6 ms·

The biggest problem are apps that do both. For example, I want Uber to notify me when my driver has arrived, but I don't want it to notify me when they have a s

by pants2 4mo ago

The biggest problem are apps that do both. For example, I want Uber to notify me when my driver has arrived, but I don't want it to notify me when they have a special 10% discount on my next 5 rides. It's not straightforward to block one but not the other.

liotier 4mo ago
The user legitimately considers the application as hostile - hence sandboxing... Notification spam filtering is now the obvious need at the sandbox's edge, with the whole customizable arsenal we have come to expect for our inbound mail. Of course, Google will not cooperate with anything likely to reduce sacro-sanct engagement !
- nixosbestos 4mo ago
  Except that they did. Android has notification channels. Now, I suppose we could argue that Google could be more ham-fisted about forcing apps to use them, but that's murky. In fact, Uber on Android does use these notification channels. I just have "All Promotions & Recommendation notifications" disabled, and then "Taking a ride" channel enabled.
  - MiddleEndian 4mo ago
    >Now, I suppose we could argue that Google could be more ham-fisted about forcing apps to use them, but that's murky. I disagree. What the is the point of forcing everyone to use the Google Play Store (or whatever app store on iOS) if the store doesn't stop spammers? People complain about Uber, but Lyft does the same shit. I got a promotional notification from Lyft and could not disable it without disabling the main notifications that tell me when drivers were arriving. If app stores were useful instead of just rent-seeking, they would kick Lyft off until they stopped doing that.
- pants2 4mo ago
  I definitely run all my emails through an LLM filter and wish I could do the same for push notifications!
Analemma_ 4mo ago
And the worst part is that Apple could fix this in a heartbeat. Uber is straightforwardly in violation of App Store policies about "no advertising in push notifications", but a) they're too big to fail and b) Apple advertises via push notifications all the fucking time, so they have no leg to stand on here. It's infuriating that the one thing the App Store monopoly could be useful for isn't even actually used in practice (if you're big enough, ofc, you and me get to eat shit if we try to evade App Store policy).
- pants2 4mo ago
  I would love if Apple enforced that rule, but they certainly don't
- mmoskal 4mo ago
  I believe the App Store policy is you have to have a setting to disable ads. And Uber actually has it (though it has 8 different channels or so, apparently "Uber teen accounts" marketing was added recently). I used the setting and am not getting Uber ads (only Uber ride notifications).
  - lathiat 4mo ago
    Currently my biggest problem isn't ads, it's all the apps now will find ANY excuse to send you a notification in order to keep their "Daily Active User" count high. You turn off more and more categories and they'll still find a reason.
- vhcr 4mo ago
  Instagram is the worst offender, I only want to receive message notifications, but I got notifications about inane random stuff I've tried to disable but it won't work. I ended up having to disable notifications altogether.
  - iamacyborg 4mo ago
    Instagram run their notifications via an auction mechanism (which I suppose makes sense for an advertising company that likely built a lot of RTB systems). https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04835 https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04835
ornornor 4mo ago
I don’t know about uber specifically but most of the apps I use have a separate toggle for things like marketing. Maybe it’s an EU thing?
- swatcoder 4mo ago
  The modern pattern in anywhere that allows it is to have dozens of ambiguously labeled toggles for nominally different notification channels, described only by a minimally brief and maximally ambiguous label. All begin as active until the user, in frustration, goes in and exhausts themselves disabling individual options without being sure which one is going to turn off the one single thing they actually want to be notified about. Then next month, you create a new notification channel for your new promotional messages because too many people opted out of the old channels. You default that new channel to opt in, to make sure the user gets their chance to experience it and share in the delight you mean to share with them. Presumably, you continue this until you have hundreds of such toggles and presumably some kind of dedicated Toggle Engineering Department that oversees them all. Nextdoor, Meta apps, LinkedIn, and countless others all appear to be competing for the most such toggles.
  - throwway120385 4mo ago
    After all we wouldn't want the user to miss out on our promotion of 10% off your next refrigerator. They bought a refrigerator from us just 6 months ago, after all!
  - mjmas 4mo ago
    Though Android does help a little for existing toggles by giving you an 'About 129 notifications per day' blurb below the entry.
    - hunter2_ 4mo ago
      It also puts a throbbing highlight (for a few seconds) on whichever channel is associated with the notification whose gear icon you used as a shortcut into the channel list. At least for Pixel phones.
showmypost 4mo ago
Most people aren’t aware but there are laws that require granular notification consent. For example the GDPR has it. I’m currently fighting with a major bank and educating them about my rights. I want to receive security related notifications but not get spammed by “get a loan up to 50k without lifting a finger” type of bulls*. Send send this almost every week..
lanerobertlane 4mo ago
If I order an Uber, I already know it is coming. I was the person who ordered it. This is how taxis worked for decades before smartphones existed. You phoned for a taxi, then remained vaguely aware that it would arrive shortly. The question is whether a single “it has arrived” notification is worth the surrounding noise: “driver accepted”, “driver is nearby”, “rate your driver”, “here’s 10% off your next ride”, and so on. In most cases, it is not. The useful information is either already obvious (you can see the car outside) or you have re-opened the app to check where they are. Operational and marketing notifications should never share the same permission. Until that is enforced at the OS level, I will treat them all as unnecessary spam.
- bossyTeacher 4mo ago
  The point of notifications is the convenience of not having to constantly check your phone for every single app you have (amazon delivery? just eats delivery? uber booking? claude finished its task?).
  - OtomotO 4mo ago
    And the inconvenience to constantly having to check your phone
  - Swizec 4mo ago
    > The point of notifications is the convenience of not having to constantly check your phone for every single app you have (amazon delivery? just eats delivery? uber booking? claude finished its task?). My phone has been on DoNoDisturb since 2010 or so. Here's the reality: I don't check for any of those things. Delivery drivers can ring the door bell. If I'm very hungry I'll keep the app open and check where they are. I literally do not care to be notified about any of the things that apps want to notify me off. Anyone who cares to reach me knows to ring the phone twice in case of emergency to get through DnD. Anyone else? The best time to call is text me. Or schedule a time. As for Claude, the point of clankers is that they work in the background. The robot can wait, their infinite patience is a feature.
    - 4mo ago
dijksterhuis 4mo ago
periodically open the app every few minutes or so. once the driver is 5 minutes away -- go outside and wait. it's a tradeoff. eliminating notification spam means behaving more synchronously when booking a taxi. i don't mind waiting outside for five minutes. especially if i'm not getting a random ping when i'm definitely not booking a taxi :shrugs:
- volemo 4mo ago
  I prefer temporarily toggling notifications on because I really don’t trust my internal metronome.
  - goykasi 4mo ago
    You could set a short timer on your phone. On an iphone, its two clicks away.
    - pseudalopex 4mo ago
      Enabling notifications is not difficult. And the driver could arrive before or after the initial estimate.
unglaublich 4mo ago
No one willingly says "yes" to advertisements, but people will say "yes" to important-updates(-and-advertisements).
- nathanmills 4mo ago
  Then why is it whenever I watch someone use their computer they always accept cookies?
  - cassianoleal 4mo ago
    1. accepting cookies is not the same as opting-in to advertisement 2. because most of the time, any other option is bloody inconvenient
  - crote 4mo ago
    Because companies are trying really hard to hide the "no" button: it's a single click to say "yes to all", but a safari through dialogues to say "no to all" Same with websites like Youtube who don't understand a plain "no" but offer a fake choice between "yes, harvest all my data" and "ask me again later". That isn't consent, it's coercion.
  - al_borland 4mo ago
    They are choosing the lowest friction option.
  - matheusmoreira 4mo ago
    Because people don't actually read what they are clicking on or even understand what they're doing. They just want to make the annoying banner go away. Same reason why people mash the next button when installing software.
- iamacyborg 4mo ago
  Hundreds of thousands of people declaratively opt into receiving marketing with informed consent on a daily basis. Just because you don’t does not mean other people are like you.
ASalazarMX 4mo ago
Some banks also do this, and offer no way to segregate marketing from utilitarian push notifications. This is borderline abuse of trust IMO.
- rkagerer 4mo ago
  It's not borderline, it's absolutely crossed the line.
losvedir 4mo ago
Tell me use iOS without telling me you do. Android has separate notification channel toggles, so I've turned off the marketing ones. I was shocked and aghast when I spent a year trying to use an iPhone that it didn't do this. Part of the reason I went back to my trusty Pixels.
- TingPing 4mo ago
  While iOS doesn’t do this at the OS level I’ve never seen an app that didn’t have these options. I assumed it’s required by Apple.
  - greyface- 4mo ago
    Lots of iOS apps have the option, but ignore it and send you push ads anyway. Apple may require it to be present during app review, but they don't seem to enforce that it's used correctly.
    - bigiain 4mo ago
      Does Google actively police app's use of channels? Is there any mechanism to stop apps abusing "time critical" channels and sending unwanted marketing?
  - crote 4mo ago
    Most apps are cross-platform. If you're already required to do it on Android, going out of your way to avoid it on iOS doesn't make a lot of sense.
    - Arainach 4mo ago
      It absolutely makes sense (in a capitalist sense). Then you get more money/engagement/whatever on all of the other platforms. It's the same reason Microsoft built functionality to let users in Europe have links open in their default browser instead of Edge but blocked that feature for the rest of the world.
  - 4mo ago
pcl 4mo ago
For me, it's quite straightforward. If an app makes an unsolicited spammy push, it's notifications-off. No exceptions.
- dylan604 4mo ago
  Snapchat has to be the all time worst offender to me about abusive level of notifications. Luckily, you can turn them off, but holy cow batman, that's a lot of notification options to deal with.
  - iamacyborg 4mo ago
    Remember when Android used to let notification senders hijack turning your screen on, Snapchat used that one a lot.
    - maest 4mo ago
      That's "growth hacking" for you
  - al_borland 4mo ago
    For me the worst is NextDoor. I don’t have the app installed, but they also have email notifications. There are seemingly 100 options and I turned them all off when I first made the account. Periodically they add new ones and auto-enable them for everyone. There is not universal way to shut them off, short of blocking them all together or deleting my account. The account was such a pain to setup that I’m hesitant to delete it, for the 1 time every couple years where it’s useful.
    - slater 4mo ago
      Even worse with ND e-mails are how they've absolutely perfected the cut-off character limit for what's being posted in your area. So my inbox is just perma-barraged with click-bait-y "This place on Smith Street has the best...", "Health officials are investigating an outbreak of...", etc.
nurumaik 4mo ago
Apple should add "promotional notifications" section to iOS, then ban everyone who don't put their marketing bs into that category
- LtWorf 4mo ago
  Apple isn't your friend though. edit: downvote all you want. Fact remains that there is no way currently to block advertisement notifications and no disincentives for those who use them.
  - sroussey 4mo ago
    Send everything to the iOS notification summary which you then don’t look at. Uber and others can send time sensitive notifications and those don’t go in the summary. It’s basically a junk notification folder. Works well.
- havaloc 4mo ago
  Yes! iOS 27 needs to categorize notifications using AI. Apps aren't supposed to advertise to you, but some don't allow for that distinction. I want notifications on for when my sandwich is arriving, but I don't want push notifications for a promotion. Some apps are good about this, others don't allow that granularity. I hate the all or nothing. On the flipside, I have an app that sends notifications. We don't abuse it or use it for promotions, and APNS and Google's version works perfectly fine for us.
- closetohome 4mo ago
  There was actually an app store rule for the first couple of years after notifications became available, basically saying don't use it for promotions. A few apps actually got pulled for sending spammy notifications. But then everyone started doing it and Apple stopped enforcing the rule. It may still be in there somewhere as a "guideline."
verelo 4mo ago
Yep exactly this. The app developers are the problem, but Apple and Google are not helping here.
apothegm 4mo ago
This. So much this.
array_key_first 4mo ago
On Android with notification categories it is, but iOS doesn't have that. Also, I think it's mostly a trust system. But Uber in particular does actually do it right, and you can just turn off promotional notifications.
edoceo 4mo ago
WellsFargo does that. Important notification and advert-BS on the same channel. If you block their notifications you don't get the near-real-time Zelle alert. Enabled you get what you want and also YOU MIGHT BE PRE-APPROVED!
ivanjermakov 4mo ago
It's a failure of iOS architecture to not force applications to tag each notification with labels. App developers have to build notification management themselves for fine grained control. Android has notification channels, but I'm not sure how widely it's used: https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/compose/notifications/channels https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/compose/notificatio...
- pjmlp 4mo ago
  This is the kind of thing where we actually would like to have store policy enforce correct use of APIs.

by pants2 4mo ago

liotier 4mo ago

The user legitimately considers the application as hostile - hence sandboxing... Notification spam filtering is now the obvious need at the sandbox's edge, with the whole customizable arsenal we have come to expect for our inbound mail. Of course, Google will not cooperate with anything likely to reduce sacro-sanct engagement !

nixosbestos 4mo ago
Except that they did. Android has notification channels. Now, I suppose we could argue that Google could be more ham-fisted about forcing apps to use them, but that's murky. In fact, Uber on Android does use these notification channels. I just have "All Promotions & Recommendation notifications" disabled, and then "Taking a ride" channel enabled.
- MiddleEndian 4mo ago
  >Now, I suppose we could argue that Google could be more ham-fisted about forcing apps to use them, but that's murky. I disagree. What the is the point of forcing everyone to use the Google Play Store (or whatever app store on iOS) if the store doesn't stop spammers? People complain about Uber, but Lyft does the same shit. I got a promotional notification from Lyft and could not disable it without disabling the main notifications that tell me when drivers were arriving. If app stores were useful instead of just rent-seeking, they would kick Lyft off until they stopped doing that.
pants2 4mo ago
I definitely run all my emails through an LLM filter and wish I could do the same for push notifications!

Analemma_ 4mo ago

And the worst part is that Apple could fix this in a heartbeat. Uber is straightforwardly in violation of App Store policies about "no advertising in push notifications", but a) they're too big to fail and b) Apple advertises via push notifications all the fucking time, so they have no leg to stand on here. It's infuriating that the one thing the App Store monopoly could be useful for isn't even actually used in practice (if you're big enough, ofc, you and me get to eat shit if we try to evade App Store policy).

pants2 4mo ago
I would love if Apple enforced that rule, but they certainly don't
mmoskal 4mo ago
I believe the App Store policy is you have to have a setting to disable ads. And Uber actually has it (though it has 8 different channels or so, apparently "Uber teen accounts" marketing was added recently). I used the setting and am not getting Uber ads (only Uber ride notifications).
- lathiat 4mo ago
  Currently my biggest problem isn't ads, it's all the apps now will find ANY excuse to send you a notification in order to keep their "Daily Active User" count high. You turn off more and more categories and they'll still find a reason.
vhcr 4mo ago
Instagram is the worst offender, I only want to receive message notifications, but I got notifications about inane random stuff I've tried to disable but it won't work. I ended up having to disable notifications altogether.
- iamacyborg 4mo ago
  Instagram run their notifications via an auction mechanism (which I suppose makes sense for an advertising company that likely built a lot of RTB systems). https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04835 https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04835

ornornor 4mo ago

I don’t know about uber specifically but most of the apps I use have a separate toggle for things like marketing. Maybe it’s an EU thing?

swatcoder 4mo ago
The modern pattern in anywhere that allows it is to have dozens of ambiguously labeled toggles for nominally different notification channels, described only by a minimally brief and maximally ambiguous label. All begin as active until the user, in frustration, goes in and exhausts themselves disabling individual options without being sure which one is going to turn off the one single thing they actually want to be notified about. Then next month, you create a new notification channel for your new promotional messages because too many people opted out of the old channels. You default that new channel to opt in, to make sure the user gets their chance to experience it and share in the delight you mean to share with them. Presumably, you continue this until you have hundreds of such toggles and presumably some kind of dedicated Toggle Engineering Department that oversees them all. Nextdoor, Meta apps, LinkedIn, and countless others all appear to be competing for the most such toggles.
- throwway120385 4mo ago
  After all we wouldn't want the user to miss out on our promotion of 10% off your next refrigerator. They bought a refrigerator from us just 6 months ago, after all!
- mjmas 4mo ago
  Though Android does help a little for existing toggles by giving you an 'About 129 notifications per day' blurb below the entry.
  - hunter2_ 4mo ago
    It also puts a throbbing highlight (for a few seconds) on whichever channel is associated with the notification whose gear icon you used as a shortcut into the channel list. At least for Pixel phones.

showmypost 4mo ago

Most people aren’t aware but there are laws that require granular notification consent. For example the GDPR has it. I’m currently fighting with a major bank and educating them about my rights. I want to receive security related notifications but not get spammed by “get a loan up to 50k without lifting a finger” type of bulls*. Send send this almost every week..

lanerobertlane 4mo ago

If I order an Uber, I already know it is coming. I was the person who ordered it. This is how taxis worked for decades before smartphones existed. You phoned for a taxi, then remained vaguely aware that it would arrive shortly. The question is whether a single “it has arrived” notification is worth the surrounding noise: “driver accepted”, “driver is nearby”, “rate your driver”, “here’s 10% off your next ride”, and so on. In most cases, it is not. The useful information is either already obvious (you can see the car outside) or you have re-opened the app to check where they are. Operational and marketing notifications should never share the same permission. Until that is enforced at the OS level, I will treat them all as unnecessary spam.

bossyTeacher 4mo ago
The point of notifications is the convenience of not having to constantly check your phone for every single app you have (amazon delivery? just eats delivery? uber booking? claude finished its task?).
- OtomotO 4mo ago
  And the inconvenience to constantly having to check your phone
- Swizec 4mo ago
  > The point of notifications is the convenience of not having to constantly check your phone for every single app you have (amazon delivery? just eats delivery? uber booking? claude finished its task?). My phone has been on DoNoDisturb since 2010 or so. Here's the reality: I don't check for any of those things. Delivery drivers can ring the door bell. If I'm very hungry I'll keep the app open and check where they are. I literally do not care to be notified about any of the things that apps want to notify me off. Anyone who cares to reach me knows to ring the phone twice in case of emergency to get through DnD. Anyone else? The best time to call is text me. Or schedule a time. As for Claude, the point of clankers is that they work in the background. The robot can wait, their infinite patience is a feature.
  - 4mo ago

dijksterhuis 4mo ago

periodically open the app every few minutes or so. once the driver is 5 minutes away -- go outside and wait. it's a tradeoff. eliminating notification spam means behaving more synchronously when booking a taxi. i don't mind waiting outside for five minutes. especially if i'm not getting a random ping when i'm definitely not booking a taxi :shrugs:

volemo 4mo ago
I prefer temporarily toggling notifications on because I really don’t trust my internal metronome.
- goykasi 4mo ago
  You could set a short timer on your phone. On an iphone, its two clicks away.
  - pseudalopex 4mo ago
    Enabling notifications is not difficult. And the driver could arrive before or after the initial estimate.

unglaublich 4mo ago

No one willingly says "yes" to advertisements, but people will say "yes" to important-updates(-and-advertisements).

nathanmills 4mo ago
Then why is it whenever I watch someone use their computer they always accept cookies?
- cassianoleal 4mo ago
  1. accepting cookies is not the same as opting-in to advertisement 2. because most of the time, any other option is bloody inconvenient
- crote 4mo ago
  Because companies are trying really hard to hide the "no" button: it's a single click to say "yes to all", but a safari through dialogues to say "no to all" Same with websites like Youtube who don't understand a plain "no" but offer a fake choice between "yes, harvest all my data" and "ask me again later". That isn't consent, it's coercion.
- al_borland 4mo ago
  They are choosing the lowest friction option.
- matheusmoreira 4mo ago
  Because people don't actually read what they are clicking on or even understand what they're doing. They just want to make the annoying banner go away. Same reason why people mash the next button when installing software.
iamacyborg 4mo ago
Hundreds of thousands of people declaratively opt into receiving marketing with informed consent on a daily basis. Just because you don’t does not mean other people are like you.

ASalazarMX 4mo ago

Some banks also do this, and offer no way to segregate marketing from utilitarian push notifications. This is borderline abuse of trust IMO.

rkagerer 4mo ago
It's not borderline, it's absolutely crossed the line.

losvedir 4mo ago

Tell me use iOS without telling me you do. Android has separate notification channel toggles, so I've turned off the marketing ones. I was shocked and aghast when I spent a year trying to use an iPhone that it didn't do this. Part of the reason I went back to my trusty Pixels.

TingPing 4mo ago
While iOS doesn’t do this at the OS level I’ve never seen an app that didn’t have these options. I assumed it’s required by Apple.
- greyface- 4mo ago
  Lots of iOS apps have the option, but ignore it and send you push ads anyway. Apple may require it to be present during app review, but they don't seem to enforce that it's used correctly.
  - bigiain 4mo ago
    Does Google actively police app's use of channels? Is there any mechanism to stop apps abusing "time critical" channels and sending unwanted marketing?
- crote 4mo ago
  Most apps are cross-platform. If you're already required to do it on Android, going out of your way to avoid it on iOS doesn't make a lot of sense.
  - Arainach 4mo ago
    It absolutely makes sense (in a capitalist sense). Then you get more money/engagement/whatever on all of the other platforms. It's the same reason Microsoft built functionality to let users in Europe have links open in their default browser instead of Edge but blocked that feature for the rest of the world.
- 4mo ago

pcl 4mo ago

For me, it's quite straightforward. If an app makes an unsolicited spammy push, it's notifications-off. No exceptions.

dylan604 4mo ago
Snapchat has to be the all time worst offender to me about abusive level of notifications. Luckily, you can turn them off, but holy cow batman, that's a lot of notification options to deal with.
- iamacyborg 4mo ago
  Remember when Android used to let notification senders hijack turning your screen on, Snapchat used that one a lot.
  - maest 4mo ago
    That's "growth hacking" for you
- al_borland 4mo ago
  For me the worst is NextDoor. I don’t have the app installed, but they also have email notifications. There are seemingly 100 options and I turned them all off when I first made the account. Periodically they add new ones and auto-enable them for everyone. There is not universal way to shut them off, short of blocking them all together or deleting my account. The account was such a pain to setup that I’m hesitant to delete it, for the 1 time every couple years where it’s useful.
  - slater 4mo ago
    Even worse with ND e-mails are how they've absolutely perfected the cut-off character limit for what's being posted in your area. So my inbox is just perma-barraged with click-bait-y "This place on Smith Street has the best...", "Health officials are investigating an outbreak of...", etc.

nurumaik 4mo ago

Apple should add "promotional notifications" section to iOS, then ban everyone who don't put their marketing bs into that category

LtWorf 4mo ago
Apple isn't your friend though. edit: downvote all you want. Fact remains that there is no way currently to block advertisement notifications and no disincentives for those who use them.
- sroussey 4mo ago
  Send everything to the iOS notification summary which you then don’t look at. Uber and others can send time sensitive notifications and those don’t go in the summary. It’s basically a junk notification folder. Works well.
havaloc 4mo ago
Yes! iOS 27 needs to categorize notifications using AI. Apps aren't supposed to advertise to you, but some don't allow for that distinction. I want notifications on for when my sandwich is arriving, but I don't want push notifications for a promotion. Some apps are good about this, others don't allow that granularity. I hate the all or nothing. On the flipside, I have an app that sends notifications. We don't abuse it or use it for promotions, and APNS and Google's version works perfectly fine for us.
closetohome 4mo ago
There was actually an app store rule for the first couple of years after notifications became available, basically saying don't use it for promotions. A few apps actually got pulled for sending spammy notifications. But then everyone started doing it and Apple stopped enforcing the rule. It may still be in there somewhere as a "guideline."

verelo 4mo ago

Yep exactly this. The app developers are the problem, but Apple and Google are not helping here.

apothegm 4mo ago

This. So much this.

array_key_first 4mo ago

On Android with notification categories it is, but iOS doesn't have that. Also, I think it's mostly a trust system. But Uber in particular does actually do it right, and you can just turn off promotional notifications.

edoceo 4mo ago

WellsFargo does that. Important notification and advert-BS on the same channel. If you block their notifications you don't get the near-real-time Zelle alert. Enabled you get what you want and also YOU MIGHT BE PRE-APPROVED!

ivanjermakov 4mo ago

It's a failure of iOS architecture to not force applications to tag each notification with labels. App developers have to build notification management themselves for fine grained control. Android has notification channels, but I'm not sure how widely it's used: https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/compose/notifications/channels https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/compose/notificatio...

pjmlp 4mo ago
This is the kind of thing where we actually would like to have store policy enforce correct use of APIs.