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> But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone It doesn’t have to be that way. Why is my bank’s website close to utterly unusable in a mobile browser

by gyomu 1y ago

> But modern society depends on using Apps on Smartphone It doesn’t have to be that way. Why is my bank’s website close to utterly unusable in a mobile browser (crazy timeouts, popups everywhere, etc) but their app is super smooth? You can argue about the root cause of the issue, but it’s fundamentally not a technology problem.

EarlKing 1y ago
Better question: Why do I need to use my bank's special snowflake website, or their special snowflake app, when both do the exact same thing that I was doing via a text terminal dialing into Bank of America's HOMEBANKSF service on Tymnet? Why do I have to use their decommoditized solution when there could be a standard solution for banking activities? Yeah, we both know the answer is lock-in... but maybe that's a sign that the gnomes and gnome-adjacent need to be tard-wrangled for the good of society?
- cloverich 1y ago
  I think less lock in than marketing opportunity / ads.
  - EarlKing 1y ago
    ....a little of column A, a little of column B, really.
- mbirth 1y ago
  This, I remember a time where each and every bank in Germany supported HBCI - the Home Banking Computer Interface. Later renamed to FinTS. There were several generic apps that allowed you to add any of your banks and pull transactions, setup transfers, and all other basic things you can do with a bank account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS Then, banks discovered that they can lock their customers in an own app where they don’t hear about other banks. And also, where their developers don’t need to read and understand (and implement) the HBCI/FinTS standard.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
Why not just use open, text-based "Web APIs" for internet-based transactions. Whether the client is "smartphone app" or "mobile browser" should not make any difference. Anything that can send and recieve HTTP should work. It is the computer owner's choice. For example, some might write their own software, while others might prefer to use a "smartphone app" or a "mobile browser", disributed by a so-called "tech" company that operates telemetry, collects data, performs surveillance and targets internet users with ads.

by gyomu 1y ago

EarlKing 1y ago

Better question: Why do I need to use my bank's special snowflake website, or their special snowflake app, when both do the exact same thing that I was doing via a text terminal dialing into Bank of America's HOMEBANKSF service on Tymnet? Why do I have to use their decommoditized solution when there could be a standard solution for banking activities? Yeah, we both know the answer is lock-in... but maybe that's a sign that the gnomes and gnome-adjacent need to be tard-wrangled for the good of society?

cloverich 1y ago
I think less lock in than marketing opportunity / ads.
- EarlKing 1y ago
  ....a little of column A, a little of column B, really.
mbirth 1y ago
This, I remember a time where each and every bank in Germany supported HBCI - the Home Banking Computer Interface. Later renamed to FinTS. There were several generic apps that allowed you to add any of your banks and pull transactions, setup transfers, and all other basic things you can do with a bank account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS Then, banks discovered that they can lock their customers in an own app where they don’t hear about other banks. And also, where their developers don’t need to read and understand (and implement) the HBCI/FinTS standard.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

Why not just use open, text-based "Web APIs" for internet-based transactions. Whether the client is "smartphone app" or "mobile browser" should not make any difference. Anything that can send and recieve HTTP should work. It is the computer owner's choice. For example, some might write their own software, while others might prefer to use a "smartphone app" or a "mobile browser", disributed by a so-called "tech" company that operates telemetry, collects data, performs surveillance and targets internet users with ads.