Companies have grown beyond reproach.
Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
11–20 of 498 posts
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#12I reach for my smartphone the microsecond I have idle time. I can't read things longer than 280 characters.
Thanks for this comment. It will make me put down my smartphone. (After writing this comment of course.)
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#13In the last few years I feel like we've reached "notification hell". Technology used to be a tool that was used when needed, now it constantly demands our attention.
I feel like something is always beeping at me across countless services and just stresses me out.
Windows beeps every time I click anything now, every app wants to spam notifications every our, Jira, countless chat apps, email, even the credit card machines at Target have gotten more aggressive...
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#14I'm less able to really sit down and focus on longer-term projects because of constant notifications and an endless amount of media able to be consumed.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#15Zero attention span, social isolation, information overload, fears of dystopia.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#16Pandemic response: tech has continued to distract society from simply learning its needs and creating covid bubbles large enough to meet everyone's needs within the bubble so people don't have a reason to leave the bubble.
Instead, we have mass isolation, instead of population-density diminishing tactics that respect human needs, and mandates for behaviors.
So much for freedom.
Anyway, where's the app for building a big covid bubble or quickly joining one after following quarantine procedures for that bubble?
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#17Unnecessary tech in kitchen appliances. Ovens, dishwashers and washer/dryers. I spend most of my time battling the user interface or dealing with obscure bugs.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#18Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…
> but half of them break after a few years or less
One of the biggest downsides is that these type of things contribute to pollute our world twice: when they are made, when they need to be trashed away. Brands that have products that in average break after a very short time should be banned or shouldn't be sold at all.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#19Same with restaurant or bars. More and more use some scummy third-party platform that requires an account, asks for more personal information than necessary and will no doubt use said information for nefarious purposes such as spam.
Similarly, since the pandemic, paper menus have been replaced by a stupid QR code that often loads a bloated page or PDF and may contain trackers. Doesn't help that phone service is usually terrible, and Wi-Fi (if it exists) has a captive portal with its own set of problems.
Worse, some venues actually did ordering over the mobile website, so what used to take 10 seconds of telling the barman what you wanted now takes a minute of trying to load a terrible website, filling out a form with way too much personal information, waiting for the payment to process, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
#20Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…
Maybe not advertising completely but at least targeted advertising. Many problems and borderline unethical business models stem from targeting.