For me it's that I don't want short form video anywhere near my view.
I went to a bar for a drink the other day. They had TVs all over the place which I normally don't care for but it looked like golf or something I could just ignore. After I ordered my drink I realized how wrong was.
It was actually some weird short form video TV channel. They croped the 16:9 screen into a 1:1 square with moving neon lines in the "empty space" where there was no video. Each video was about 5 seconds long and showed brainless content of people using a Rube Goldburg machine or doing card tricks and other such nonsense.
Once I realized what was happening it was too late as I got my drink and I felt compelled to finish it and pay. I tried to ignore the 5+ screens in my view but they were too big and eye-catching to really ignore. I kept catching myself looking at one of the screens after a minute or so. I felt like I was getting serotonin raped between ads.
Eventually I moved to sit by a window and stare at a tree. I'll never go back to a bar like that again.
@The_Picard_Maneuver I once bought a TV sound bar that wanted me to download an app, make an account and give it detailed location information just to use it as a wired speaker. I returned it.
The Olympics required four apps. Five if you count Visa Go, which just outright didn't work. All of them want you to make accounts and send you shit.
- Itinerary, account optional
- Tickets, account required even though the tickets were on the phone
- Transport, account required even though the tickets were in the
- Metro app, for which it told you to NOT DELETE THE DATA BECAUSE THE TICKETS ARE ONLY ON THE DEVICE
That's not even a boomer complaint. Zoomer here. I fucking hate how everything needs an account. I recently started cleaning up my mail box and this shit makes that nigh impossible. I especially hate it when it's just a shitty novelty site, if it needs an account, you bet your ass I ain't ever using it, piss off!
"Or sign in with your Facebook account"
No, this isn't Facebook!
The real solution: Buy your own domain name, and make a catch-all email address. Every account gets a new address with that account’s company in the email. Target is target@[your domain].[tld]… The benefit is that you can see exactly who is selling your info to spammers, and easily burn those accounts. You start getting spam sent to that target address? Congrats, now you know Target has sold your info and you can set a rule to automatically send any target@ emails straight to your trash. Also, get a damned password manager so every account has a unique password.
Create a fake persona. This persona has a fake name, birthday, favorite food, first pet, etc… Memorize everything about this fake person, or even just make a note about them in your phone. And none of it is real. This fake person’s info is used for all of your signup info. So when shitty fucking companies get hacked and lose all of your info, the hackers never actually got any of your info. And if you ever see spam addressed to that fake persona, you know you can immediately discard it.
Between the catch-all email address and the fake persona, you’re basically immune to all of the typical ads, phishing, data breaches, etc…
I was going to buy a really sweet drone. Then I watched the Getting Started video and there was an app and an account thing, and I realized the second they shut down the service, that drone would be a paperweight.
I'm back to building my own because I'd like to use it for more than a year or two.
Far from being a boomer, but 100% agree with it.
It is sad to think there are people who don't think this is ridiculous and are just accepting that.
That's not a boomer thing. Boomer will be like "sure, I'll give you all the informations you want, even the name of my dog and my credit card number".
I wrote an email app called Port87 for this. Every account gets its own address, and everything to that address goes in its own label.
I wish we could go back to the 90s as far as this shit is concerned.
Just take it out of the box and it works.
Send in a registration post card if you feel like bothering, but thats about it.
I am so sick of everything, especially shit that has no conceivable need to be online, not only demanding an internet connection, but demanding accounts and shit too.
Cause you know why they do it. They want to track you, harvest your data, and monetize it. Its not about selling you a good product, its about selling you a good listening device.
Create an account so you can do anything with your purchased device? That's just plain abusive. How about: thank you for using your hard-earned, post-tax funds and choosing our product. Let's get you going as fast and easily as possible, then go as far as we can to make things work before having you stop and create an account?
Only reason to create one is so you can save a persistent context for multiple types of interaction. Support multiple users, or different mobile devices, maybe groups of devices. But for a single device, out of the box, no sign up should EVER be needed.
Unless the company's priority is to hoover all your usage data, analyze it to death, invade your privacy, and sell it for profit.
grocery stores trying to get me to sign up for their reward program or whatever
Im surprised Aldi hasnt completely taken over the entire country by now because of how they skip all the bullshit
its a grocery store. i walk in, i buy food, i leave
could not be simpler.
My local Kroger, however, has automated price cards that adjust to scalp their customers during high-traffic periods.
this is a practice that should be rewarded via targetted arson of distribution centers until our demands are met
oops autocorrect lmao
i meant this is a practice that should be outlawed via legislation that follows our due processes
Companies just don't get enough resistance to this behaviors if more people went against them things wouldn't be in the state they are now.
I have a lightbulb that I can change the colour temperature of. There's no internet or app connection, you toggle through the different states by rapidly turning it off and on again. Whoever designed it deserves a medal
The real question is why our government in the USA hasn't stepped in and made any protections for our data, which would solve this issue entirely. Apps like Temu or Character.AI have very sketchy data management and privacy practices, you have no idea what they're really doing with your data, it's required to make an account for both of them. Clearly they are selling them and obtaining lots of your data to do all sorts of things with. Frankly, I don't think it should be legal to obtain huge amounts of people's data, specifying nothing about what it is actually, truly being used for
My girlfriend always jokes with me that despite being tech-competent I am an old Luddite about tech. It is never more true than when something asks me to make an account.
Finding a fucking living room lamp where you can change brightnes, was quite a search to exclude all the iot devices. That most online shops have no filters for iot, doesn't help.
I kind of wonder whether it'd be worthwhile to have a certification agency that just certifies things for privacy and non-cloud-connectivity or the like. Trying to dig through spec sheets and reviews to figure out how a product functions is a pain. I'd rather pay slightly more to just look for some privacy certification on a product. I don't really want to try to keep up with the latest privacy issues present in a given product category, would rather have a specialist do that.
Like, let me just look for a "PC-24-O" (Privacy Certification 2024 Offline) label or something on products. Saves me time. Also would let vendors like Amazon let me filter products for that certification.
its a shame you have to do this, but you can use HomeAssistant to disconnect a lot of those lights from their 'clouds' I bought dirt cheap RGBW bulbs from walmart and now I'm essentially emulating their 'cloud' on my local network. (tuya)
no more losing ability to control lights if the ISP goes down
Oi m8, you got an account for that?
Additional to that account thing: Why does one have to install an app in order to access all functions and to toggle options of a device?
My girlfriend once has bought new headphones. In order to switch off the telephone function (you can - among other things -answer calls from the connected smartphone by touching one side of the headphones) it is required to download an app (a sloppily programmed one as well) to switch off this specific function. All other functions (volume, play, back and forward) are operated with buttons.
I heard about the same thing but with printers: The scan settings can only be toggled by an app (I think it was HP who has that feature - who else!?)
I got Sonoff relay switch, you can use guest account for it. But yeah all these smaet thing require a server and internet connection, so creating an account is mandatory in most case. One time my internet is down outside my control and i can't switch on my ventilation fan and have to use the manual switch on it, it's quite annoying. Kinda wish there's one made for just local because i don't need to use it remotely.
Fuck that. I don't give that shit out either. Completely unnecessary.
- I am the only person in the entire country who knows and follows the rules for operating a vehicle.
This is a constant source of frustration for me. Im on the spectrum and even though my logical, intelligent side of the brain understands that rules are just words; the emotional part of my brain just screams "THATS NOT HOW THIS WORKS" every time someone hits their hazard lights and just gets out of their car in the middle of a 35mph road.
- Streaming services were better than cable for about 3 years somewhere between 2013 and 2019. Now there's too many, they're too expensive, and they shuffle their libraries around too much.
I wanna watch key and peele. oops its not on the comedy central app? who owns comedy central....hmmm....paramount? okay its on paramount plus...and its just a link that takes me to Amazon video? why? just play the show what is this
This is something Matter was supposed to address at least for IoT stuff, but it's still not great.
Why does my TIVO think I want to record Swamp Loggers?
Anyone remember Lyle and Dexter Manning from the Machinima series "Sanity not Included?"
If you want a lightbulb that changes colors to be controlled by a phone or network accessible device, as opposed to some other sort of special RF remote, and you DONT want random other people to be able to control or possibly disable or damage your lights, then it kinda needs to have an account.
By all means, avoid iot stuff if it's not your thing, but then why are you looking at color changing lightbulbs? The ones that need special remotes are terrible gimmicks and the ones that get wired into a hardwired home automation system cost a fortune to set up and require a ton of installation.
My nephew says that about everything. Millennials seem to be totally okay with giving away personal stuff as long as it's by choice. Otherwise it's a hard fuckno.
