i bought my first smartphone this year. when traveling I was carrying the android tablet half of the time in my backpack, and even at home more and more you need apps for everything (e.g. lockersat club, gym entry, supermarket loyalty card, etc).
i just gave up. grapheneos + olauncher give me a minimal and open source enough experience to make it somewhat tolerable, but it makes me sad that as a society we've come to expect that you are carrying a computer with you at all times to exist.
I've seen supermarkets that offer targeted "in app only" deals. They're trying to condition people into accepting and being comfortable with discriminatory pricing, where different people pay different prices for the same product depending on who or what they are, or how much money they have.
> I've seen supermarkets that offer targeted "in app only" deals.
In Germany, the grocery discounter Aldi (both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd) explicitly created advertising campaigns that they offer the same prices even if you don't use an app. The economic background is that Aldi's competitor Lidl nudges customers to use their app for discounts.
Lidl was furious that this campaign was so well received by the population (for this keep in mind that the Schwarz Gruppe (Schwarz Group), the corporate group behind Lidl, has big plans for cloud business (Schwarz Digits [1])), and created its own rather ridiculed counter-campaign:
Hey, liebe
Aldi Kollegen,
erst Deutschland in Nord und Süd aufteilen und dann stolz von einem Preis für alle ohne App sprechen.
Ihr habt Humor.
Liebe
Aldi Kunden,
ihr seid natürlich ALLE herzlich eingeladen, von Hamburg bis München zu einheitlichen Preisen zu sparen – mit oder ohne Lidl Plus.
English translation:
Hey, dear
Aldi colleagues,
first divide Germany into North and South and then proudly talk about one price for everyone without an app.
You have a sense of humor.
Dear
Aldi customers,
you are of course ALL cordially invited to save at uniform prices from Hamburg to Munich – with or without Lidl Plus [the name of Lidl's app].
Denns in Germany recently moved to an app. I used to have a physical card but I lost it and they told me they don't print them anymore. I imagine many other are like that.
I, and my 3 siblings, all use my folks landline number, which has the ringer turned off, and only used for DSL / alarm / backup outgoing calls. Works for us, heh.
i just gave up. grapheneos + olauncher give me a minimal and open source enough experience to make it somewhat tolerable, but it makes me sad that as a society we've come to expect that you are carrying a computer with you at all times to exist.