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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t agree. Technology in itself is not helpful nor harmful. It’s a tool like a hammer or a knife or a pen and a block of paper.
I agree if one says that technology makes it easier to do harm.:) People and their motives and actions are the same as always, since the stone age and ago.
Tech speeds things up. If you want to do good, it’ll help you do it faster. If you want to do evil, it’ll help you do it faster.
in my opinion, at this point of history, FAST is inherently detrimental. Only those with privilege and resources are able to adapt to rapid changes and reap their benefits, while the rest are left behind.
Yep.
Which changes rules, but not the resulting balance or lack thereof.
I think when most people say something like “technology is making the world worse” they mean the technology as it actually exists and as it is actually developing, not the abstract sense of possible futures that technology could feasibly deliver.
That is clearly what the author of the piece meant.
If the main focus of people who develop most technology is getting people more addicted to their devices so they are easier to exploit then technology sucks. If the main focus is to generate immoral levels of waste to scam venture capitalists and idiots on the internet then technology sucks. If the main focus is to use technology to monetize every aspect of someone’s existence, then I think it is fair to say that technology, at this point in history, sucks.
Saying “technology is neutral” is not super insightful if, in the present moment, the trend in technological development and its central applications are mostly evil.
Saying “technology is neutral” is worse than unhelpful if, in the present moment, the people who want to use technology to harm others are also using that cliche to justify their antisocial behavior.
When the discussion is about whether technology + an unregulated human society is likely to end badly, then there is not much to discuss.
There are real life test series. In the 80s many countries put rules into place which forced the industry to filter/ treat their emissions. Technology gooood.
Some countries restrict their people’s access to personal fire arms more than others. Statistics show that shootings are more likely, when everybody has a gun. Technology baaad.
In my opinion it is mostly about the common rules a society agrees on. Technology amplifies both ways and needs to be moderated when it is misused.
Fentanyl is a technology.
I didn’t find the article particularly insightful but I don’t like your way of thinking about tech. Technology and society make each other together. Obviously, technology choices like mass transit vs cars shape our lives in ways that the pens example doesn’t help us explain. Similarly, society shapes the way that we make technology. Technology is constrained by the rules of the physical world, but that is an underconstraint. The leftover space (i.e. the vast majority) is the process through which we embed social values into the technology. To return to the example of mass transit vs cars, these obviously have different embedded values within them, which then go on to shape the world that we make around them.
This way of thinking helps explain why computer technology specifically is so awful: Computers are shockingly general purpose in a way that has no parallel in physical products. This means that the underconstraining is more pronounced, so social values have an even more outsized say in how they get made. This is why every other software product is just the pure manifestation of capitalism in a way that a robotic arm could never be.
edit to add that this argument is adapted from Andrew Feenberg’s “Transforming Technology”
I like the way you argument but I’m not able to grasp what you try to say entirely. English isn’t my native language, this may play into it.
Technology is constrained by the rules of the physical world, but that is an underconstraint.
I. e this sentence.:) Would you rephrase it and give an additional example?
I kind of get the mass transit vs. cars example. Although I think both options have their advantages and disadvantages. It becomes very apparent to me when… Lets say, when you give everyone a car and send them all together into rush hour and transform our cities into something well suited for cars but not so much for people. But that doesn’t make the wheel or the engine evil in itself.
Also: The society and and it’s values affects technology which in turn affects the environment the society lives in. Yes, I get that when I think i.e. about the industrialisation in the 19th century.
I struggle with the idea that a tool (like a computer) is bad because is too general purpose. Society hence the people and their values define how the tool is used. Would you elaborate on that? I’d like to understand the idea.
No problem!
Technology is constrained by the rules of the physical world, but that is an underconstraint.
Example: Let’s say that there’s a factory, and the factory has a machine that makes whatever. The machine takes 2 people to operate. The thing needs to get made, so that limits the number of possible designs, but there are still many open questions like, for example, should the workers face each other or face away from each other? The boss might make them face away from each other, that way they don’t chat and get distracted. If the workers get to choose, they’d prefer to face each other to make the work more pleasant. In this way, the values of society are embedded in the design of the machine itself.
I struggle with the idea that a tool (like a computer) is bad because is too general purpose. Society hence the people and their values define how the tool is used. Would you elaborate on that? I’d like to understand the idea.
I love computers! It’s not that they’re bad, but that, because they’re so general purpose, more cultural values get embedded. Like in the example above, there are decisions that aren’t determined by the goals of what you’re trying to accomplish, but because computers are so much more open ended than physical robots, there are more decisions like that, and you have even more leeway in how they’re decided.
I agree with you that good/evil is not a productive way to think about it, just like I don’t think neutrality is right either. Instead, I think that our technology contains within it a reflection of who got to make those many design decisions, like which direction should the workers sit. These decisions accumulate. I personally think that capitalism sucks, so technology under capitalism, after a few hundred years, also sucks, since that technology contains within it hundreds of years of capitalist decision-making.
I think I basically agree with you and the author here. People applying technology have a responsibility to apply it in ways that are constructive, not harmful. Technology is a force multiplier, in that it makes it easy to achieve goals, in a value neutral sense.
But way too many people are applying technology in evil ways, extracting value instead of creating it, making things worse rather than better. It’s an epidemic. Tech can make things better, and theoretically it should, but lately, it’s hard to say it has, on the net.
I think a clear distinction to make might be:
“Tech” as used in this sense is the industrial complex around mobile and web technologies dominated by a few players who might just be evil.
“Technology” is, of course, everything you mentioned and more. A rock that fits nicely in your hand becomes technology when used to crack a coconut.
It’s a weird linguistic murkiness, isn’t it?
the article is talking about both, or perhaps conflates the two. QR code menus.
Or like the death ray!
(Futurama reference)
Atomic bombs are also tools with no moral compass of their own.
The original use of what we now think of as a “spoon” originally had nothing to do with food.
1000 years ago they would chain slaves neck to neck. They’d use the spoon to carve out everybodies eyes except the first guy in the line. Slaves don’t need to see. They just need to carry heavy shit. The first slave can see. The rest just need to go where their neck drags them.
I say all this to agree with you. Technology isn’t the source of corruption and evil. It is just a tool. Just like a spoon. I use my spoon to eat cereal. Others use the spoon to carve out peoples eyes. The spoon is not evil. The spoon is a tool.
This feels super duper made up
Go yell at the history channel, circa 1996.
So yeah. Super duper made up.
Never heard of this spoon invention story. I have doubts.:) I’m almost certain that eyes have been carved out by means of spoon. War, civil unrest and suppression of weaker minorities show that we have it in us.
For the past 20 years, tech has promised to make things more efficient while making almost everything more complicated and less meaningful. Innovation, for innovation’s sake, has eroded our craftsmanship, relationships, and ability to think critically.
I feel this in my bones.
For many things I completely agree.
That said, we just had our second kid, and neither set of grandparents live locally. That we can video chat with our family — for free, essentially! — is astonishing. And it’s not a big deal, not something we plan, just, “hey let’s say hi to Gramma and Gramps!”
When I was a kid, videoconferencing was exclusive to seriously high end offices. And when we wanted to make a long distance phone call, we’d sometimes plan it in advance and buy prepaid minutes (this was on a landline, mid 90s maybe). Now my mom can just chat with her friend “across the pond” whenever she wants, from the comfort of her couch, and for zero incremental cost.
I think technology that “feels like tech” is oftentimes a time sink and a waste. But the tech we take for granted? There’s some pretty amazing stuff there.
for free, essentially!
Say that to the Facebook Portal: a fantastic product five years ago that is now having its features gutted because Meta couldn’t figure out how to make money off of it.
There’s magic and then there’s complexity in tech (at least this is how I think about it).
Video calling, pure magic, simple to use with major benefits.
Complex business management software that requires a degree to use? Complexity almost for complexity’s sake to lock an organisation into a support contract.
Web stores? Usually magic, especially with refined payment processing and smooth ordering. Can verge into over complex coughAmazoncough.
Internal network administration (Active Directory) and cloud tech, often complexity for complexity’s sake again.
Tech tends to goes through stages:
A need or idea is created. Usually by a small independent entity.
A proof of concept is developed and starts to gain ground.
Investors pour money into the concept to an extreme degree. Tech grows in functionality, matures and develops into a useful tool.
The the investors demand a return on the investment and the money dries up.
Company either goes bankrupt or their product goes to shit.
They’re conflating tech with tech bros.
Tech can and does make lots of things that make our lives longer and better. Just not most of the consumer level shit that is constantly peddled by snake oil sellers. That tech is not meant to make your lives easier, it’s meant to get more money out of you without giving it up to the little people at service level.
The problem isn’t the tech, it’s the people who are controlling the tech.
Tech has made things more efficient - the rewards of such are simply being funneled from the average person to the wealthy.
I feel this every time I just want to see a restaurant’s menu and instead I have to pretend I’m making an online order.
Yeah, just print it and stick it on the table. Or have a tablet or something at the table if it changes frequently.
Don’t make me use my phone to look up your menu, that’s just tacky.
Yeah, just watch what AI does. The generation after Gen Alpha is going to be unable to imagine the concept of being self sustaining, and problem solving without machines. The same way Gen Z today can’t imagine the concept of just NOT having internet. Or any internet connected devices.
Tech is a tool. It can be benefitting the oligarchs and restrictive, or benefitting society and open source.
“In some parts of the city, you can’t even park your car anymore without downloading an app.”
Omg, this. I left my phone at home by accident and quickly found out that I could not pay a meter on the area I went to … You had to download an app to pay or use you phone to register a phone number and manually enter a plate and credit card.
No phone…meant no parking.
Good luck too if your phone happens to run out of battery.
Yep, technofeudalism is here.
Yeah but parking has always been bad.
You had to carry change. Meters were always out of order or would just eat your change without issuing a ticket, and the people checking never gave a shit and would give you a fine anyway.
My only complaint is the app, everyone should offer a website or an app, but if you’re going to park there a few times an app does make sense.
Neither a phone nor website would work if your phone battery is flat. The meter should at least have a way for someone to park their car if they don’t have a functioning phone, or internet access, even before the hellscape of needing a separate app for everything.
You’re in a car. There’s probably a charging port there. Sucks if you don’t have a phone, but it sucked before when you didn’t have change.
Parking has always been a privilege not a right, and if you’re not prepared you’re going to get a ticket.
I get that it’s annoying but if my phone broke and I suddenly had to pay for parking with coins, I don’t know what I’d do either. Everything is cashless now, where would I get coins from?
Woo! Let’s make this artificial biome that much more inhospitable for the very creatures that build and live in it!
We must imagine Sisyphus fucking miserable! Ants in an anthill made of broken glass and depleted lion batteries!
also you can walk into basically any bank and ask for a roll of quaters
And if you wear a mask it even free!
Yet more benefits to cycling then. Just lock it to any reasonably sturdy object.
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.
The internet peaked in utility around 2004. Most, if not all, developments since then have only made things worse
I do think you’re right. Friendster and MySpace were pretty much the peak, then when real social media took over, it all went to shit. Since then, tech exists not to perform some function but to justify its existence specifically to earn money.
I think in terms of cultural exchange of ideas and the enjoyment of being on the internet, 2005-2015 or so was probably the best. The barrier to entry was lowered to where almost anyone could make a meme or post a picture or upload a video or write a blog post or even a microblog post or forum comment of a single sentence and it might go viral through the power of word of mouth.
Then when there was enough value in going viral people started gaming for that as a measure of success, so that it no longer was a reliable metric for quality.
But plenty of things are now better. I think maps and directions are better with a smartphone. Access to music and movies is better than ever. It’s nice to be able to seamlessly video chat with friends and family. There’s real utility there, even if you sometimes have to work around things that aren’t ideal.
This era was before smartphones and always-online lifestyle. Being always online is a prerequisite to the attention economy.
So, yes, you’re right that the best internet was back then. Back when we could leave it at home and go out into the world knowing everybody else had also left it at home.
Laptops are an obvious exception back then, but almost nobody took their laptop to the bar with them, or to a concert, or on a hike, or to the grocery store. And the trouble of pulling it out and trying to find WiFi meant that it wasn’t easy enough to distract the majority.
I was thinking about this the other day, while loading music onto my modded iPod. If I could go back in time and stick a pin in tech growth, it would be 2006, before the iPhone came along. Don’t get me wrong, I think the explosion in smartphones that came after the first iPhone is broadly good and has the ability to be democratising. But that’s not really what shook out.
The world in 2006 had digital cameras and small, portable music players. We had SMS for easily staying in touch with each other, and we did have smartphones - just not as smart as they are now. From a communication perspective, we mostly had what we needed. Hell, by 2006 3G connections were pretty universal, so we could do video calling if we had a phone that supported it. Having a bunch of devices that all did specific things meant that we spread our reliance around a number of companies. Now, with our camera, MP3 player, computer, and communication device all being controlled by one company, if that company turns to shit we have to jump to a less shitty firm, but we have to abandon all of the conveniences to which we’ve grown accustomed.
As someone who recently jumped from 15 years of iOS to GrapheneOS, this last one is particularly painful.
And sure, everything has gotten a lot faster since then, but there’s a part of me that kind of enjoys the inconvenience of slower, finicky hardware that sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction.
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 the people who are the ones that have taken tech to the direction it has gone in for a long while now. Making up problems that weren’t ever there before that suddenly now need a stupid app or a feature to fix but adds in its own problems.
I’m tired of big tech deciding when we should upgrade because they deliberately create things that break, degrade and becomes obsolete far shorter than whatever should have.
I’m tired of unnecessary things like added fees for ‘convenience’. I’m tired of things like fucking google flipping back accounts on me when I need to see a number to another account.
So much shit is that I’m tired about with tech. Tech is supposed to be exciting, easier, friendlier. Now it’s just manipulated into a problem of its own, simply because of those who are behind it.
I’m tired of big tech deciding when we should upgrade because they deliberately create things that break, degrade and becomes obsolete far shorter than whatever should have.
I think about Apple quite a lot in this regard. Not because of planned obsolescence or anything so nefarious, but because they genuinely make some of the best consumer hardware you can buy, and because it’s so good it costs a decent wedge. Then, five years later, when that good hardware is still as good as the day you bought it, they quietly drop OS support for it because they need you to buy another one.
And most people will smile and thank them for the trade-in discount they’ll get to help them spend more money, while that older, still perfectly usable hardware is shipped off to a massive shredder to take it off the used market.
I use Macs, I understand this process very well. But I’ve also done my fair share of putting OCLP on older hardware in order to wring a few more years out of it, and of putting Linux on even older Macs because they still work perfectly well. I mean, I have a 2011 MacBook Pro that’s running Linux Mint so well that you wouldn’t have any idea that it’s a 14 year old laptop.
The second best thing Apple are good at is convincing their customers that the equipment they own is old and knackered. And that’s kinda sad.
I don’t want to read this article, because I know it’s right, and it’s depressing.
Scenario1:
“Um, hi. Can I just order here inside? Thanks. I’m really hating the apps now. For sure: one medium cold-brew, please. Yes, thanks, to go. Okay; tap here? Excellent. Oh. Put ‘guppy’ on the cup. Thanks! [pause] Oh, perfect. Hey, thanks again for letting me skip the app. Those are so frustrating! I’m really starting to avoid any place that uses them, and I’m so grateful I can still come in. Have a great day!”
Scenario2:
“Um, hi. Can I just order here? No? Just the app? That’s too bad: I’m really getting frustrated with the app and I’m starting to avoid places that need them. Nope, that’s all I needed, sorry. Thanks anyway, and have a great day!”
I like this idea because
- you’re affirming the target behaviour
- you’re getting a coffee and going
- you’re being chipper so they don’t feed off your grumpy face
- you’re providing feedback without being too much ‘that guy’, I hope, to the serving staff.
In all things, you don’t wanna be That Guy, because you know servers don’t need that shit. But, while the odds are slim of feedback getting up the chain of command, you’re being clear (and probably more concise) as to how to get more of your business in case the feedback DOES go up.
I just take my brick phone out and say that I can’t use their app on this. Although once went to the pub after work and it meant I didn’t need to pay for any of my drinks which was nice.
because you know servers don’t need that shit.
No. Dead wrong. It’s precisely the frontline staff who need customer feedback, and if makes them uncomfortable then so much the better.
It’s the rank and file’s job to pass criticism of the service offering on in team meetings, culture surveys, etc. My job sucks this week because I have to do x and yet the customers all hate it. Staff will drive change to policy when it’s their ears copping the response day-to-day.
‘I couldn’t possibly bother the floor person’ is code for ‘I am going to tolerate in silence any corporate policy no matter how obnoxious’, and line management and the executive know it.
LOL, as a rank and file, corporate doesn’t care. I pass along feedback, but even if they lose 1% of their business, corporate won’t stop their bullshit.
I’m tired of people saying “technology” when they mean an application of a narrow subfield of technology. Even worse is when they’re not even talking about the tech at all, but instead the practices, leadership, or stock market performance of some corporation that happens to apply some technology in the course of its business.
I do share the sentiment in this article, though. There’s way too much stuff that we don’t need, often making our lives worse, being pushed at us in order to extract wealth or power.
Agree. I think a lot of tech just isn’t directly visible to consumers in most cases. I’m specifically thinking of medical applications, robotics, manufacturing, etc. Some more visible applications would be transit (maglev trains are in trials now) and a number of similar things. There’s also biotech stuff about which I know little.
Water treatment, thermal insulation, textile fabrication, pharmaceuticals, air filtration, construction techniques, signal processing… the list goes on.
I like playing video games…
Tech could make our life easier, if only the fruits of increased efficiency would go towards us all instead of the few rich people at the top.
Tech was ruined in the 90s when capitalistic influences (microsoft being the dominant force but far from the only one) propagandized the industry and eventually populace at large with the idea that competition in the industry is what drives innovation.
Granted, much of their work was already done for them thanks to western influence perpetuating this ideal for ages. But when the frameworks for open standards, interoperability, and collaborative development were being proposed and put into place they were shot down and/or actively sabotaged
As a result 40 years later we have this mess. A landscape filled with nightmare tech. Fragmentation everywhere, design heavily influenced by a small handful of sociopaths with no empathy and active disdain for users, the idea of open standards is something that requires government intervention (and still rarely occurs), interoperability is something that has to be hacked around and frequently breaks as a means to encourage purchasing a competing product.
What could have been. Tech designed for people’s needs rather than tech designed to extract income
Tech was ruined in the 90s
40 years later
Pick one. I’m 41 and was born in 1983.
tbf, the past few years have felt like decades
My basic math skills have been terrible lately. I made a basic math error in a post the other day too. I was a strong student in math too
Is this cognitive decline? I’m not even 40
