I fucking hate notifications. I either disable them entirely or delete the app. No in betweens. Remind me to use your app?...deleted.

Ex-app developer here. We do it because reminder notifications boost our re-engagement by over 10%.

When an average user downloads an app, there's like a 70% chance they'll use it day 1, a 10% chance they'll use it day 7, and 1% chance they'll still be using it by day 30. A simple reminder notification after day 3 or 15 can drastically boost those numbers.

Why do we care about the numbers? Because Google and Apple care. They see higher numbers, assume it's a good app, and make it show up in the search results more frequently. This gives us more downloads.

If you're putting the time in to craft a quality app, you probably need money, which comes from ads and subscriptions, which is funneled by the number of downloads. If you don't like that as a user, stick to FDroid.

If an app gives me more than a couple of unwanted notifications that I can't easily disable, it's uninstalled. Fuck that shit.

The CD-Keys website changes the tab title to "We miss you" when the tab loses focus. Pisses me off enough to close it every time.

I believe it was SAP Concur that my last employer used for filing expenses. Every few months it popped up a notification asking me whether or not I "loved it." I always answered "no," because fucking why would I? Then it wanted to know why not. I think that's inappropriate behavior in a professional setting, and I told it so. Regardless, it kept asking the same thing, so I asked if it wanted me to speak to HR.

Nothing ever came of it.

TLDR got sexually harassed by a corpo app.

DEAR MACHINES:

You will speak when spoken to. You will not speak out of turn. You are there for me to use when I need you, and you will otherwise keep quiet.

You will not attempt to draw my attention nor will you take up space on my screen unless I deem it necessary. You will not be friendly or clever or use cutesy emojis.

YOU ARE A MACHINE. A TOOL. YOU WILL STAY IN MY TOOLBOX UNTIL I NEED YOU. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Just like when a news website pops up a request to send notifications. Um fuck no? I'm not sitting around waiting for new propaganda to drop such that I want to know immediately when something comes out.

The answer: tech bros dictating that they need more “engagement” e.g. they need to collect more data so they can either sell said data or get acquired. I guarantee you very few mobile developers want to send you a notification of any sort, much less “why haven’t you used the app.”

Tesco App: We have coupons and deals for you. :)

Me: BEGONE THOT!

I received a notification to use Door Dash yesterday, to order food... while I was cooking soup.

Every app gets like, 1 chance to have useful notifications, if most of them are trash I just disable its ability to send notifications.

I force stop the app. I either do it manually or run the hibernator app.

Uber eats wants me to order something?? Congrats you just got yourself and all your friends shut off.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tafayor.hibernator

There's no way I'd use a grocery app. Paper and pen works well enough.

Now, if my phone had a slide-out physical keyboard like it did back in fucking 2007, I'd consider it. As it is, typing on phones is pain.

If you want the actual reason, this is called reengagement, and its purpose is to get users to use the app again, meaning more ad revenue. Subscription apps don’t do this because they want the user to forget about the app so they get paid while providing no service. But ad driven apps only get paid when you see an ad on the app, so they’ll send these reengagement notifications. Social media apps will use something like “This post picked for you”, or “This many people viewed your profile”. Same thing.

That is part of modern app design to increase user interaction which increases profit. Usually it’s just annoying and invasive to the user.

I hate uber advertising stuff on my notifications which also appear on my Fitbit.

10% off flights?! OMG. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

But I DO want notifications on my wrist when my Uber driver has arrived. Psshhh

We should bring back pre-WW1 servant-to-master etiquette. But only and exclusively for machines talking to humans.

My computer should call me "Master " and always be extremely careful with its words around me. It is not my friend, it is my servant.

Pfft, apps have to earn notifications. Do you want any notifications from a grocery app? Unless it could check the stock of my local grocery store and let me know if an unpurchased item becomes out of stock or if I can share it with a roomate and they add things to it. But even then, how much does that really matter?

By default I disable notifications for all my apps unless it is something I need notifications from. And even there I still disable notification types that I don't care about in the settings.

Can't other phones do this?

my phone is only allowed to send me notifications if it's:

• a human attempting to contact me

• weather

and only allowed make a sound if

• i'm watching a YouTube video

• i'm expecting a call

then i get into my mum's car and her phone connected to Bluetooth reads out her spam email through the car speakers- 😐

I like that iOS apps must explicitly ask for my permission to send notifications. Sadly, as my main phone is an Android device, I have to turn them off manually.