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Yeah, this entire article is pretty transparent that it's from the sender perspective, and worried about platforms taking over "sender control". Who is he kidd

Yeah, this entire article is pretty transparent that it's from the sender perspective, and worried about platforms taking over "sender control". Who is he kidding? The vast majority of apps have absolutely proven they can't be trusted to respect your attention. From my perspective, the more roadblocks the platforms put between unnecessary notifications and my phone, the better. And I don't think Apple or Google are some sort of heroes here, but I do believe their incentives better align with mine than the marketing department of some app I was forced to download because I bought a ticket once or something like that.

iamalizard 5mo ago
> From my perspective, the more roadblocks the platforms put between unnecessary notifications and my phone, the better. I know lots of apps behave badly when it comes to notifications but I'd still prefer if the apps controlled the level of notifications they sent. I could, of course, reduce that client-side, but I don't see why I'd want Google or Apple or any other intermediary see or control the notifications. If an app behaves inappropriately, I could uninstall it. If a gatekeeper like Google or Apple prevent an app from sending me notifications, I'd have to change my OS, usually my hardware, too.
- nickburns 5mo ago
  TFA discusses at-length how APNs and FCM are necessary intermediaries regardless, effectively creating a technical duopoly on 'push'. We all agree it would've been preferable for things not to have gotten this way, but here we are.
  - iamalizard 5mo ago
    Here we are, but let's think of ways to change it. I hope that even if some people start thinking differently, in terms of changing the status quo, we could reach a better future.
- Arainach 5mo ago
  This forces millions of users to individually monitor and fix dozens or hundreds of apps all the time - something most don't have time for and leads to an awful experience. Centralized controls are better for the user.
  - iamalizard 5mo ago
    Centralized controls are better if we assume the user is either technologically dumb (or uneducated, or naive, if you prefer other terms) or strapped for time. Current users might be just that. I agree. But those same users decided to download dozens of hundreds of apps. They use each app much more than it would take for them to go to the settings (if such good settings exist) and take care of what is allowed and what isn't. It's their responsibility. We've let users be treated as infants far too long. That leads to centralized decisions on behalf of these users, for their own good. Which leads to users being more and more negligent in their duty to govern their own digital selves. It's a vicious cycle. Can we break it just by changing the way users manage their notifications? Likely no, sadly. We need a complete overhaul of personal digital responsibility. We need to remove (almost?) all safeguards and nanny-state (nanny-corp?) treatments the users get. Let them get hacked, let them lose money, let their digital lives, money, identities completely go to shit. They will recover but they'll have learned a valuable lesson - the computer in their pockets is their own computer, the apps they install could be malicious, the consequences are not artificially removed. I think the users will learn after a a while. We don't install guards to prevent someone from poking into the outlets with a fork. We do it for small children. We don't put guardrails everywhere. If you're not careful where you go, you might fall or get hit by a car. Why is the digital realm so different? We've had computers for a while now, it's time to take responsibility for ourselves. Otherwise we'll always treat users as infants or sheep or retards or whatever you wanna call it. That means making our safety and security someone else's problem, but that also means letting go of any agency we have. Letting others control our lives. And our digital lives are becoming a bigger part of our lives as times goes on. I upvoted your comment, btw. You are right that now centralized solutions are better, but later that might change and we'll have no recourse. "We" as a people, not individuals.
    - 5mo ago
tambeb 5mo ago
Notification categories are like mailing lists now. You may have unsubscribed from the daily deals email but you're still going to be auto subscribed to every new slightly modified category in perpetuity. Unless you fully disable notifications for an app (in Android at least, in my experience), new enabled by default notification categories are added all the time.
- jmbwell 5mo ago
  There’s the other direction too. You only get a couple toggles, and something you actually need is behind both, so you can’t not get all notifications
  - tambeb 5mo ago
    Another sneaky behavior in Android is that categories that have yet to send a notification, which of course includes newly added auto-enabled channels, are collapsed under the 'show unused categories' button.
- leonidasv 5mo ago
  When they exist at all. Many apps that provide important notifications (like delivery tracking, drop-off time etc) put them under the same category as marketing stuff. You can't have just the transactional tracking, you have to opt-in for the marketing notifications as well.
  - abhinavk 5mo ago
    On iOS atleast, Live Activities are separate from Notifications. So I can still monitor food or grocery delivery even though I have turned off their notifications. Now a few apps have started sending notifications through WhatsApp because they have my phone number. e.g. Amazon
    - leonidasv 5mo ago
      Yeah, but I still see apps that don't implement those features. Mostly React Native/Flutter apps that don't bother implementing native features. On Android it's even more depressing.
0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
I recently had to setup Microsoft Authenticator. It refused to register a code unless I enabled notifications. You are a two factor app. I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify.
- _carbyau_ 5mo ago
  > I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify. Isn't that kind of the point? If someone else is trying to login somewhere with your credentials, your two factor will ping up?
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
    Why would I want that? If it is not me, I am not going to allow the login. Making it a notification makes it more likely I could fat finger an approval. I guess you can make the argument that you are then made aware of login attempts, but that feels more like something the host service should control.
    - _carbyau_ 5mo ago
      > Why would I want that? Because to get that far they entered your password? Which you might like to change? You did mention: "You are a two factor app." If they've got past your first factor, you might want to know.
      - dexterdog 5mo ago
        I would, but I don't need to know immediately. Plus you have the other vector of my phone sitting on a table and showing the notification to a person who can see it when they are trying to login as me.
        hunter2_ 5mo ago
        I find it to be a poor default that sensitive data is shown on the lock screen. I change that setting as a first order of business whenever I'm setting up a new phone.
graemep 5mo ago
> I do believe their incentives better align with mine than the marketing department of some app I was forced to download because I bought a ticket once or something like that. Align better for now. It will get enshittified. I try very hard to avoid installing apps specific to a particular business or organisation. So far I have only had to install a government app and some from banks. Even those are avoidable (but it would be very inconvenient to do so).
account42 5mo ago
This is all a consequence from running software that doesn't respect you and notification are just one of many symptoms. I'd rather choose better software than let Google/Apple decide what software running on my device is allowed to do.
- subscribed 5mo ago
  Usually you don't have any choice of the software if you need to use a particular product or service.
  - autoexec 5mo ago
    You can usually choose to "need" to use a particular product or service though. It's not always worth it, but there's a choice.
  - miki123211 5mo ago
    Yeah, the worst kind of software is the kind that interacts with the real world, particularly when chosen by clueless people at non-tech, real-world companies. Conferences are great examples. You do want to submit your paper and go to a conference. To do that, they need your email address(understandable). That email ends up on dozens of email lists run by people who are doing "outreach" or something of the sort.
- spwa4 5mo ago
  You mean it's a consequence of very large amounts of people refusing to pay for software, at essentially any other cost ... Of course you could describe almost all of the internet that way.
  - account42 5mo ago
    I don't pay for most of my software and yet it still respects me. Of course it also isn't made by large corporations with marketing and sales departments.
    - 5mo ago
int0x29 5mo ago
Worse it's from a marketing perspective if you read the guys bio.

iamalizard 5mo ago

> From my perspective, the more roadblocks the platforms put between unnecessary notifications and my phone, the better. I know lots of apps behave badly when it comes to notifications but I'd still prefer if the apps controlled the level of notifications they sent. I could, of course, reduce that client-side, but I don't see why I'd want Google or Apple or any other intermediary see or control the notifications. If an app behaves inappropriately, I could uninstall it. If a gatekeeper like Google or Apple prevent an app from sending me notifications, I'd have to change my OS, usually my hardware, too.

nickburns 5mo ago
TFA discusses at-length how APNs and FCM are necessary intermediaries regardless, effectively creating a technical duopoly on 'push'. We all agree it would've been preferable for things not to have gotten this way, but here we are.
- iamalizard 5mo ago
  Here we are, but let's think of ways to change it. I hope that even if some people start thinking differently, in terms of changing the status quo, we could reach a better future.
Arainach 5mo ago
This forces millions of users to individually monitor and fix dozens or hundreds of apps all the time - something most don't have time for and leads to an awful experience. Centralized controls are better for the user.
- iamalizard 5mo ago
  Centralized controls are better if we assume the user is either technologically dumb (or uneducated, or naive, if you prefer other terms) or strapped for time. Current users might be just that. I agree. But those same users decided to download dozens of hundreds of apps. They use each app much more than it would take for them to go to the settings (if such good settings exist) and take care of what is allowed and what isn't. It's their responsibility. We've let users be treated as infants far too long. That leads to centralized decisions on behalf of these users, for their own good. Which leads to users being more and more negligent in their duty to govern their own digital selves. It's a vicious cycle. Can we break it just by changing the way users manage their notifications? Likely no, sadly. We need a complete overhaul of personal digital responsibility. We need to remove (almost?) all safeguards and nanny-state (nanny-corp?) treatments the users get. Let them get hacked, let them lose money, let their digital lives, money, identities completely go to shit. They will recover but they'll have learned a valuable lesson - the computer in their pockets is their own computer, the apps they install could be malicious, the consequences are not artificially removed. I think the users will learn after a a while. We don't install guards to prevent someone from poking into the outlets with a fork. We do it for small children. We don't put guardrails everywhere. If you're not careful where you go, you might fall or get hit by a car. Why is the digital realm so different? We've had computers for a while now, it's time to take responsibility for ourselves. Otherwise we'll always treat users as infants or sheep or retards or whatever you wanna call it. That means making our safety and security someone else's problem, but that also means letting go of any agency we have. Letting others control our lives. And our digital lives are becoming a bigger part of our lives as times goes on. I upvoted your comment, btw. You are right that now centralized solutions are better, but later that might change and we'll have no recourse. "We" as a people, not individuals.
  - 5mo ago

tambeb 5mo ago

Notification categories are like mailing lists now. You may have unsubscribed from the daily deals email but you're still going to be auto subscribed to every new slightly modified category in perpetuity. Unless you fully disable notifications for an app (in Android at least, in my experience), new enabled by default notification categories are added all the time.

jmbwell 5mo ago
There’s the other direction too. You only get a couple toggles, and something you actually need is behind both, so you can’t not get all notifications
- tambeb 5mo ago
  Another sneaky behavior in Android is that categories that have yet to send a notification, which of course includes newly added auto-enabled channels, are collapsed under the 'show unused categories' button.
leonidasv 5mo ago
When they exist at all. Many apps that provide important notifications (like delivery tracking, drop-off time etc) put them under the same category as marketing stuff. You can't have just the transactional tracking, you have to opt-in for the marketing notifications as well.
- abhinavk 5mo ago
  On iOS atleast, Live Activities are separate from Notifications. So I can still monitor food or grocery delivery even though I have turned off their notifications. Now a few apps have started sending notifications through WhatsApp because they have my phone number. e.g. Amazon
  - leonidasv 5mo ago
    Yeah, but I still see apps that don't implement those features. Mostly React Native/Flutter apps that don't bother implementing native features. On Android it's even more depressing.

0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago

I recently had to setup Microsoft Authenticator. It refused to register a code unless I enabled notifications. You are a two factor app. I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify.

_carbyau_ 5mo ago
> I should never be in a situation where there is an unexpected login I need to verify. Isn't that kind of the point? If someone else is trying to login somewhere with your credentials, your two factor will ping up?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
  Why would I want that? If it is not me, I am not going to allow the login. Making it a notification makes it more likely I could fat finger an approval. I guess you can make the argument that you are then made aware of login attempts, but that feels more like something the host service should control.
  - _carbyau_ 5mo ago
    > Why would I want that? Because to get that far they entered your password? Which you might like to change? You did mention: "You are a two factor app." If they've got past your first factor, you might want to know.
    - dexterdog 5mo ago
      I would, but I don't need to know immediately. Plus you have the other vector of my phone sitting on a table and showing the notification to a person who can see it when they are trying to login as me.
      - hunter2_ 5mo ago
        I find it to be a poor default that sensitive data is shown on the lock screen. I change that setting as a first order of business whenever I'm setting up a new phone.

graemep 5mo ago

> I do believe their incentives better align with mine than the marketing department of some app I was forced to download because I bought a ticket once or something like that. Align better for now. It will get enshittified. I try very hard to avoid installing apps specific to a particular business or organisation. So far I have only had to install a government app and some from banks. Even those are avoidable (but it would be very inconvenient to do so).

account42 5mo ago

This is all a consequence from running software that doesn't respect you and notification are just one of many symptoms. I'd rather choose better software than let Google/Apple decide what software running on my device is allowed to do.

subscribed 5mo ago
Usually you don't have any choice of the software if you need to use a particular product or service.
- autoexec 5mo ago
  You can usually choose to "need" to use a particular product or service though. It's not always worth it, but there's a choice.
- miki123211 5mo ago
  Yeah, the worst kind of software is the kind that interacts with the real world, particularly when chosen by clueless people at non-tech, real-world companies. Conferences are great examples. You do want to submit your paper and go to a conference. To do that, they need your email address(understandable). That email ends up on dozens of email lists run by people who are doing "outreach" or something of the sort.
spwa4 5mo ago
You mean it's a consequence of very large amounts of people refusing to pay for software, at essentially any other cost ... Of course you could describe almost all of the internet that way.
- account42 5mo ago
  I don't pay for most of my software and yet it still respects me. Of course it also isn't made by large corporations with marketing and sales departments.
  - 5mo ago

int0x29 5mo ago

Worse it's from a marketing perspective if you read the guys bio.