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I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

alexanderell.is

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Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#21

Post by Juicyy »

emsy wrote: post #8

Isn’t the justification of Apple that they have a monopoly on the App Store so they can protect users from notification abuse? In reality this is not enforced at all and even Apple themselves will send you ads.

Better yet, Apple sends me news notifications for apple news that you have to pay for.... Who the fuck thinks its a good idea to send you notifications blocked behind a paywall... cant even comprehend the logic in the microtransaction, pay to win, notifications, paywall bullshit we see in mobile, tech, gaming, etc. I have had enough. Literally just deleted all that stuff. All i need is VScode and youtube.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#22

Post by rapind »

grose wrote: post #6

I've noticed this in social networks as well. If you don't get enough transactional notifications for a while they start making up fake ones like Twitter's "in case you missed this Tweet", Facebook's "[someone] posted for the first time in a while", all the while lighting up the notifications badge. Leads to a "boy who cried wolf" scenario in which I stop trusting notifications entirely and just ignore them, possibly…

Apple kept a notification badge on my settings icon for Apple Pay until I finally went in and opted out of it. Under the guise of “Finish setting up your iPhone”.

It’s not a big deal I guess, but annoying and obviously promotional. Now I partially associate Apple with intentionally annoying.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#23

Post by dguo »

My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses.

If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I won't turn it back on.

If something is important enough, I can always manually check on it. My attention is too valuable to me to waste it on useless notifications.

I do want more control over my notifications in general. I use Google Apps Script to automatically process/triage my email, and I want to do something similar with notifications. I can probably do so using Tasker, but I haven't gotten around to it.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#24

Post by technothrasher »

p49k wrote: post #14
night-rider wrote: post #5

I only care about NO notifications. Disabling all notifications is the first step to more saner approaches to technology. I turned my digital life into a pull medium where I check SMS messages etc when I want to, and not having real-time notifications of every little event gives me more peace. It’s a form of digital veganism that I employ. Turn your digital life into pull mediums instead of push.

The subject of the article is about apps bundling time sensitive notifications that you can’t realistically disable with promotions. You can turn off most notifications for a calmer life, but when you order an Uber you need to know if it’s arriving or if the driver sent you an important message.

Granted I don't live in an urban area and so don't use these apps all the much, but typically when I want an Uber or to order something with Doordash, or whatever, I'll install the app only long enough to use the service, and then uninstall it. And my rule for apps that stay on my phone (and there are not many) is that they get one chance. The first promotion notification I get, either all notifications get disabled or the app gets uninstalled.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#25

Post by kayxspre »

grose wrote: post #6

I've noticed this in social networks as well. If you don't get enough transactional notifications for a while they start making up fake ones like Twitter's "in case you missed this Tweet", Facebook's "[someone] posted for the first time in a while", all the while lighting up the notifications badge. Leads to a "boy who cried wolf" scenario in which I stop trusting notifications entirely and just ignore them, possibly…

It's actually possible to fine-tune it by category of notification (Settings > Notifications, either in app or on the web). I turned off Reminder, Friend Updates, and People You May Know, leaving only the notification on things I interact with or things friends brought to my attention.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#26

Post by ajkjk »

I always relish in uninstalling apps when this happens but I hope they have stats somewhere that show: "oh, we sent this annoying marketing notification and an uninstall happens", and I hope some analyst is finding that pattern in their data and telling people about it. But I have to assume the answer is, 'probably not', given that nothing seems to change.

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#29

Post by xahrepap »

dguo wrote: post #23

My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful notifications, as the article discusses. If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I won't…

I follow the same rule. But I will also then go one star review it.

I will also one-star review any app that prompts me to review it by first asking me if I like it (sneaky sneaky!)

Re: I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional ones

#30

Post by hairofadog »

theamk wrote: post #10

I have a pretty good idea on how to fix this (and many similar) problems: "hibernate app" option. Its a new app state where app icon icon has some mark (like being semi-grayed out) and all the background app services are disabled (tracking, promotional popups, periodic wakeups, etc...). The app is only un-hibernated if user explicitly clicks on it, it cannot do it by itself. The app can be hibernated by long-press me…

This is a great idea.
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