later. So tedious.
You see, it actually did still save you time from finding a local shop that sells it and interacting with your neighbor
Yeah my neighbors suck
If you use and consequently support scummy Amazon you fully deserve it.
Oh I’m so sorry someone asked for an enamel pin from Amazon. Maybe next time someone asks me for a gift from somewhere I’ll subject them to a purity test.
apology not accepted
technology has the potential to make life so much better, there are two problems.
Tech that makes life better, usually doesn’t create much value. Because it’s either, already been created, and if it has, it’s probably enshittified by now.
Go use open source FOSS tech, it’s great. Contribute to the improvement of society by not using terrible technology and begin using good technology, it’s free!
I’m tired of pretending companies are making the world better.
See:
The corporation
The new corporation
I think this headline is slightly misleading. Here are some better ones:
- Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of Overbearing Technology
- When Convenient Tech Becomes a Burden: A Call for Human-Centric Design
- How Modern Tech Erodes Human Interaction
Wait. Is this satire? Like these suggested versions have been generated by running through a LLM AI?
This is weird take on an op-ed. OP didn’t alter the title. The only ways I can conceive of a headline being “misleading” is when it declares a falsity (this doesn’t; it’s an opinion) or doesn’t match the content of the titled text (this doesn’t; it matches the text).
