I'm tired of pretending tech makes things better.  I'm tired of kidding myself that all these apps, these chatbots, these "tools" are doing anything but dragging us into the mud and the shit and calling it progress.  I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready

Cross-posted from “I’m Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better” by @juergen@feddit.org in !technology@lemmy.world

I’m tired of pretending tech makes things better.

I’m tired of kidding myself that all these apps, these chatbots, these “tools” are doing anything but dragging us into the mud and the shit and calling it progress.

I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready to order. But there were no menus at the tables - just a QR code on a hockey puck. 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.

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.

You can call my complaints out of touch, but I’m no stranger to the other side. I’ve worked in hospitality intermittently for the past decade, and I still pick up shifts here and there. I can tell you right now that anyone working in a decent venue would rather have a line of people ordering at the counter than be juggling iPads and QR codes while barely interacting with human beings.

We keep adding layers of technology meant to reduce friction, but it just winds up abstracting us from other people, from our neighbors and communities, while forcing clunky, barely functional, and always extractive apps into every facet of our daily lives.

In some parts of the city, you can’t even park your car anymore without downloading an app.

I used to say that I wasn’t against technology. I believed in it and was hopeful, and I could still get excited about the New New Thing.

But that’s not the case anymore.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPMEnglish
    5·
    22 hours ago

    I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready to order. But there were no menus at the tables - just a QR code on a hockey puck.

    TBH, that’s where I would have just gotten up and left. Wouldn’t be the first or last time, either.

  • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    21 hours ago

    Like everything in life, it can be convenient until it scales out of control and becomes unreliable. Early days of QR codes allowed for easy access to websites or an app that did make things easy because the early adopters needed to make it aork. When it spread out to everyone and they started making apps more predatory it became both overwhelming and invasive. Plus they stopped supporting the websites in favor of the janky app.

    Notifications are the same. When there are a few they can keep you up to date. When dozens come through constantly for pointless shit it becomes overwhelming and annoying. I turn off all notifications by default and turn them on if I think an app might need to tell me something time sensitive.

    Requiring an app to pay is a deal breaker for me, because I don’t need more spam emails. Jacking up prices for anyone not using an app is a dealbreaker too.

    And no, you aren’t out of touch for wanting to talk to a person sometimes. You can’t smell an app or ask for an honest recommendation based on a description. Somethings are easier to order ahead when you already know not always.