Not all of us have cell plans with hotspots ($$$), hotspots often have data caps, cell is often slower or congested, and there are some areas without cell signal. It's also kind of silly from a wider perspective to shove everyone onto the cellular network when most businesses have perfectly decent fiber internet nowadays.
Sure, I'm usually on hotspot, but I personally appreciate when businesses have wifi. Either way, there are always going to be shared networks somewhere.
What we should actually be doing is WiFi using SIM cards as authentication.
Have it count against your data cap (but make it much cheaper than cellular data). Pay part of that revenue to hotspot-owning businesses. If something bad happens, use the logs that telecoms are already required to keep.
It's very strange to me that we don't have something like this already.
How about we don't? We really don't need to tie even more things to SIM cards and phone numbers.
Criminals have more than enough ways to still get anonymous SIM cards (at least until every country on the planet makes KYC mandatory for prepaid SIMs), and legitimate users are greatly inconvenienced by this.
> Pay part of that revenue to hotspot-owning businesses.
To subsidize a network connection they probably already need for their business operations, e.g. their payment terminal or POS? Why should I? The marginal cost of an incremental byte on wired Internet connections is basically zero, these days. It's literally too cheap to meter, so why bother?
Besides the centralization and tracking concerns, not nearly every device has a SIM card. Why does my Laptop not deserve to access a coffee shop Wi-Fi, my Kindle to use an in-flight conenction, or my smartwatch to use the gym's network for podcasts?
It's very strange to me that people keep trying to willingly ruin the open Internet.
I'm not sure how you're getting that from their post? None of the four things mentioned (book publishing, web publishing, open-source software, computer hardware) involve stealing someone's property, he's saying that the ability to produce those things widened and the cost went down massively, so more people were able to gain access to them. Nobody stole your bike, but the bike patents expired and a bunch of bike factories popped up, so now everyone can get a cheap bike.
I did have misgivings about saying that because I'm from the old "information wants to be free" school. But the subject was idiocy, and the point isn't to say that the bike was stolen, but that the bike-taker didn't do anything clever, or have much of a learning experience.
Maybe it's of value that any idiot can do this, but we're still idiots.
Can you clarify what you mean by dirty? Or why that would be any more dirty than anything else in public? European buses frequently have stop buttons, not sure how those would be any cleaner than a plastic covered cord.
Also not sure what is old-fashioned about a pull cord compared to a bunch of buttons. Just a different way of activating an electrical circuit.
You need to clarify what you mean by "here" and what part of the US you are talking about. The US and Europe are big places and the transit systems are as different inter as they are intra.
The Paris Metro is an absolute run-down antique compared to the trains in Seattle. It would be silly for me to declare that all European metro systems are therefore run down and tatty. If I compare the Barcelona metro to New York, it makes Europe look great. Meanwhile the London Tube is cramped, frequently dilapidated and has its own species of mosquito.
It's usually buttons in Europe. The cord things always make me think of train emergency stop cords (though these days those are usually "break glass" buttons).
I know banking apps are the typical example, but I've always wondered why. I use my bank's app maybe once or twice a year when I need to Zelle someone, which I only need to do when they don't have Venmo. (Unless we consider Venmo a banking app.)
I only have one bank's app installed, the rest of my banks I only interact with over their website, on desktop.
As for insurance, I've never had an insurance company's app installed.
Am I just an outlier here? Honestly, if I switched to a non standard OS, I'd be more annoyed about losing, say, Google Maps, Uber/Lyft, or various chat apps. Banking and insurance just don't come to mind at all as something I need my phone for.
I can get alerts in email or messages, no need dedicated app for that, I can track there also my balance, so only useful thing app provides are easy wire transfers from phone, which I never do, if I wanna transfer money is much more convenient work big display, proper keyboard and mouse than from phone.
We've cultivated a tech culture that can't stand the slightest inconvenience. People will give up nearly everything if it means avoiding the least bit of effort.
If 80% of adults worldwide somehow became unable to tolerate the slightest inconvenience, then yes, I'd say they would be morons, but I doubt they are. I'm unsure where you're getting the 80% statistic from.
Yes, because “bigstrat2003” said so. I work for a 1000+ consulting company and no one uses email for internal communications. Even for company wide messages leadership uses Slack.
Heck even when we first start a project we either federate (or whatever you call it) the client’s Slack workgroup with ours or we ask to be on their Teams channel.
Before working where I worked now, I worked for the 2nd largest employer in the US, even there most communication happened over Chime or Slack.
On a personal level you actually email personal contacts - in 2026?
I email my dad documents and photos I need printed (and he uses his work office's laser printer). I forward the billing statement I receive monthly from my family's ISP to my mom via email. And I'm "Gen Z"
And I’m 51 and far from a Luddite. I’ve moved with every technology transition since learning how to program in AppleSoft BASIC and 65C02 assembly. My 83 year old mother is less of Luddite some people commenting here.
She is a retired high school math teacher - been retired for 30 years - and she has used every popular word processor/suite from the original AppleWorks for the Apple //e and she was tutoring friends kids and helping them use GSuite and PowerPoint until 5 years ago.
She uses her phone for everything and she has up to date computers a couple of printers on her network and two ISPs just in case one goes out. She kept the legacy DSL account that’s not available to new subscribers and she has cable internet.
No, it's cool tho, worry about being "hip" and enjoy the authoritarian surveillance state that you are enabling because you've been indoctrinated to want "new thing" and to reject "old thing".
I use email corner with push, so I have emails instantly with notification to my smart watch, all my clients send me tasks through email
yes, especially the 4th point, the entering all the recipient's banking details on real keyboard is much more convenient than switching the windows and checking some microscopic numbers in PDF document on smartphone same copypasting them one by one between different fields (and yes, there are many companies which still don't provide QR code in their invoice)
The overwhelming majority of the population of the developed world now considers the mobile phone as their primary (and often only) computing device. It's always with them, it's more accessible and intuitive than a laptop, and it's how they communicate with everyone. It doesn't matter if you prefer to do this or that on a "real" computer - most people would just do everything through the phone if they could.
It's surprising how we still see posts like these in 2026 on what should be a "future-friendly" forum.
You're definitely not alone. I just checked the list of installed apps on my phone and found three different banking apps that I completely forgot about because I never use them. I installed them because I thought it would be convenient for checking things on the go, but I actually just end up using the computer whenever I need to do real banking business. The only finance-related app I use with any regularity is Venmo for e.g. paying back a friend for covering dinner.
Another commenter mentioned needing to get alerts for fraud, but none of the financial institutions i'm currently doing business with have any trouble sending me text messages. In fact I have the opposite problem, I can't get them to stop using text for 2FA codes...
It is in the specific case that you don't have biometric or PIN login set up on the device and you use a password manager that doesn't require authentication. In that case, the only factor is "something you have". Otherwise, it is still a multi-factor authentication because the device itself still represents "something you have", and your device unlock represents "something you know" or "something you are".
The "app" is probably a web page written in JS. Rarely its a native app in either Kotlin or Swift but then you have to maintain 2 different apps in 2 different languages with 2 different OSes for the devs. So unless the app really specifically requires something special, its just a web page. Even (and especially) your banking app.
I would stop using bank requiring phone app to do banking, simple as that, both my main EU accounts use sms verification codes and extra password, which is fine with me. If they will require an app, they will lose customer.
I haven't had issues with the mobile apps of 3 of the most major US brokerages. They run fine on rooted phone. They do everything I'd want a bank to do anyway.
Ditch your bank if they have issues. If their retention department asks why you're leaving, tell them their app doesn't work.
This is what I was thinking as well, TBH. I'm not particularly tied to any of my banks, I already did mostly switch off of BoA because their website was so bad.
Good to hear everyone's responses in the thread though, some stuff I definitely didn't consider.
No. The "banking app doesn't work" argument against non-corporate mobile OS, raised incessantly is HN comments, is bogus
I want a "phone", i.e., small form factor computer, that can run something like NetBSD, or Linux. But I have no intention of using it for commercial transactions. Mobile banking is not why I want to run a non-corporate OS
I want to use it for recreation, research and experimentation
NB. I have more than one "phone". The choice is not corporate mobile OS versus non-corporate mobile OS, i.e., "either-or". I can use both, each for specific purposes
> I want a "phone", i.e., small form factor computer, that can run something like NetBSD, or Linux. But I have no intention of using it for commercial transactions. Mobile banking is not why I want to run a non-corporate OS
> I want to use it for recreation, research and experimentation
I am a firm believer that phones are personal computers and should have all the end user freedom we have come to expect from personal computers. I am totally behind what your saying. (The amount of irrational anger that wells up in me when I hear someone make the argument that phones are somehow not general purpose personal computers and shouldn't provider their owners software freedom would astound you.)
Personally, I opt out of services that require the use of phone "apps" and any potential attestation they provide. Unfortunately, I just offload those needs onto my wife and her iPhone.
Want to go to a concert in a TicketMaster venue? You have to have a phone. Pay to park in some places requires a phone. Mobile ordering for some restaurants requires a phone.
I don't think it should be this way, but it is. I think we need consumer regulation to insure software freedom on phones and curtail awful user hostile "features" like remote attestation.
Until that happens (if it ever does) there is a realpolitik with needing corporate phones for some activities that can't be denied.
"There are venues that provide tickets exclusively via mobile applications, for instance."
Turns out Ticketmaster still has ticket printing machines at such venues
Was at a game at one of them, claimed I had a problem with the app and after some negotiation at the ticket window a millennial printed me a ticket
Why do they still have the printers
The "I'm having a problem with the app" strategy can work in other contexts too. The phone can be configured so that a young person trying to help gives up
"Modern" software is highly fallible and everyone knows it
When people have problems using apps, alternatives are often available
Perhaps this is why, e.g., venues that "require" apps still have ticket printing machines and still print tickets when there are problems with using the apps
The situation is not so "cut and dried" that no one ever attends an event at these venues using printed tickets instead of displaying the ticket on the phones they bring to the event
There are alternatives to apps that are sometimes used, e.g., when customers have problems, even when businesses try to "require" apps
As such, businesses do not always succeed in collecting the same amount of data from every customer
This is not to say customers who try to avoid unnecessary data collection always succeed, either
Generally, trying is a prequisite to succeeding
If most customers do not try it does not mean no customer succeeds. There are some who do, at least some of the time
Ticketmaster is it's own particular problem that needs to be dealt with, even if it is emblematic of a bigger issue with companies demanding users to run proprietary software.
I have recent (October and November, 2025-- venues in Indianapolis, IN and Cincinnati, OH) personal experience with this. With one venue I was able to play the "confused old man" card (via phone) and get the box office to print my tickets and hold them at will call.
At another venue I called prior to my show and tried the same tactic. They told me flat out "no phone, no admittance, tough luck for you" and cited the warnings and terms on the Ticketmaster website that I'd already agreed-to. I didn't want to chance losing out on $300 of tickets I bought so I knuckled under and loaded the Ticketmaster app on my wife's iPhone.
I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as you say it is, and I don't have the stomach to risk being denied access to events I bought tickets for-- particularly at the pricing levels of today's shows.
Well fuck those venues. It's a small percentage. I've never run into one and I live in LA, a city with hundreds if not thousands of venues.
So you only get 98% of the world instead of 100%. That 98% is far more than the the 100% of 10 years ago. Everyone wants perfection when they've already got abundance.
It has been reported that Ticketmaster has exclusive agreements with 70-80% of US venues. It's great that you have all the choices you do. For me, in western Ohio, every major venue for hundreds of miles in every direction is an exclusive Ticketmaster venue. You can't gain admittance to any show in those venues without a phone that can run their proprietary app.
Ticketmaster is bullshit, for sure, but they're just one example of the problem of being forced to use proprietary user-hostile software.
> So the world should cared to your needs when literally almost every adult has a phone even in third world countries?
The assumption that everyone has a "smart phone" running locked-down Android or iOS is unreasonable. Just as race, sex, religion, national origin, etc, are protected classes, the "phoneless" should be a protected class. Denying people who choose not to use a locked down phone basic interaction with your business should be legally equivalent to posting a "No blacks allowed" sign on your door, and the consequences should be the same.
> Also see: no I’m not going to waste development time di you can get to a website I develop with JS disabled or so you can use lynx
I don't see what this non-sequitur has to do with the exchange. I didn't bring anything up about Javascript.
Oh please, really? As a Black guy whose still living parents grew up in the segregated South. Comparing not being able to use a Linux phone to segregation is really taking it too far. You have not a single clue what it was like growing up in the Jim Crow South.
He's referring to his activity ON THE DEVICE. We know you can't stop the location tracking from the carrier. But that doesn't mean give up on everything else.
Worrying about random app tracking you - which is a boogeyman in and of itself on iOS - and nog worrying about the government tracking you is like being concerned about a mosquito bite when you have a bullet hole.
> I know banking apps are the typical example, but I've always wondered why
My bank uses the app for 2FA, and that became a sort of a standard in Brazil, AFAIK. Mine at least gave me the option of using an RSA SecurID or sth alike when I asked, but I don't know how much it would cost me.
My stock broker on the other hand does 2FA exclusively on mobile (and only Android and iOS). The same for the health insurer.
My car insurer didn't force me to so far, which I find strange, given their interest in tracking my location and speed.
These were some of the major factors leading me to give up on using a feature phone when I tried, a few years ago. It was a good experience, especially at those times of pandemics and political instability, but the inconveniences were many.
My main bank is Commonwealth aka CBA (one of the "big 4" banks here in Australia). For a long time, I held out against installing their mobile app (on Android), and managed fine with their web UI (and with 2FA codes via SMS). Then, 2 or 3 years ago, I needed to start using PayID (sort-of Australia's version of Venmo, ie free instant transfers, except it's supported directly by all the major banks here). And I discovered that CBA had (deliberately?) only added PayID support to their mobile app, you absolutely can't use it in their web UI (last I checked). So I had to finally relent and install the mobile app. I started out only opening it on the rare occasions when I needed to send money to someone via PayID.
Then, a while later, CBA pretty much phased out SMS-based 2FA (or they said that if you had the mobile app installed then you can no longer use it?). Only other supported option is in-app 2FA (no support for third-party TOTP apps). So I had to start opening the mobile app every time I needed a 2FA code. Then, within the last year or so, they made a new rule, that in order to log in to the web UI at all (just initial login, I'm not talking about sending money or any other high-risk action), you had to receive a push notification via the mobile app and tap "allow". So now I literally can't log in to the web UI without also logging in to the mobile app!
So, unfortunately, "just keep using the bank's website on desktop" is increasingly and deliberately becoming not an option. I assume there are many similar stories with other banks around the world.
I paid someone via payid via the web ui. Was via an email address. It was a while ago though and haven't used it since.
Also I've never used the app since the blocked rooted devices, magisk stopped working (cause of safetnet) and moved back to sms "security". I just logged in then without having to enter a code.
I do note you need to allow browser fingerprinting to allow the login to work. Otherwise it's some generic error.
I've made a lot of noise about it so maybe they've "unblocked" me to shut me up. Email the CEO so it registers a complaint. Make some noise.
Definitely have another bank though as you can't just depend on one.
So, leaving aside the discussion about whether someone wants to use their bank's application or not, what's the bank response if their application just doesn't work in your phone? That you must purchase a new phone or be locked out of using your account?
I hope, now that the debate about our excessive reliance on American tech is on the table, that we also put limits on those essential services, like banks, imposing the usage of products from only two companies (Google or Apple) in order to operate. I think that goes at least against the spirit of the European Union.
> I hope, now that the debate about our excessive reliance on American tech is on the table
LOL, you couldn't even place a phone call in Australia without some US technology connecting the call. I should know, we setup the app that calculates your bill. That's from the US too.
Country dependent of course, but recently i observe steady push from banks to adopt mobile app. Some have webui neglected and glitchy, some openly announce sunsetting, some already killed web access only allowing app.
And this tendency will prevail as bank can collect way more data this way. Just a month ago one of banks that is often praised here sent me a letter saying “your IP activity doesn’t match your residence” (and i am not even installed their app, they pulled data from web ui usage. Imagine what happens when they get access to data mobile app can supply
Fair point - but then take national eID apps instead.
Take Denmark, for example: most banking apps use eID for login, so that problem translates 1:1. But other apps who do the same include the national school communications platform (which is pretty much mandatory for a huge chunk of the adult population, who need to look at it almost daily). Also: social security card (including health portal/doctor booking/comms), driver's license, bus pass, parking app, used-stuff-marketplace, ... eID is _everywhere_ because it's a good idea.
Sure, all of this can be done on a computer. If you're near one. Or you can have separate and physical cards, like we used to have. That still works, mostly: more and more services (eg. bus pass) are going digital-only.
Really, what we need is a top-down embrace of open-source-based platforms as being _as_ (or more) secure than the established tech giants. From governments down, organisations _should_ move away from locked-down (foreign) commercial interests.
That's true, but the notion that we're still using paper checks in 2026 is so crazy. And yet they remain the cheapest way to handle many transactions in the US financial system. Like a lot of small healthcare providers still prefer to receive paper checks from insurance companies because the electronic payment processors take a 3% fee.
Yes, it is completely insane and stupid. Direct bank-to-bank transfers require significant administrative work to set up, and may still incur bank fees. For individual consumer accounts most people can use Zelle but it's not universally available.
I know AT&T had its issues, but I've always wondered if it was a mistake to take down the monopoly. The amount of tech that came out of Bell Labs boggles the mind. And the reliability of the network at the time was, I've been told, incredible compared to today.
I suppose tech companies like Google are the modern equivalent, but they don't seem to do quite as much cool stuff.
It was ridiculously reliable. The telephone, as it was, Just Worked. The importance of this reliability was very ingrained in how they did things. (Which makes sense: When you've got many tens of millions of customer circuits to maintain, and the switching gear to cross-connect them, you need that stuff to work. The manpower required to maintain an unreliable system of that scale would be astronomically expensive.)
The one time in my life when the home phone didn't work in our house, I decided to wander out back to have a look. I saw a cable just dangling there in the alley that I visually traced back to the house.
I called the phone company from our other line (we had one for the modem) and reported this combination of no dialtone, and a down line. A truck appeared in less than 10 minutes. A short time after that, they knocked on the front door to say it was fixed, and speculated that maybe it'd been clipped by a truck or something.
If the old AT&T had purchased GitHub instead of Microsoft, it would be stodgy, featureless, grey, robustly-reliable, and delivered into homes and businesses over a dedicated copper circuit at profound monthly expense.
Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, getting broadband was a problem where I lived. I oscillated among a few wireless internet providers (actual 802.11 Wifi to a repeater 11 miles away in one case,) and acoustic modems, as I changed properties.
For a couple years I used Qwest ISDN. That was by far the most reliable and consistent Internet I'd ever seen: it wasn't fast (128 Kbps,) but it never went down, and the latency and jitter was lower then anything I've had, then or since.
ISDN was awesome. I had that going on for a bit, too. It was great to experience parts of what some folks (mostly the French, IIRC) had commonly used for such a long time.
Nearly-instant dialup. And not just for a single ISP, but other ISPs as well: The circuit and the Internet service were provided by different entities.
Switch to a different ISP? No problem -- no appointments or installers making new holes in the house required. Just plug in a different phone number, username, password, and done.
And since each B channel was independent, one could do voice calls while the other did data -- dynamically, as-needed. Performance was resolute: Calls were perfect in their consistency, and data rates were precisely 64 kilobytes per second, per channel, symmetric, and not one bit more nor less -- and with constant latency (what jitter?).
And to not leave it to implication for those who don't know: An ISP wasn't required at all. Two people with ISDN could move data between their computers without involving the Internet. The circuits were switched in an any-to-any to fashion.
Want to play a two-player computer game a buddy, with voice chat, over ISDN in 1999? No problem: Use one B channel for data, the other for voice, and get gaming. The circuits are dedicated to these tasks for the duration of the game, and latency is a fixed constant (no Internet used at all, and no lag spikes either).
We've really lost something with the death of this point-to-point, circuit-switched technology. We're probably better off with the best-effort packet switched IP business we wound up using instead, but we've lost something nonetheless. It offered some neat opportunities and was a fun system to explore.
My ISDN was sold as "ISDL" by an ISP. Still had the performance you're describing, but it was tied to them. There was no dialing on my part: it was just always up. I'd pay for it today if an ISP offered it at a low cost, as a backup.
I missed the IDSL phase completely. I'm not even sure if it was ever available in my neck of the woods.
For me, it the continuum went like this: Dialup > ISDN > dialup > slow DOCSIS > faster VDSL > faster DOCSIS > [this is the part where I write a whole chapter about how there is fast, cheap gigabit fiber available in rural areas directly surrounding my small city, from multiple competing companies, but none within the city limits]
Anyway, IDSL. That technology skipped right by a lot of what was cool about ISDN. For me, real ISDN was always-on unless I disconnected it for some reason. While still "dialup" in the strictest sense, it was not infrequent to have sessions that went for months without any interruption at all. But I could also do anything else I wanted with it.
And backups: Apparently these days, a person can get a slice of Starlink pretty cheap. In this mode ("Standby Mode," IIRC), it provides a slow, always-on connection -- I think it's $5 per month for ~500Kbps.
The RV and snowbird communities hate it because it isn't free (they used to be able to pause service in off-season without monthly cost), but it sounds pretty good as a fixed, domestic backup: 500kbps is a lot more than 0. (And if this backup needs used for a long time or speed is important, then: 500kbps is way more than enough bandwidth to log in and pay for a month of real service.)
For me it was Dialup -> 802.11 @ 7 miles -> Dialup -> 802.11 @ 11 miles -> ISDN -> WISP -> DOCSIS via Comcast.
> this is the part where I write a whole chapter about how there is fast, cheap gigabit fiber available in rural areas
Not all of them. I'm in what amounts to the North Korea of 'murica: a place that is pitch black at night as seen by satellite photos. There is no fiber. Or, not infrequently, power. I'm on the edge of cable the service area, but it does work, so that's what I'm using.
Verizon built a tower 1/2 mile away, so now my 5G is all the bars, and I could get IP service that way if I wished. Then there is Starlink. Good times, I suppose.
I've got a good friend that moved to an area like that, in Appalachia.
Cell phone is unilaterally spotty (all carriers; I've got the gear to check that).
The cable network doesn't reach that far. DSL doesn't exist there. There's a local WISP that keeps talking about maybe making a move there, but it hasn't happened.
For the first few years we did a cobbled together cellular thing with a grey-market AT&T corpo iPad SIM, an LTE modem, and a directional antenna about 30 feet up. That worked, usually, unless the SIM died again or the singular tower being aimed at needed maintenance. (This was before cellular providers started willfully selling home internet.)
Now he's got starlink as his only WAN. That does pretty well for him, actually. We chat often, and at length, with his phone on WiFi calling and it works fine almost always. And by that, I mean: There's sometimes an audio glitch, and it's hard to pin down what the source is when it happens. It never lasts long.
The cool thing about cheap starlink as a backup is that, aside from the purchase price, it's like no-brainer cheap. I'd use it at home myself if my connection from Spectrum were iffy. (But Spectrum here is astoundingly consistent, so I don't see a need.)
For me it was DAOC. The low latency allowed me to pull off melee combos consistently in PVP with a high alpha range class. That led to years of nerfs upon nerfs, and the game designer is still bitching about it all today.
I think part of the reliability was from its simplicity and part of that was because it was analog. You're essentially just connect a pair of wires. The original routers were humans making those connections with patch cables.
The digitization of the system now put programs and computers in the mix, and I think readers here can appreciate the difficulty of having bug free code and 0 downtime in gear.
Verizon decends from Bell ROCs, but not from the national AT&T company.
Current AT&T is the result of Bell ROCs buying out the national AT&T company.
But it's not the same company at all. The commitment to reliability is gone, the full vertical integration is gone, the monopoly revenues are gone. The market for phone calls is quite different as well.
It's a shame to have lost reliability and the increase in latency for audio is objectively bad and I don't know if we'll ever get back to near zero added latency on phone calls. Otoh, telecom competititon has driven much more capable and less expensive offerings, when they work.
Those are lovely rose-colored glasses! :) My understanding is that they also charged high rates for calling the next city, and more for calling further, opposed / dragged their heels on new tech like broadband data .... Since then we have essentially free communication - voice, video, and text - anywhere in the world, several broadband technologies, cell phones, endless VOIP options, faxes (did AT&T support those?) ... in fact, landlines are mostly gone.
Just imagine the world without broadband. I don't love the phone systems of today in all respects, but there is no comparison.
In what ways does it look that way, if you recall?
I hear this semi-often, but I don't really get it. The base UI of Discord is pretty normal / looks just like every other chat app out there. Is it the ads for nitro and stuff like that were the issue?
I think the base UI of Discord is fine, but having used it for almost a decade at this point, the UI has gotten worse. Besides the ads you've mentioned, they've added a lot more clutter (random icons, rarely used features, hidden menus, etc.). When I look at screenshots from 2019, I weep.
There's a bit of clutter for sure, but I don't find it too objectionable. As the sibling comment mentioned, the super reacts are really annoying, and so are the ads, but it's overall alright.
Most of the clutter I would complain about comes more down to Discord making it really easy to bloat a server (and a cultural expectation to do so).
I’m in more than one Discord that has more channels than routine users. Like there are 4 people that use it on at least a weekly basis but there’s a meme channel, a pet photos channel, a news channel, yada yada. Managing notifications is a lost cause because the server owner redecorates the server every other week into new channels and what not.
Profiles have gotten weirdly wild, to sell Nitro stuff. Statuses, emojis for the status, now flairs from a server, profile pictures, etc.
Constant notifications for junk. Nitro is on sale, some game I don’t play has a quest, etc.
It’s fine, but it feels like Discord wants to be more than a carrier for voice and chat and I really just want them to do that. I don’t need “Facebook with VoIP”
> I’m in more than one Discord that has more channels than routine users.
Likewise, and I find it quite annoying too, but I don't think it's really Discord's fault. They default to one text and one voice channel, after all. The ability to add new channels easily is a good thing, but people do go a bit crazy with it.
> Statuses, emojis for the status, now flairs from a server, profile pictures, etc.
The server flairs are kind of odd, but aren't the rest of those pretty bog- standard features for a messaging app?
I do agree the notifications are annoying, though. At the same time I get it, they do need to make money somehow.
Animated server logos, colorful /gradient and tonally-varied usernames & avatars, the super emoji or whatever they're called, etc all feel like they're pushing more towards Twitch chat than anything else. Which as another commenter remarked, is essentially aligned with their original and biggest target demographic.
> Animated server logos, colorful /gradient and tonally-varied usernames & avatars
Fair, but all of these things are user controlled. If you're using Discord for work or something, presumably you don't have a bright flashing animated server icon and avatar, your server doesn't have gradient roles, etc.
The super emoji are spot on though, those are fun but were really dumb from the get-go, and waste space in the reaction UI.
Sure, I'm usually on hotspot, but I personally appreciate when businesses have wifi. Either way, there are always going to be shared networks somewhere.
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