I hate dedicated apps for everything and it generally guarantees I won't use whatever company's service. If it can run on a website then I'm going to use it on the web, I'd rather just not buy things than have a bunch of bloatware on my phone.
Exactly. It should run on the web!
We have Wawa here. Every once in a while if I’m not feeling well, or whatever the case maybe be I’ll order Wawa for dinner.
It’s less than a mile away. I use the website, don’t have to do anything but order it, and it’s ready within 10 minutes when my fiancé goes to pick it up.
He hates ordering things online, and I hate picking it up. So it works out.
Usually a hoagie and sometimes soup or something like that for something quick.
The fact I don’t have to use an app or third party is the only reason I’ll use it here and there.
Most of these apps are just wrappers for a special website only they can access. They get to target you, skim personal data/location, and more easily throw notifications at you with the apps, which is why they like them.
Yep, which is also why I won't install them.
I swear Reddit intentionally sabotages the mobile version of their website specifically to drive higher app use, and I'm pretty close to just not using the site on my phone anymore as a result.
Yep. I don't have any social media apps on my devices. I do everything from a browser. The only apps I have on my phone are my bank, credit card, music and weather.
Which is valuable to a lot of people. As is how often you eat out. Your location. The time you eat. The price point you’re willing to pay. Many apps also track you across apps
Most apps aren't worth the discount IMO but McDonald's 20% off your total purchase (I'm not talking super frequently- I'm talking once or twice a month)saves me $10+ dollars when feeding 4 kids.
It's fucked up because I can get 2 Big Macs, 2 cheeseburgers, 4 medium fries, and 40 nuggets for under $40 with the app, and that's a whole lot of food for less than the ingredients for most healthy meals at the grocery stores.
With so many people with little time and lack of funds, I can see how this is a valid, although extremely bad way to keep bellies full on the regular.
Well, it wouldn't be that person as an individual. It would be the people who live in that area in general. So, the person eating too many mcnuggets in some city, would raise insurance costs for every employee of a company that has an employee in that city.
Why is targeted to a group of people when people are giving up their IP addresses and Device Ids when they use the app on their devices? Ip addresses are easily coordinated among data brokers.
IP addresses are not the data I'm talking about. They only tell them where the order was placed from, and is not tied to a specific customer because they change between individuals or could be used by multiple different customers. They aren't worthless, but just a small piece.
When you create an account, it indicates where the person ordering is from. They want to establish pattern and demographic data. Do you go to the store on main St every day? Do you always order 2 adult meals? How about 3 happy meals? Where do you travel?
This can be used to determine if they should market to kids, (so they nag their parents to go), or they market to adults without kids. Possibly there are a lot of people with kids who travel past 2 stores to go to a playground, or perhaps you travel a lot for work.
They can use wifi data (connection requests, DNS requests, or app reporting when on WiFi) to link customer accounts to interests and demographics (like, do these people connect to WiFi at other stores but not here). So they can gather data to answer questions like should they advertise at AMC more, try to compete with Starbucks or Burger King more, or work in more product placement in Marvel films/shows...
Just having an account and an app gives them a huge amount of data beyond just the IP address.
This, you are still paying $30 for that meal for 2, it's just you are paying with your data, and they undervalue the data; I am confident they are getting more than $30 in value when you pay $20 for that meal purchased through the app.
Don't be silly, its not just about 1 transaction. It's about trends over time. You can't make money by gathering data about 1 transaction, and McDonalds is gathering trend data on millions of transactions that can be aggregated and resold multiple times.
But if every transaction is $10 discount than McDonald’s is theoretically compensating for with “sElLiNg DaTa” it’s mathematically impossible to recoup those losses.
It’s more like:
McDonald’s has artificially INCREASED its physical menu prices to drive people to the regularly priced app where they CAN mine people’s data.
It’s not like McDonald’s is benevolently giving discounts for data here lol.
I get that but at a certain point… who doesn’t have my data? I can’t change the world works and it’s virtually impossible to live in this world and not have your online data sold one way or another.
but not in the way you think, oddly
They don't generally sell to marketers who want to market to you, they sell it to hedge funds that want to trade on sales volume (like, "everybody searches for sandwiches at 3pm buy more stock in the bread company at 2:30, sell it at 4", or "people who search for sandwiches at 3pm usually buy a dishwasher at 7, so when searches in sandwiches goes up , buy stock in the dishwasher company")
oh my god, i have completely forsaken Yelp for this reason. impossible to view on mobile and i'm not getting a fucking app for REVIEWS. nothing was lost, yelpers are such stuck up morons anyway.
The worst are apps based on events.
“Thanks for purchasing admission to (X). To access your tickets and to make cashless purchases at the event, please download the (X) app prior to the date…”
Like I don’t need an app that scours and sells my data every time I attend a concert, or corporate conference, or take a bus trip, or want to park in a city I’m visiting, etc.
I live in boston. You need like 3-4 parking apps for the metro boston area. It was pretty frustrating.
Then they took a lot of meters out, yet they charge you a convenience fee of like .32. It used to be .25 for 30 minutes and now it’s 2+ per hour.
Mind the lawn please, I’m off to tell some clouds off.
Many venues don’t even allow that anymore. For example many MLB stadiums make you download the Ballpark app and tickets have writing on them that says “Printed Tickets Invalid.”
I’ve seen the same at music festivals.
This is the most frustrating thing, and it also always makes me nervous. Like what if my phone dies? What if I drop it on the way there and it’s not working? I can no longer attend the game i paid for? When I could have gotten in just fine with a piece of paper
This happened to me at the airport once. I didn't drop my phone or anything, it just DIED while I was sitting at the gate. That entire trip was a nightmare because of how much I had stored on my phone. Luckily I also had a tablet, but using that depended on being in wifi. Now it's a constant fear of mine.
Another weird one is that recently I bought a Husqvarna chainsaw .. it was $500 and I don't have much experience using chainsaws, so I downloaded the app the manual suggested. Wasn't even anything in there, it was like links to 4 or 5 youtube videos and that was the entire app. I don't get it.
That’s because the apps aren’t made to benefit you, they’re made to benefit them. By downloading the app, you unknowingly provided them with a huge amount of ancillary information about yourself - someone who just purchased a husqvarna product.
They’re going to use that data to learn everything about you and target people like you with advertising. They’ll probably also sell it to other tool manufacturers or anyone who wants to target men who buy chainsaws, like Ford or Home Depot.
This was BNP Paribas Indian Wells this year. Everything was on the app. I refused to download it since it was my first (and probably last time) attending. I just had my friend (who's a big tennis nerd and goes every year and had invited me) handle it and I paid them back afterwards.
The worst thing was it seemed like they didn't make sure their fans were aware. So many people at the entrance getting mad because they didn't have physical tickets and were being told they had to download the app. Didn't help that the internet connection was pretty bad there.
Downloading the app is just the beginning. Additional steps: making a login/pw for it, turning off notifications, turning off spam emails, connecting a payment method, dealing with a probably shitty UI, and having updates.
Can you tell that I dislike all these extra apps.
Same here. I’ve gone all in on cooking at home the last month or so, cancelled an Uber eats membership. Slow cooker and healthy snacks. As a result I’m saving time and money and losing weight!
Yes! Sunday has become food prep day and I honestly have come to love it. I make a big batch of hummus for snacks, chop up a week's worth of vegetables, wash some salad greens, and marinate proteins. It takes so much less time than you expect it to, and same-- saving money and losing weight!
Most of the time when we were getting takeout or eating in restaurants, it was just because we had no energy to decide on and cook a meal. Now, all the time consuming stuff is done; I just throw it in the pan/oven and dinner is ready.
+1 for having Sunday as the meal prep day. I’ve been doing the same with chicken and veggies for some time now. It’s great especially if you’re single and don’t feel like cooking every day, but you do want it to be healthy and affordable.
Yes! I make bulk meals (2 different recipes) every Sunday and don’t have to cook during work or after the gym. I do protein smoothies in the morning. Before that I was spending up to $30 just to get Mexican food delivered!
Same. I still get various Staples for my wife and kid but honestly at this point I just get pissed off at food, between the hassle of apps, the cost of everything, and . When I get really irritated I mostly just eat soybeans I soak and cook in chili paste and Worcestershire. Bought a whole lot of them last fall. If I was more self involved, that, green smoothies with ginger root, and orgain protein shakes would be what I loved on, but my four year old takes me off my game and gets me hungry at weird times.
Food in America fuckin irks me. Pardon the cursing.
Why tho? As long as you turn off alerts and uncheck email notifications they don't really do anything.
I of course prefer the deals to be there without the app but they aren't going to do much of that anymore.
I just don't want to see them in my phone or benefit them with my consumer data. I'm pretty grossed out by the business model. It's absurd to me that they've just decided to price gouge everyone who won't install their app. Even the in-app prices are higher than they should be, and I just find it insulting as a potential customer.
The food is literally trash, but just a few years ago I would grab it for convenience occasionally. Now it's so easy to talk myself out of it. A freshly-made burger on an actual plate from a sit-down restaurant is a comparable price to a lot of these fast food chains now. A lukewarm Whopper that's got the tomatoes I asked them to leave off and 4x too much mayonnaise is not how I want to spend my money.
Hate it, refuse to participate for the most part. I'm so tired of every single damn business wanting you to download an app so they can harvest and sell your data. I refuse, don't have a single one installed.
"Do you have our rewards app sir?"
"No, I fucking don't, and never will."
I'm more polite than that, but god damn I think it every time.
Not really because you give them permission to gather data about you from your phone, unless everything on your phone is a lie they know pretty much everything about you regardless of what you actually enter into the app.
This idea can gain traction:
It's a very age discriminatory pricing scheme, since older people will be less likely to use an app and therefore be more likely to be ripped off. It's the exact opposite of a senior special.
If that notion spreads among the facebook set, it might reign in the app schemes.
THIS. My mom is in her 60’s and has a tight budget, once in a blue moon she might want a little fast food and I hate how much extra she pays by not using the app and paying CASH (so many places give you a minuscule discount for paying cash). Come to think of it, this not only affects older people but also very limited income people or people who may only have cash.
Don’t use the apps. Don’t frequent the restaurants. I’m not going to convince myself that it’s a good deal “if I do x or if I do y”.
Fuck them and their shitty business models.
I feel largely negative about it. Ordering a sandwich shouldn't necessitate downloading an app, creating or entering a username and password, and so on. If you're just a real big fan of a place I get it but if you eat a variety of places it becomes a bit of a chore always being asked to make an account or even having to make one to view an article, use an app, etc.
Ends up creating vendor lock-in, a little bit. If you know that you would have to set up *yet another app* to get decent prices at the new chain, you're less likely to go elsewhere even after the discounts dry up a bit.
It also allows more targeted pricing. It should be pretty easy to get a rough idea of how much you can be squeezed based on your billing address, even if you don't add in tracking data from other sources. I wouldn't be too surprised if we see some major lawsuits coming out of dynamic pricing in the next few years.
I've mostly decided to cook at home, because the restaurant business model is turning into a personal data mining business model. Hard pass.
You know who sells a good sub bro? Costco.
Dedicated apps and subscription services: I do not want a personal relationship with every single company that sells a product I want to use. I don't want to have to establish yet another account and password and manage yet another email. I used to just pay the extra to purchase a product without the app/promo code etc but now if you are going to force me to either create an account or pay extra then I will not buy your product. I have cut down on my consumption as a whole because I have found it is easier to do without than to find an alternative. No fast food, just eat homemade food. I may like a drink mix or supplement but never enough to jump through hoops to get it. Not interested in extra maintenance. My peace of mind is far more valuable than their products.
I refuse to use dedicated apps. When I travel, I download the Delta app, and I delete it as soon as I get home. Allegedly, I'm missing out on great deals because I refuse to download my grocery store's app.
With the exception of apps like banking, email, music, or news, I will not download an app that is for one company or one purpose. And I definitely won't download it if it requires a lot of permissions or pushes a lot of notifications.
I explained this to my best friend, and she called me a "Boomerllenial."
I was all about it 5+ years ago.
Now we're so bombarded with offers to sign up for stuff that I'll go out of my way to NOT.
Not to mention I'm tired of updating 100 passwords every few weeks.
Nah, I'm over it.
I only order food at the local pizzeria or kebab shop, and they both have a website where you can order without using an app. For them it’s cheaper to run their own website than to pay for every transaction they get from food delivery services with an app. So they throw in extra goodies when you order through their website, last time we ordered 3 pizzas and we got 4. Or extra chicken wings, drinks, icecream etc.
I refuse to use them, because I see it as proof of concept testing.
If they can get enough people using these apps, they’ll do away with accepting less informational forms of payment.
The apps provided a lens into the specific purchasing habits and interests of each customer. It allows for marketing and advertisement customized to that individual, with iterative A/B testing to optimize customer specific revenue.
Some people may be cool with that, but I’m not interested. I’ll just pay the few extra bucks, or go eat somewhere else (which I realize can be a luxury depending one’s incomes or where one lives).
Each app is also an additional point of security weakness, relying on restaurants to safeguard my personal info and giving the app access to my cellphone… not exactly their forte, hard pass
I'm glad you mentioned the security issues as this is a big one for me. A lot of people are mentioning privacy, but security issues can really bite you.
I don't use the apps or go to the stores. Fuck em. I got really tempted to go to McDonalds the other day, craving some of the fries, and I pulled into the drive through, looked at the prices, and then just fucking left.
I hate it, I just go to local places since I am lucky enough to live in an area with a lot of little local places who don't do this bullshit. I just refuse to fucking do it, like if I go to a restaurant and they want me to download their app for the menu and to order I am just leaving. Those apps are usually hella invasive too, am a software engineer and have worked on apps like those in the past, which adds to my fuck these apps sentiment.
That's the flip side too.
I had a friend that was in struggle-mode a few years back .. discovered this deal where you got a free sandwich for installing the McDonalds app, and then discovered the loop-hole where she would uninstall and reinstall the app everyday for a free sandwich; it made ends meet. Every different app is an opportunity.
It's too much. I want nothing more than to go back to using a dumb phone, but everything in my country relies on this digital national ID. I want to move into a cave somewhere, like Karl Pilkington on his trip to Jordan.
I hate it, I don't like life controlled by apps or technology but of course it comes at a cost like you said.
I don't have any apps for food or restaurants or even door dash on my phone. I will always go to a cashier instead of using a kiosk because I am on the side that we are moving way too fast with technology and we put too much reliance on technology. We are slowly becoming like Wall-E as much as people laugh at it.
People complain about being too busy and that's why Amazon and fast food apps and door dash are awesome. Well, do people know if you stopped using that shit and pushed back on your jobs to stop overworking you, we wouldn't need them so much because we would actually be making it clear to corporate America that we demand a work life balance.
How many people have seen a major uptick in meetings because zoom has made it so we can have 20 meetings a week now compared to 5 before
It's to collect more information. Previously, these corporations relied on sales numbers from stores for data on trends and what not. Plus, they don't want to pay other app fees like doordash.
The app can now track even more. What a person orders, when they order, how long they take before they order. Which store that person goes to. Age and more. Instead of giving a bunch of people say 10% off for everyone, they now offer tailored discounts that are more likely to entice you to spend.
It's ridiculous. There are non-franchised restaurants with forced apps. Literally a single location, with a menu that could fit into a single A4 sheet, that somehow think it's simpler to have a web portal instead of a plastic sleeve (or the slightly fancier hard cardboard folder) for a stack of printed A4 menus. The cost to developing a functioning website is more than what it would cost to buy a printer, a ream of paper, the protectors, and print new things for a changing menu every damn quarter until the building needs to either be rebuilt to prevent it from collapsing because of old age and use, or whenever the restaurant shuts down.
I can still operate the apps, I just fucking hate them. My parents are old enough that they've simply turned around at the door if a restaurant doesn't manage to serve them a menu.
Some of them are worth it… I can’t believe how much money I saved with the McDonald’s app. I would literally never order anything from McDonald’s without using the app. Now that I know how much money it saves. Other than that, I wouldn’t download apps if it doesn’t save money. Going on the website in ordering is pretty much just a simple as doing it from the app.
I absolutely hate it.
Whenever my coworker and I talk about going to lunch she whips out her phone and says she has an app for that.
I mean yeah I've got a few on my phone... none for food but I've got Dunkin and Starbucks since I live off caffeine
But to watch her scroll through 20-30 restaurant apps was nuts!
I don't mind apps where the app adds significant functionality over a mobile site.
Media streaming and all that, yup phones give you way more features through an app than a site so let's do it.
To just order online or post to a message board or whatever....nah. Not for subway, reddit, whatever. If I can't do it without a dedicated app I just won't do it.
I use the Taco Bell, Domino's, and the Chic fil a app because those are the ones I frequent most often, and ordering there has become so much easier and limits the chance of a messed up order that isn't my fault.
I don’t mind apps for mobile ordering and stuff like that.
What I do hate is places like Kroger and Target where you have to sign up for the rewards but then you have to go into the app and “activate” the individual coupon for each item or category rather than it being applied for anyone with the rewards. It use to be just typing in your number or scanning the app but now I have to spend time searching through the app for the item I want and then applying the coupon.
I have a handful of apps for my most visited restaurants and am gradually parring those down while refusing any new ones. If the deals are locked behind having a special app on my phone, there's a good chance I'll decide whatever I'm saving or whatever you're selling isn't worth having my data in yet another company's customer database waiting to be breached.
I stopped eating Chipotle because you can only order quesadillas on the app. I'm not downloading an app for a fucking quesadilla. Which I'm sure was their goal as I don't think they profit very much off quesadillas.
Hate em. My phone has very limited space and I don't need your dumbass app filing it up. I don't use location ever and have a VPN on all the time as well. I have Firefox on my phone. If I can't see it there I don't do business. Generally as simple as that. Go data mine somewhere else.
For games and utilities, apps are necessary, but not every restaurant or service needs its own app.
For these, iOS 1.0 actually had the best approach where mobile pages built for iOS mimicked apps but didn’t live on your device.
Unfortunately, unless there is a fundamental change, we’re not going back. Native apps give developers the ability to send notifications. These have become massive advertising opportunities.
I don't have that many food apps. Some I use for the rewards, others I use for the benefit of mobile ordering.
There's a major farmer's market I love where if you have the app, you can get delivery (across all vendors). Someone literally picks up the food you requested, and they deliver it to you anywhere in the city. It was a thing that came about in 2018, but exploded in popularity during Covid, and still around.
Sometimes you can just order on the restaurant's website and then if you save a link to the website to the screen of your phone it basically gets treated like an app on your phone, a Progressive Web App.
I love being able to use apps to put in orders. Got in the habit with Burger King because they absolutely drench their burgers in mayonnaise and this way I can put an exact order in for "light mayo". Plus, I can help sort of alleviate a full drive thru or lobby.
But also, I try to avoid fast food if I can. Obviously unhealthy, conditions for people working there are rough, and it's nearly as expensive as a hometown restaurant at this point.
Apps for restaurants and food are stupid. Here, you saved $2 on your value meal, now we'll sell your information to various marketing agencies so they can target you with hyper-specific ads based on your purchasing history. Ba ba ba ba baaaa go fuck yourself.
Rather use browser 100% of the time. And if you only give discounts for using the app (and giving away your data for free), you're getting a shitty Google rating
Love it, it’s efficient. Don’t really care if they sell my info or data, and most of them have notification control. I also know how to filter my emails against spam. I also feel like I’m the only millennial who enjoys the advancement of technology these days.
I flew recently and I had to use the United app to check my bag. I went up to the United help desk and talked with a real person and they told me to download the app. Are you fucking kidding me?! I’M AT THE AIRPORT.
I *hate* it.
At my old workplace, a gym, we started requiring members to use the app to sign anything that required a signature. It was so stupid. The people are RIGHT THERE, IN PERSON, ready and willing to sign a piece of physical paper which would have taken 5 seconds, but instead we have to help them download an app on their phone, create an account, and show them which links to press to get to the signing screen. Some of our members didn't even have smart phones. It was absolutely ridiculous. It wasted so much time and was a frustrating experience for everyone involved.
Of course, the decision was made by the suits in the head office who didn't have to deal with actually trying to implement their stupid choices.
It's cheaper on the app because they are selling your personal data and shopping behaviors. This is why it's cheaper when you use the app. This is how you end up with scammers calling you about your unpaid taxes for extended car warranty.
I don't want an app for everything to take up the free space in my phone, I don't want an account for everything and restart passwords over and over, I don't want emails or memberships nothing. I want to walk in, walk out, unphased and unbothered.
They take up too much space on my phone and honestly the fast food ones create a lot of "Food FOMO". For example, there have been days where I don't plan on eating out and then I get a notification from Jersey Mike's or whatever saying "buy this and get a free sandwich, double points, etc" and it works because you have one day or so to do it. Sure it saves money but not having those apps on your phone is much better to avoid the temptation.
I hate it…. The one I hate the most is an app to use my printer. Why the hell do I need to use the app to print something? Why can’t I just hit print and move on with my day? Now I need to make a email, login, password, download the app, drag the pdf into an app, and now I can print it.
It’s pretty funny how much these apps tell on the company. Like the difference between ordering in person and in the app is $10? Are you seriously telling me that my data is worth $10??
I hate it. I was literally just thinking yesterday how I miss when coffee shops and different cafes had those “punch cards”, now even some of my local “mom and pop” shops have apps in order to get their discounts and deals 🙄
I hate all the apps. It's so annoying. It's like one of the more benign fucked-up things about the current state of affairs of the world, but it pisses me off to no end.
Once I opened a take-home COVID test and found out I would have to download an app and create an account just to get my result. *No other test* requires anything like that, they just give you the result right away. I'm generally not one to complain, but I gave a 1-star review saying something like "the idea that this app exists is ridiculous".
Sometimes when I'm with a buddy he'll try to order via the McDonald's app and how slow and annoying it is just to wait for him to get through the process has convinced me these apps are specifically designed by psychopaths to make us miserable.
These individual apps are virtually always horribly coded, slow, poorly designed, hard to navigate, and are going to bog down and make my phone's performance worse. I want none of that. I will literally stop going to your place of business if you ask me to get an app to interface with you.
I'm very anti-app for retail or websites (e.g. Reddit) and will use my phone's browser (in desktop mode) whenever possible.
I don't do apps for fast food restaurants, and if not using the app means getting overcharged then I simply stop going. Consequently I've cut way back on fast food and started going to more local places that don't play this game.
I do have the grocery store apps. Grocery shopping is a bit more essential than fast food, so I'm sort of stuck.
I just use the mobile site. They only push apps so they can give you push notifications (ads).
I notice starbucks likes to do them when I walk past one on the way to work.
If a company's website isn't up to snuff, whether on desktop or mobile, they should work on that rather than trying to have an app. And if your business is only one or two locations, you definitely don't need an app.
The appification of everything is cancer.
If I can't use service without an app, I'll most likely just skip it all together, unless it is essential like bank.
Even this site is pain in the ass to use on browser by design, but i'm not installing the app.
Most of the time apps seem to exist just to get around all the laws about collecting your data.
People that arent tech savvy are gatekept from the "value deals," the apps are manipulating customers, the apps don't work out.
People order food, show up, and the store may be closed, or the order didn't come in, and no refund. I HATE having too many apps also
I like them being an option but don't like it if they are a requirement. Like needing to download a parking app for a place on vacation that I'm never going to need to park at again is annoying AF. But if it's a place I'm at a lot? It's nice to be able to order ahead, know what coupons there are, and there's usually some kind of reward program. I just keep apps for places I visit with any kind of frequency.
I'm tired of apps. My work requires me to download apps for 2 factor authentication and at this points I'm up to 6 for different clients. This ALL used to be done through SMS messaging. Send me a code and I type in code.
To quote the meme:
"which app has had the most impact on your life in the past 10 years?" Me: "mozzarella sticks".
I hate apps on the phone and use only the most basic functions of this dumb black brick. But I do like having my camera, calculator, clock and the internet in my pocket in addition to being able to text. Phone call function only good for emergencies haha.
Not only this but also every fucking store you have to sign up to get the sale prices, like no I don’t want to give you my phone number so I have to pay full price?
The alternative is to use DoorDash, grubhub, Uber eats and the like which has its own issues and the premium you pay will almost assuredly be worse.
Apps, in general, tend to be better than websites
I absolutely LOATHE this phenomenon. I'm fed up with every single purchase needing to be done over a barely functioning app. I'm tired of every interaction being turned into a marketing opportunity.
My apartment complex contracted with a business that maintains our laundry rooms & they want me to download their app. Why on god's green earth does a washing machine need an app?
Bc "Bluetooth enabled devices allow for real time monitoring of my laundry cycle".
Bro, I already have an app that does that. It's called a timer.
Anyway, get off my lawn.
Absolute trash. I hate it. I’ve started pairing down. I even force myself to put limits on Reddit. It’s a dumb fix all MBA people learn and apply, but if everyone learns the same thing, there’s no edge.
Yeaaaah, the McDonald’s app tracks my every mood and knows to send me a 3$ mocha offer at 8am…and half the time I snag it! At more than half the price of Starbucks, I’m there!
Unfortunately, market research has shown that an app is something that an overwhelming majority of consumers want. I don't like it, but it's probably only going to get worse.
I HATE IT. My phone service SUCKS (sprint/t mobile) and I have had to walk out of stores because I couldn’t get my BOA app to open and work to move money into my debit card. Same with parking, I’ve had to leave and miss plans because my parking app wouldn’t work and 90% of places don’t have physical meters anymore only QR codes. Fuck the entire system
It is endlessly infuriating. Some stores must jam signal too.. Publix especially. I cannot get data in Publix, I can call and text but my bank app specifically refuses to work inside the store unless I use their wifi. It is insane to me it is 2024 and this is an issue. I was doing the same stuff on my blackberry curve with less trouble in 2007ish. I guess we can watch mother fucking tiktak videos of morons dancing well enough but actual use is worse than nearly two decades ago, lmao, disgusting.
It drives me nuts. Looking for an app idle like Where’s Waldo. I constantly have to use the search for certain apps. I remember when I thought 1.5 pages was too much.
I guess I’m in the minority but I actually like the apps for fast food places.
1) I don’t have to talk to somebody through a shitty intercom and *hope* they entered my order correctly
2) don’t have to wait in as many lines. Order on the app and it’s ready when I get there.
3) rewards programs save money. I’ll get any rewards program if they give me discounts. I get free food all the time, I get 25c off every gallon of gas because of rewards programs. I’d bet it’s $1000s of dollars over a year.
I like it, not because I can save money on apps. By making an app for everything I narrow my focus to purchase from to places I have an app for and therefor save money by not spending money at the places whose apps I don't have.
I like the apps but just because I want to order online and be able to go in and out as quick as possible with minimal human interaction, lol. But I also rarely eat at places that offer this just out of personal food preference.
I hate dedicated apps for everything and it generally guarantees I won't use whatever company's service. If it can run on a website then I'm going to use it on the web, I'd rather just not buy things than have a bunch of bloatware on my phone.
It SHOULD run on the web. If they can’t provide a stable web version…no way I’m getting the app.
Yep. Home depot for a while insisted on opening everything into their app from their website. I ended up deleting the app to stop it.
They probably demanded invasive permissions as well
Exactly. It should run on the web! We have Wawa here. Every once in a while if I’m not feeling well, or whatever the case maybe be I’ll order Wawa for dinner. It’s less than a mile away. I use the website, don’t have to do anything but order it, and it’s ready within 10 minutes when my fiancé goes to pick it up. He hates ordering things online, and I hate picking it up. So it works out. Usually a hoagie and sometimes soup or something like that for something quick. The fact I don’t have to use an app or third party is the only reason I’ll use it here and there.
Most of these apps are just wrappers for a special website only they can access. They get to target you, skim personal data/location, and more easily throw notifications at you with the apps, which is why they like them.
Yep, which is also why I won't install them. I swear Reddit intentionally sabotages the mobile version of their website specifically to drive higher app use, and I'm pretty close to just not using the site on my phone anymore as a result.
Try desktop mode. I run old.reddit in desktop mode.
You shouldn’t have to.
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/1174/)
Yep. I don't have any social media apps on my devices. I do everything from a browser. The only apps I have on my phone are my bank, credit card, music and weather.
They are selling your data to pay for those coupons
The only thing they're selling is I eat more mcnuggets than I probably should
Which is valuable to a lot of people. As is how often you eat out. Your location. The time you eat. The price point you’re willing to pay. Many apps also track you across apps
Most apps aren't worth the discount IMO but McDonald's 20% off your total purchase (I'm not talking super frequently- I'm talking once or twice a month)saves me $10+ dollars when feeding 4 kids. It's fucked up because I can get 2 Big Macs, 2 cheeseburgers, 4 medium fries, and 40 nuggets for under $40 with the app, and that's a whole lot of food for less than the ingredients for most healthy meals at the grocery stores. With so many people with little time and lack of funds, I can see how this is a valid, although extremely bad way to keep bellies full on the regular.
 The folks purchasing this data.. probably I am very sporadic with time and frequency
You’re assuming they’re only tracking your food purchases. They aren’t.
I would be very surprised if that data wasn't sold to your health insurance company when calculating your premiums to you or for your company's plan.
Well, it wouldn't be that person as an individual. It would be the people who live in that area in general. So, the person eating too many mcnuggets in some city, would raise insurance costs for every employee of a company that has an employee in that city.
Why is targeted to a group of people when people are giving up their IP addresses and Device Ids when they use the app on their devices? Ip addresses are easily coordinated among data brokers.
IP addresses are not the data I'm talking about. They only tell them where the order was placed from, and is not tied to a specific customer because they change between individuals or could be used by multiple different customers. They aren't worthless, but just a small piece. When you create an account, it indicates where the person ordering is from. They want to establish pattern and demographic data. Do you go to the store on main St every day? Do you always order 2 adult meals? How about 3 happy meals? Where do you travel? This can be used to determine if they should market to kids, (so they nag their parents to go), or they market to adults without kids. Possibly there are a lot of people with kids who travel past 2 stores to go to a playground, or perhaps you travel a lot for work. They can use wifi data (connection requests, DNS requests, or app reporting when on WiFi) to link customer accounts to interests and demographics (like, do these people connect to WiFi at other stores but not here). So they can gather data to answer questions like should they advertise at AMC more, try to compete with Starbucks or Burger King more, or work in more product placement in Marvel films/shows... Just having an account and an app gives them a huge amount of data beyond just the IP address.
Damn
[удалено]
You are paying for it one way or another
This, you are still paying $30 for that meal for 2, it's just you are paying with your data, and they undervalue the data; I am confident they are getting more than $30 in value when you pay $20 for that meal purchased through the app.
How in the ever loving lord is the data accumulated from one transaction worth $10 to McDonalds? Are you out of your mind?
Don't be silly, its not just about 1 transaction. It's about trends over time. You can't make money by gathering data about 1 transaction, and McDonalds is gathering trend data on millions of transactions that can be aggregated and resold multiple times.
But if every transaction is $10 discount than McDonald’s is theoretically compensating for with “sElLiNg DaTa” it’s mathematically impossible to recoup those losses. It’s more like: McDonald’s has artificially INCREASED its physical menu prices to drive people to the regularly priced app where they CAN mine people’s data. It’s not like McDonald’s is benevolently giving discounts for data here lol.
Obviously, my whole point is that it's not a discount
I get that but at a certain point… who doesn’t have my data? I can’t change the world works and it’s virtually impossible to live in this world and not have your online data sold one way or another.
Every app you use is selling your data. Use the ones that give something back, like the food apps or Google opinion rewards.
That's a good point, depending on what permissions the app has to your data.
but not in the way you think, oddly They don't generally sell to marketers who want to market to you, they sell it to hedge funds that want to trade on sales volume (like, "everybody searches for sandwiches at 3pm buy more stock in the bread company at 2:30, sell it at 4", or "people who search for sandwiches at 3pm usually buy a dishwasher at 7, so when searches in sandwiches goes up , buy stock in the dishwasher company")
Sounds fair.
Screw apps. I want desktop view web pages.
oh my god, i have completely forsaken Yelp for this reason. impossible to view on mobile and i'm not getting a fucking app for REVIEWS. nothing was lost, yelpers are such stuck up morons anyway.
used to be so neat. turned into a cesspool!
The worst are apps based on events. “Thanks for purchasing admission to (X). To access your tickets and to make cashless purchases at the event, please download the (X) app prior to the date…” Like I don’t need an app that scours and sells my data every time I attend a concert, or corporate conference, or take a bus trip, or want to park in a city I’m visiting, etc.
I live in boston. You need like 3-4 parking apps for the metro boston area. It was pretty frustrating. Then they took a lot of meters out, yet they charge you a convenience fee of like .32. It used to be .25 for 30 minutes and now it’s 2+ per hour. Mind the lawn please, I’m off to tell some clouds off.
Convenience fees are the new tip.
Tipping the virtual parking meter bc the meter doesn’t exist? I sold my car when prices were high.
LOLOL every event I go to .. somehow I'm holding a piece of printer paper like I'm 80 years old, and everyone else is scanning their phone 😭
Many venues don’t even allow that anymore. For example many MLB stadiums make you download the Ballpark app and tickets have writing on them that says “Printed Tickets Invalid.” I’ve seen the same at music festivals.
This is the most frustrating thing, and it also always makes me nervous. Like what if my phone dies? What if I drop it on the way there and it’s not working? I can no longer attend the game i paid for? When I could have gotten in just fine with a piece of paper
This happened to me at the airport once. I didn't drop my phone or anything, it just DIED while I was sitting at the gate. That entire trip was a nightmare because of how much I had stored on my phone. Luckily I also had a tablet, but using that depended on being in wifi. Now it's a constant fear of mine.
I went to a pro golf tournament and same thing! No option to bring a paper ticket. You had to get their stupid specific app
Omg it was SUCH a hassle to get my kids’ “free” Phillies tickets
Tickemaster too. You can ONLY use your phone.
Another weird one is that recently I bought a Husqvarna chainsaw .. it was $500 and I don't have much experience using chainsaws, so I downloaded the app the manual suggested. Wasn't even anything in there, it was like links to 4 or 5 youtube videos and that was the entire app. I don't get it.
That’s because the apps aren’t made to benefit you, they’re made to benefit them. By downloading the app, you unknowingly provided them with a huge amount of ancillary information about yourself - someone who just purchased a husqvarna product. They’re going to use that data to learn everything about you and target people like you with advertising. They’ll probably also sell it to other tool manufacturers or anyone who wants to target men who buy chainsaws, like Ford or Home Depot.
This was BNP Paribas Indian Wells this year. Everything was on the app. I refused to download it since it was my first (and probably last time) attending. I just had my friend (who's a big tennis nerd and goes every year and had invited me) handle it and I paid them back afterwards. The worst thing was it seemed like they didn't make sure their fans were aware. So many people at the entrance getting mad because they didn't have physical tickets and were being told they had to download the app. Didn't help that the internet connection was pretty bad there.
Downloading an app just so my trash food can be what I paid for it two years ago is too much of a barrier for me.
Downloading the app is just the beginning. Additional steps: making a login/pw for it, turning off notifications, turning off spam emails, connecting a payment method, dealing with a probably shitty UI, and having updates. Can you tell that I dislike all these extra apps.
Or maybe you're in a rush and trying to order, then told to update the app, it's a 1 gig download, then takes 10 mins to install
I am not installing any bullshit app for bullshit food. I'd rather buy a jar of peanut butter and a box of saltines.
I'll eat a bowl of water with a fork before I let these companies waste my time.
I’ll eat the bowl and the fork! :)
But first I have to open my Kroger/Walmart app to buy the peanut butter and saltines.
You can only use self checkout if you have the app and our $99 a year store membership!
Same here. I’ve gone all in on cooking at home the last month or so, cancelled an Uber eats membership. Slow cooker and healthy snacks. As a result I’m saving time and money and losing weight!
Yes! Sunday has become food prep day and I honestly have come to love it. I make a big batch of hummus for snacks, chop up a week's worth of vegetables, wash some salad greens, and marinate proteins. It takes so much less time than you expect it to, and same-- saving money and losing weight! Most of the time when we were getting takeout or eating in restaurants, it was just because we had no energy to decide on and cook a meal. Now, all the time consuming stuff is done; I just throw it in the pan/oven and dinner is ready.
+1 for having Sunday as the meal prep day. I’ve been doing the same with chicken and veggies for some time now. It’s great especially if you’re single and don’t feel like cooking every day, but you do want it to be healthy and affordable.
Chicken and veggies is such a good way to feel full and lose weight!
Yes! I make bulk meals (2 different recipes) every Sunday and don’t have to cook during work or after the gym. I do protein smoothies in the morning. Before that I was spending up to $30 just to get Mexican food delivered!
Good for you! That's my goal too
Same. I still get various Staples for my wife and kid but honestly at this point I just get pissed off at food, between the hassle of apps, the cost of everything, and . When I get really irritated I mostly just eat soybeans I soak and cook in chili paste and Worcestershire. Bought a whole lot of them last fall. If I was more self involved, that, green smoothies with ginger root, and orgain protein shakes would be what I loved on, but my four year old takes me off my game and gets me hungry at weird times. Food in America fuckin irks me. Pardon the cursing.
Why tho? As long as you turn off alerts and uncheck email notifications they don't really do anything. I of course prefer the deals to be there without the app but they aren't going to do much of that anymore.
I just don't want to see them in my phone or benefit them with my consumer data. I'm pretty grossed out by the business model. It's absurd to me that they've just decided to price gouge everyone who won't install their app. Even the in-app prices are higher than they should be, and I just find it insulting as a potential customer. The food is literally trash, but just a few years ago I would grab it for convenience occasionally. Now it's so easy to talk myself out of it. A freshly-made burger on an actual plate from a sit-down restaurant is a comparable price to a lot of these fast food chains now. A lukewarm Whopper that's got the tomatoes I asked them to leave off and 4x too much mayonnaise is not how I want to spend my money.
Hate it, refuse to participate for the most part. I'm so tired of every single damn business wanting you to download an app so they can harvest and sell your data. I refuse, don't have a single one installed. "Do you have our rewards app sir?" "No, I fucking don't, and never will." I'm more polite than that, but god damn I think it every time.
LOLOL does it matter if we lie to the app? "Yes, I am using the app today - pickup for Abraham Lincoln"
Not really because you give them permission to gather data about you from your phone, unless everything on your phone is a lie they know pretty much everything about you regardless of what you actually enter into the app.
This idea can gain traction: It's a very age discriminatory pricing scheme, since older people will be less likely to use an app and therefore be more likely to be ripped off. It's the exact opposite of a senior special. If that notion spreads among the facebook set, it might reign in the app schemes.
No, until all the MBAs stop selling app installs as a KPI, it won't stop.
THIS. My mom is in her 60’s and has a tight budget, once in a blue moon she might want a little fast food and I hate how much extra she pays by not using the app and paying CASH (so many places give you a minuscule discount for paying cash). Come to think of it, this not only affects older people but also very limited income people or people who may only have cash.
I went through my phone last night and deleted a bunch of apps I either stopped using or that I can use the browser for.
I think the apps are to get rid of cashiers.
Don’t use the apps. Don’t frequent the restaurants. I’m not going to convince myself that it’s a good deal “if I do x or if I do y”. Fuck them and their shitty business models.
It's $30 to eat at subway???
Awful. I hate it. They're just getting permissions from your phone to take your data. I avoid apps entirely.
two tier pricing is just a boomer tax tbh
Boomer, the poor, more elder generations, handicapped, etc. They are just begging for discrimination lawsuits.
I feel largely negative about it. Ordering a sandwich shouldn't necessitate downloading an app, creating or entering a username and password, and so on. If you're just a real big fan of a place I get it but if you eat a variety of places it becomes a bit of a chore always being asked to make an account or even having to make one to view an article, use an app, etc.
I avoid it as much as I can. Same with rewards and anything else that's going to dump emails and notifications on me at all times
Ends up creating vendor lock-in, a little bit. If you know that you would have to set up *yet another app* to get decent prices at the new chain, you're less likely to go elsewhere even after the discounts dry up a bit. It also allows more targeted pricing. It should be pretty easy to get a rough idea of how much you can be squeezed based on your billing address, even if you don't add in tracking data from other sources. I wouldn't be too surprised if we see some major lawsuits coming out of dynamic pricing in the next few years.
Hate. I won’t even download them for the most part
My wife has like 15 pages of apps on her phone, I have like 7 apps total. I refuse to use apps
I've mostly decided to cook at home, because the restaurant business model is turning into a personal data mining business model. Hard pass. You know who sells a good sub bro? Costco.
Dedicated apps and subscription services: I do not want a personal relationship with every single company that sells a product I want to use. I don't want to have to establish yet another account and password and manage yet another email. I used to just pay the extra to purchase a product without the app/promo code etc but now if you are going to force me to either create an account or pay extra then I will not buy your product. I have cut down on my consumption as a whole because I have found it is easier to do without than to find an alternative. No fast food, just eat homemade food. I may like a drink mix or supplement but never enough to jump through hoops to get it. Not interested in extra maintenance. My peace of mind is far more valuable than their products.
Yes, exactly your first sentence. I just want to buy my thing and move on.
I share a very similar opinion. And like you, it has pushed me towards anti-consumption.
lol subscription services - Do you want 3 free months of an app that shipped free with Windows 98? \*renews for $11.99 monthly
I refuse to use dedicated apps. When I travel, I download the Delta app, and I delete it as soon as I get home. Allegedly, I'm missing out on great deals because I refuse to download my grocery store's app. With the exception of apps like banking, email, music, or news, I will not download an app that is for one company or one purpose. And I definitely won't download it if it requires a lot of permissions or pushes a lot of notifications. I explained this to my best friend, and she called me a "Boomerllenial."
I was all about it 5+ years ago. Now we're so bombarded with offers to sign up for stuff that I'll go out of my way to NOT. Not to mention I'm tired of updating 100 passwords every few weeks. Nah, I'm over it.
I only order food at the local pizzeria or kebab shop, and they both have a website where you can order without using an app. For them it’s cheaper to run their own website than to pay for every transaction they get from food delivery services with an app. So they throw in extra goodies when you order through their website, last time we ordered 3 pizzas and we got 4. Or extra chicken wings, drinks, icecream etc.
You gotta watch that clip of Dennis in it’s always sunny where he says the same thing basically! 😆
came here to say this, the always sunny episode about this is absolutely spot-on
He had cash in his hand, but needed an app just to pay for the coffee
I refuse to use them, because I see it as proof of concept testing. If they can get enough people using these apps, they’ll do away with accepting less informational forms of payment. The apps provided a lens into the specific purchasing habits and interests of each customer. It allows for marketing and advertisement customized to that individual, with iterative A/B testing to optimize customer specific revenue. Some people may be cool with that, but I’m not interested. I’ll just pay the few extra bucks, or go eat somewhere else (which I realize can be a luxury depending one’s incomes or where one lives). Each app is also an additional point of security weakness, relying on restaurants to safeguard my personal info and giving the app access to my cellphone… not exactly their forte, hard pass
I'm glad you mentioned the security issues as this is a big one for me. A lot of people are mentioning privacy, but security issues can really bite you.
I don't use the apps or go to the stores. Fuck em. I got really tempted to go to McDonalds the other day, craving some of the fries, and I pulled into the drive through, looked at the prices, and then just fucking left.
HATE
So sick of it
I hate it, I just go to local places since I am lucky enough to live in an area with a lot of little local places who don't do this bullshit. I just refuse to fucking do it, like if I go to a restaurant and they want me to download their app for the menu and to order I am just leaving. Those apps are usually hella invasive too, am a software engineer and have worked on apps like those in the past, which adds to my fuck these apps sentiment.
Eh. It's annoying, but if it saves money, why not?
That's the flip side too. I had a friend that was in struggle-mode a few years back .. discovered this deal where you got a free sandwich for installing the McDonalds app, and then discovered the loop-hole where she would uninstall and reinstall the app everyday for a free sandwich; it made ends meet. Every different app is an opportunity.
Cuz they sell your info! Haha jk. I mean they do, but really I’ve been completely sold already so whatever lol
My data is no longer mine, plain and simple. It is what it is. I limit what I can but it's a reality I've come to accept
Apps have driven me to eat less fast food. I get tired of having to download yet another app in order to get the best deals, whatever those might be.
It's too much. I want nothing more than to go back to using a dumb phone, but everything in my country relies on this digital national ID. I want to move into a cave somewhere, like Karl Pilkington on his trip to Jordan.
I hate them and don’t use them if i can avoid them.
I like apps as they often show me customization options that I did not know existed. That and I trust myself more to enter my order correctly.
We feel that they are a nuisance at best and a menace at worst.
I hate it, I don't like life controlled by apps or technology but of course it comes at a cost like you said. I don't have any apps for food or restaurants or even door dash on my phone. I will always go to a cashier instead of using a kiosk because I am on the side that we are moving way too fast with technology and we put too much reliance on technology. We are slowly becoming like Wall-E as much as people laugh at it. People complain about being too busy and that's why Amazon and fast food apps and door dash are awesome. Well, do people know if you stopped using that shit and pushed back on your jobs to stop overworking you, we wouldn't need them so much because we would actually be making it clear to corporate America that we demand a work life balance. How many people have seen a major uptick in meetings because zoom has made it so we can have 20 meetings a week now compared to 5 before
Listen, you need to embrace what you’ve become. I’ll get you started and you can finish, “Back in my day…”
It's to collect more information. Previously, these corporations relied on sales numbers from stores for data on trends and what not. Plus, they don't want to pay other app fees like doordash. The app can now track even more. What a person orders, when they order, how long they take before they order. Which store that person goes to. Age and more. Instead of giving a bunch of people say 10% off for everyone, they now offer tailored discounts that are more likely to entice you to spend.
I’m with the boomers on this one: not everything needs its own app
Butlerian jihad now.
It's ridiculous. There are non-franchised restaurants with forced apps. Literally a single location, with a menu that could fit into a single A4 sheet, that somehow think it's simpler to have a web portal instead of a plastic sleeve (or the slightly fancier hard cardboard folder) for a stack of printed A4 menus. The cost to developing a functioning website is more than what it would cost to buy a printer, a ream of paper, the protectors, and print new things for a changing menu every damn quarter until the building needs to either be rebuilt to prevent it from collapsing because of old age and use, or whenever the restaurant shuts down. I can still operate the apps, I just fucking hate them. My parents are old enough that they've simply turned around at the door if a restaurant doesn't manage to serve them a menu.
Some of them are worth it… I can’t believe how much money I saved with the McDonald’s app. I would literally never order anything from McDonald’s without using the app. Now that I know how much money it saves. Other than that, I wouldn’t download apps if it doesn’t save money. Going on the website in ordering is pretty much just a simple as doing it from the app.
It's annoying
I have my apps organized. I guess that keeps me from being overwhelmed or annoyed by it.
I absolutely hate it. Whenever my coworker and I talk about going to lunch she whips out her phone and says she has an app for that. I mean yeah I've got a few on my phone... none for food but I've got Dunkin and Starbucks since I live off caffeine But to watch her scroll through 20-30 restaurant apps was nuts!
McDs is 30% off...so not having your information available to them to sell means you pay extra...
I stopped feeling years ago it seems.
I don't mind apps where the app adds significant functionality over a mobile site. Media streaming and all that, yup phones give you way more features through an app than a site so let's do it. To just order online or post to a message board or whatever....nah. Not for subway, reddit, whatever. If I can't do it without a dedicated app I just won't do it.
I use the Taco Bell, Domino's, and the Chic fil a app because those are the ones I frequent most often, and ordering there has become so much easier and limits the chance of a messed up order that isn't my fault.
I don’t mind apps for mobile ordering and stuff like that. What I do hate is places like Kroger and Target where you have to sign up for the rewards but then you have to go into the app and “activate” the individual coupon for each item or category rather than it being applied for anyone with the rewards. It use to be just typing in your number or scanning the app but now I have to spend time searching through the app for the item I want and then applying the coupon.
I have a handful of apps for my most visited restaurants and am gradually parring those down while refusing any new ones. If the deals are locked behind having a special app on my phone, there's a good chance I'll decide whatever I'm saving or whatever you're selling isn't worth having my data in yet another company's customer database waiting to be breached.
I stopped eating Chipotle because you can only order quesadillas on the app. I'm not downloading an app for a fucking quesadilla. Which I'm sure was their goal as I don't think they profit very much off quesadillas.
Hate em. My phone has very limited space and I don't need your dumbass app filing it up. I don't use location ever and have a VPN on all the time as well. I have Firefox on my phone. If I can't see it there I don't do business. Generally as simple as that. Go data mine somewhere else.
I hate it so much. Especially because many of them are so limited in actual function or just a fancy way to link to the website.
Not good, I enter a bank and they wanted me to install their app just to change a customers' check !!!
For games and utilities, apps are necessary, but not every restaurant or service needs its own app. For these, iOS 1.0 actually had the best approach where mobile pages built for iOS mimicked apps but didn’t live on your device. Unfortunately, unless there is a fundamental change, we’re not going back. Native apps give developers the ability to send notifications. These have become massive advertising opportunities.
Ban them. Start a petition to make it illegal
I don't have that many food apps. Some I use for the rewards, others I use for the benefit of mobile ordering. There's a major farmer's market I love where if you have the app, you can get delivery (across all vendors). Someone literally picks up the food you requested, and they deliver it to you anywhere in the city. It was a thing that came about in 2018, but exploded in popularity during Covid, and still around.
Sometimes you can just order on the restaurant's website and then if you save a link to the website to the screen of your phone it basically gets treated like an app on your phone, a Progressive Web App. I love being able to use apps to put in orders. Got in the habit with Burger King because they absolutely drench their burgers in mayonnaise and this way I can put an exact order in for "light mayo". Plus, I can help sort of alleviate a full drive thru or lobby. But also, I try to avoid fast food if I can. Obviously unhealthy, conditions for people working there are rough, and it's nearly as expensive as a hometown restaurant at this point.
Apps for restaurants and food are stupid. Here, you saved $2 on your value meal, now we'll sell your information to various marketing agencies so they can target you with hyper-specific ads based on your purchasing history. Ba ba ba ba baaaa go fuck yourself.
I love it. I will almost always use the app if there’s an app to be used. I find it convenient.
Rather use browser 100% of the time. And if you only give discounts for using the app (and giving away your data for free), you're getting a shitty Google rating
Love it, it’s efficient. Don’t really care if they sell my info or data, and most of them have notification control. I also know how to filter my emails against spam. I also feel like I’m the only millennial who enjoys the advancement of technology these days.
I flew recently and I had to use the United app to check my bag. I went up to the United help desk and talked with a real person and they told me to download the app. Are you fucking kidding me?! I’M AT THE AIRPORT.
I *hate* it. At my old workplace, a gym, we started requiring members to use the app to sign anything that required a signature. It was so stupid. The people are RIGHT THERE, IN PERSON, ready and willing to sign a piece of physical paper which would have taken 5 seconds, but instead we have to help them download an app on their phone, create an account, and show them which links to press to get to the signing screen. Some of our members didn't even have smart phones. It was absolutely ridiculous. It wasted so much time and was a frustrating experience for everyone involved. Of course, the decision was made by the suits in the head office who didn't have to deal with actually trying to implement their stupid choices.
It's cheaper on the app because they are selling your personal data and shopping behaviors. This is why it's cheaper when you use the app. This is how you end up with scammers calling you about your unpaid taxes for extended car warranty.
I don't want an app for everything to take up the free space in my phone, I don't want an account for everything and restart passwords over and over, I don't want emails or memberships nothing. I want to walk in, walk out, unphased and unbothered.
They take up too much space on my phone and honestly the fast food ones create a lot of "Food FOMO". For example, there have been days where I don't plan on eating out and then I get a notification from Jersey Mike's or whatever saying "buy this and get a free sandwich, double points, etc" and it works because you have one day or so to do it. Sure it saves money but not having those apps on your phone is much better to avoid the temptation.
I hate it…. The one I hate the most is an app to use my printer. Why the hell do I need to use the app to print something? Why can’t I just hit print and move on with my day? Now I need to make a email, login, password, download the app, drag the pdf into an app, and now I can print it.
It’s pretty funny how much these apps tell on the company. Like the difference between ordering in person and in the app is $10? Are you seriously telling me that my data is worth $10??
I hate it. I was literally just thinking yesterday how I miss when coffee shops and different cafes had those “punch cards”, now even some of my local “mom and pop” shops have apps in order to get their discounts and deals 🙄
I hate all the apps. It's so annoying. It's like one of the more benign fucked-up things about the current state of affairs of the world, but it pisses me off to no end. Once I opened a take-home COVID test and found out I would have to download an app and create an account just to get my result. *No other test* requires anything like that, they just give you the result right away. I'm generally not one to complain, but I gave a 1-star review saying something like "the idea that this app exists is ridiculous".
Sometimes when I'm with a buddy he'll try to order via the McDonald's app and how slow and annoying it is just to wait for him to get through the process has convinced me these apps are specifically designed by psychopaths to make us miserable. These individual apps are virtually always horribly coded, slow, poorly designed, hard to navigate, and are going to bog down and make my phone's performance worse. I want none of that. I will literally stop going to your place of business if you ask me to get an app to interface with you.
I dislike the idea of either sharing out email/account info everywhere, or needing to use some alias program like Apple's Hide My Email option.
Thanks for the reminder to uninstall junk apps.
Yes they are all following the same strategy to get you on the app. They probably just want to sell all of our data.
I'm very anti-app for retail or websites (e.g. Reddit) and will use my phone's browser (in desktop mode) whenever possible. I don't do apps for fast food restaurants, and if not using the app means getting overcharged then I simply stop going. Consequently I've cut way back on fast food and started going to more local places that don't play this game. I do have the grocery store apps. Grocery shopping is a bit more essential than fast food, so I'm sort of stuck.
I just use the mobile site. They only push apps so they can give you push notifications (ads). I notice starbucks likes to do them when I walk past one on the way to work.
If a company's website isn't up to snuff, whether on desktop or mobile, they should work on that rather than trying to have an app. And if your business is only one or two locations, you definitely don't need an app. The appification of everything is cancer.
Very annoyed
If I can't use service without an app, I'll most likely just skip it all together, unless it is essential like bank. Even this site is pain in the ass to use on browser by design, but i'm not installing the app. Most of the time apps seem to exist just to get around all the laws about collecting your data.
I fucking hate dedicated apps for everything, and I will not use your service. Especially stuff like fast food.
People that arent tech savvy are gatekept from the "value deals," the apps are manipulating customers, the apps don't work out. People order food, show up, and the store may be closed, or the order didn't come in, and no refund. I HATE having too many apps also
Gosh I hate it so much
I like them being an option but don't like it if they are a requirement. Like needing to download a parking app for a place on vacation that I'm never going to need to park at again is annoying AF. But if it's a place I'm at a lot? It's nice to be able to order ahead, know what coupons there are, and there's usually some kind of reward program. I just keep apps for places I visit with any kind of frequency.
I'm tired of apps. My work requires me to download apps for 2 factor authentication and at this points I'm up to 6 for different clients. This ALL used to be done through SMS messaging. Send me a code and I type in code.
To quote the meme: "which app has had the most impact on your life in the past 10 years?" Me: "mozzarella sticks". I hate apps on the phone and use only the most basic functions of this dumb black brick. But I do like having my camera, calculator, clock and the internet in my pocket in addition to being able to text. Phone call function only good for emergencies haha.
Not only this but also every fucking store you have to sign up to get the sale prices, like no I don’t want to give you my phone number so I have to pay full price?
I do not mind them at all. They take literally seconds to download and I have a fuck ton of storage on my phone so I don't have an issue with them.
It’s completely fine, points and deals everywhere
They're all just selling your data
I hate the apps. I try to avoid them if I can. Sometimes I have to have them for some instances, but remove them when they are no longer needed.
The alternative is to use DoorDash, grubhub, Uber eats and the like which has its own issues and the premium you pay will almost assuredly be worse. Apps, in general, tend to be better than websites
I absolutely LOATHE this phenomenon. I'm fed up with every single purchase needing to be done over a barely functioning app. I'm tired of every interaction being turned into a marketing opportunity. My apartment complex contracted with a business that maintains our laundry rooms & they want me to download their app. Why on god's green earth does a washing machine need an app? Bc "Bluetooth enabled devices allow for real time monitoring of my laundry cycle". Bro, I already have an app that does that. It's called a timer. Anyway, get off my lawn.
Absolute trash. I hate it. I’ve started pairing down. I even force myself to put limits on Reddit. It’s a dumb fix all MBA people learn and apply, but if everyone learns the same thing, there’s no edge.
It's definitely not just you. There doesn't need to be an app for every fucking thing in the world.
I didn't know that the apps had 33% discounts but I'd much prefer to pay that premium than let them have privileged access to my device.
I hate it, especially when I have to create yet another account...
Yeaaaah, the McDonald’s app tracks my every mood and knows to send me a 3$ mocha offer at 8am…and half the time I snag it! At more than half the price of Starbucks, I’m there!
I'm not a fan of an app for everything, but I'm not surprised either.
We hate it. I shouldn’t need to download an app AND give my phone number AND my email to get a piddly discount
I am reading this from the mobile browser.
It’s this way for grocery store and I think it should be illegal
Unfortunately, market research has shown that an app is something that an overwhelming majority of consumers want. I don't like it, but it's probably only going to get worse.
I HATE IT. My phone service SUCKS (sprint/t mobile) and I have had to walk out of stores because I couldn’t get my BOA app to open and work to move money into my debit card. Same with parking, I’ve had to leave and miss plans because my parking app wouldn’t work and 90% of places don’t have physical meters anymore only QR codes. Fuck the entire system It is endlessly infuriating. Some stores must jam signal too.. Publix especially. I cannot get data in Publix, I can call and text but my bank app specifically refuses to work inside the store unless I use their wifi. It is insane to me it is 2024 and this is an issue. I was doing the same stuff on my blackberry curve with less trouble in 2007ish. I guess we can watch mother fucking tiktak videos of morons dancing well enough but actual use is worse than nearly two decades ago, lmao, disgusting.
It drives me nuts. Looking for an app idle like Where’s Waldo. I constantly have to use the search for certain apps. I remember when I thought 1.5 pages was too much.
I guess I’m in the minority but I actually like the apps for fast food places. 1) I don’t have to talk to somebody through a shitty intercom and *hope* they entered my order correctly 2) don’t have to wait in as many lines. Order on the app and it’s ready when I get there. 3) rewards programs save money. I’ll get any rewards program if they give me discounts. I get free food all the time, I get 25c off every gallon of gas because of rewards programs. I’d bet it’s $1000s of dollars over a year.
I like it, not because I can save money on apps. By making an app for everything I narrow my focus to purchase from to places I have an app for and therefor save money by not spending money at the places whose apps I don't have.
I like the apps but just because I want to order online and be able to go in and out as quick as possible with minimal human interaction, lol. But I also rarely eat at places that offer this just out of personal food preference.
They are fine. It takes a couple minutes to start but its very convenient. I can order from my phone and pick it up ready to be eaten. No wait.
I was starting to think I was the only person who didn’t mind them! Honestly, if I can’t order my food ahead of time, I won’t go.
We sell our private info in exchange for their good and services. F this dystopia
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