Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

toot.kuba-orlik.name

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 158 posts

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#101

Post by pixl97 »

stavros wrote: post #29
golergka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is just content that you browse and occasionally leave a text comment on, it fits browser perfectly. A taxi app, on the other hand, has a lot of functionality that is very hard to fit into a browser and implement well.

I have a location where I am and a location I want to get to. I need a way to specify the two, and a way to enter payment info. That is literally all a taxi app should do.

Why is that all the taxi app should do?

Getting a message "heavy traffic, your car has been delayed" is what everyone else seeming rational really wants. Messaging and awareness of the current state of the transaction they are in.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#102

Post by ldhdksbdndmd »

kuba-orlik wrote: post #80
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end you talk about having laws passed. What sort of law do you want passed exactly (and do you mean EU, specific EU countries, US, elsewhere)?

I guess one thing could be to force businesses of certain scale (or ideally, of any scale) to not offer services exclusive to a particular digital ecosystem, unless that's the only way to provide that service. My local restaurant uses an app to do loyalty stamps... I really wish tey would come back to the traditional paper-based ones

this will never happen.

outside of the imperial centers, "big tech" have already reached into governments.

for example, latin america governments make it very difficult to schedule a dmv visit without a cellphone number AND a meta/facebook's whatsApp account. While all public universities accepted a free google meet account for covid time remote classes, and now got a surprise multimillion bill to access material uploaded to the system after the original offer period.

things are already way past the point of no return.

while rich engineers are busy fiddling with websites to solver their own problems (could your immediate family have hailed that ride when in a similar situation?) companies have already encroached themselves in the very foundation of the institutions that could solve this via public policy.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#103

Post by pixl97 »

ehnto wrote: post #58

> So basically I made it easier for me to give Bolt money. You're welcome, Bolt! This is the key takeaway I think, so many online businesses spend so much time trying to push me into their app, or accounts, or subscriptions, that they forget they're supposed to be taking my money. There are plenty of services I would have loved to use, but ya'll made it so damn hard to give you my money and order your services that I…

There are some people's money that's not worth taking for one reason or another. In the software world it's not uncommon to loose customers because the features they need would cost too much in support and upkeep vs the revenue it brings in.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#104

Post by stavros »

pixl97 wrote: post #101
stavros wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a location where I am and a location I want to get to. I need a way to specify the two, and a way to enter payment info. That is literally all a taxi app should do.

Why is that all the taxi app should do? Getting a message "heavy traffic, your car has been delayed" is what everyone else seeming rational really wants. Messaging and awareness of the current state of the transaction they are in.

Before it arrives, you mean? That's still not something that a web page can't easily do.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#105

Post by sp332 »

brycewray wrote: post #66
sp332 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a net negative for them though? Unless you're a really active or popular poster, you're probably just costing them money browsing the site and not looking at ads.

Yeah, thought of that after I replied. OTOH, it would leave them with people not sufficiently tech-savvy to block ads, which is reminiscent of the old joke about a jury’s being composed of “12 people who weren’t smart enough to evade jury duty.” I guess they don’t care about that one way or the other as long as Some EyeBalls See Ads.

Yeah it's definitely not what you would want if you were building a community. But maybe it's ok if you just want cash.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#106

Post by vorpalhex »

dawnerd wrote: post #87
Lucasoato wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't understand why Reddit is pushing the app so hard. I mean, keep that as an option, but why creating an awful UX for the mobile web users? You gather more data but the product is worse, less users are staying and you're losing value at the end...

Easy, harder for users to block the ads in apps. Apple / Google should allow add blockers for the entire OS.

Pihole works well here but obviously not end user friendly.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#107

Post by verisimi »

verisimi wrote: post #68

I'm glad that geo-fencing was mentioned. This is what I think all these apps - Kuba, Bolt and all those food delivery companies are. They are changing behaviour at present, they make things easy and advantageous for the user. Then the trap will be sprung. Similar to how corporate petrol stations and corporate super stores drop their prices to force local shops out of business. Once they have control and a monopolisti…

> This is what I think all these apps - Kuba, Bolt and all those food delivery companies are.

I meant Uber, Bolt and all those food delivery companies are!! Not the author's name!

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#108

Post by skobovm »

mojuba wrote: post #9

There's an (unverified) myth that retention on mobile apps is better. This is one of those things that marketing people keep telling each other without ever verifying the facts. (Unless you deliberately make the web version inferior, of course.) The reasoning behind it is that you should take real estate on the user's home screen at all costs, because your app's icon will serve as a reminder and people will allegedly…

This is a weird take, and I highly doubt retention is the primary reason they choose to limit the use of their web interface. In fact, I’m generally suspect of the hand-wavy speculation that some less savvy business unit made a decision in isolation. The two drivers that I would expect are: reducing friction and native compute capabilities.

People generally gravitate towards the path of least resistance, which is something you already see companies exploiting with things like unfavorable privacy settings defaults. Having an app is another instance of that. There is much less mental friction in pushing a button on a home screen compared to opening a browser, punching in a URL, possibly having to log in, etc.

Given that this is rideshare, this is important, because the services offered by other companies are effectively identical. If someone has Uber installed, they would be much more likely to go the path of least resistance — using the installed app — as opposed to going out of their way to use an equivalent offering.

Additionally, there are problems in mapping that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to solve in a browser. For example: localization (precise positioning) would be incredibly difficult without a native library, you wouldn’t be able to do any offline re-routing, like gmaps does, among other limitations.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#109

Post by Zambyte »

Lucasoato wrote: post #45
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Reddit usage has basically plummeted to 0 at this point because of their pushing me towards an app. I think there are provable cases where an app almost certainly leads to less retention than more and something like Reddit, whose value lies in allowing you to explore the internet is almost certainly one of them.

I really can't understand why Reddit is pushing the app so hard. I mean, keep that as an option, but why creating an awful UX for the mobile web users? You gather more data but the product is worse, less users are staying and you're losing value at the end...

> You gather more data

That's it. That's the whole story. Mobile apps provide more opportunity to spy on the user.

Re: Bolt has a cool web interface and they really don't want you to use it

#110

Post by whywhywhywhy »

gtirloni wrote: post #63

> without an annoying app! I fail to see why an app that delivers the promised feature can be annoying. More annoying than installing extensions, messing with HTTP requests, etc?

We’re only a few more years away from very few services being available outside of the google/apple app ecosystems.

Most apps don’t do anything that couldn’t just be a webpage yet we’re being forced into handing control and service cut to apple and google and opening up more intimate data to service providers.

Post reply on HN