- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
The company confirmed to me that it is moving in a direction that other platforms have taken: converting users to the app. Reddit says that the test aims to find out if people like me—those who use the service but aren’t generally logged in—get a better experience with the app.
If you’re a tech writer and you believe this maybe you should get into a different line of work.
Bait and switch is wrong no matter who does it, even if the service was free to begin with.
In fairness to the writer the next paragraph follows up with “perhaps, or perhaps the better option is to just walk away and do something more productive with my time.” Basically your sentiment.
I don’t mean to speak for @teft@piefed.social , but I don’t think that was necessarily his sentiment at all. The correct solution to corporations engaging in bait-and-switch or other morally-incorrect behavior is for government regulators to force the behavior to stop and punish the corporations, not just for customers to walk away.
Corporations are not “people” and do not have any inherent right to exist. They were created as a concept in order to benefit society as a whole – not just shareholders! – and should be made to do so again.
Uh, hello, that was rhetorical and you read it literally. It’s really obvious that the writer is building an argument against reddit in this phrasing.
RTFA
A majority of US Americans have a reading level where understanding this sort of rhetorical structure is difficult for them. This is the result of an underfunded and emotionally abusive educational system and deliberate social engineering outside that.
teft made a mistake, yes, but they have probably had enough disgust and apathy about their intellectual development to last a lifetime. Thank you for taking the time to explain it, but I don’t think you’re helping anyone by “talking to them like they’re an idiot” (which is a horrible phrase, come to think of it).
You wouldn’t blame someone for being unable to walk up three flights of stairs (I hope), so why blame someone for misreading a rhetorical device?
Ars is good source for pointing out just how shitty the tech world has gotten. They definitely have a bunch of writers who love lapping up the slop they’re fed like little piggies.
Where does all their assets come from anyways? The users. Who do it for free. The users should boycott.
With the direction privacy has been going in some states(US) and countries, I’m waiting for just the blanket regulation of user-specific content is owned by the user and the company that uses it has a license to use it.
As such the user has full rights to delete all data at any time I firmly believe the US will probably be the last country to adopt it, but I do think eventually we will hit that point.
Seriously.
“Maybe I should use it just because they want me to. So i will.”
My question is what do they gain from it? And since i can’t answer the question aside from to steal my data I’m very reluctant to use apps and prefer using the browser.
Same. Apps are mostly just data trackers now. I’m the same way, much prefer a website than an app. (Including lemmy)
All free services eventually evolve into this or they die. Nothing gold can stay.
All for-profit services eventually evolve into that. Ones run by non-profit foundations and funded by donations can continue to exist without enshittifying indefinitely.