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I rarely use ride-sharing apps because they're destructive to public infrastructure I care about, but recently I had to use Lyft and YOU CAN'T USE IT ON THE WEB. Their website literally tells you to go get the app, so you can't use a desktop browser at all to access their platform. That is an absolutely *wild* choice, and even more absurd that it goes unnoticed in the current media/tech ecosystem.
️ @anildash I DESPISE this trend. Last weekend I was forced to download an app to track my pizza delivery. I’ve had to do the same thing for concert tickets (Dice). It drives me crazy.
@anildash Having to install apps on my phone has been the top reason that I've never used a rideshare in my life. I don't do anything money related with my phone, period, and I install very few apps. Call me old fashioned 
@anildash I typically won't use any website or tool without a regular web page version. I'm a relatively old web person -- I ran an NCSA httpd for a while! -- and it just offends me so much when I run across cases of it.
ucblockhead @r343l @anildash the ones that really offend me are the ones around home automation. The company that makes my solar power system just arbitrarily shut down their web version of the monitoring software. Only thing available is the shitty phone app with half the features and no easy interactivity with other apps
@ucblockhead @anildash And if your phone is broke or they don't update the app in time you can't use your critical household infra. Aside from expense, a big reason we have very little of the modern home automation stuff is I refuse to use phone apps to control lights or locks.
@anildash I don’t think this trend went unnoticed but most people still seem to be in the “oh cool there’s an app” phase and the rest of us don’t have the spoons left to fight. I have long ago sighed and accepted my fate.
@anildash I'm not so sure it goes unnoticed as the people who tend to notice/care are the people who lack a voice to make substantive change in this ecosystem.
Like if a major corporation tells me I need to use an app, how can I tell them "No I don't want to do that" when I am trying to use their service. I did really enjoy using a user agent switcher which let my desktop emulate mobile to post from Instagram for a time there.
@anildash Instagram for YEARS didn't let people upload from desktop web. I think they might have been the first big service to nerf their desktop web version with missing critical features.
@anildash I fear this is more common than you think. I had it with one of those “scan all your books and we’ll pick them up and pay you” services. Everything had to be done in the stupid app - no website option. I put it down to cost saving.
@anildash
Tech: “Regulation is stifling innovation!”
Also Tech: “We’re so dependent on native OS geolocation and notification APIs that we can’t imagine a browser-based experience, even though modern browsers now support those APIs.”
@anildash My wife used to work on their web app. They decided to lay off the entire team and can the entire web experience last year.
@anildash it gets worse
the car sharing app getaround requires a facebook account to use the service at all
@anildash
While I always also try to not use ride-sharing companies, just having an app actually makes perfect sense.
@anildash So what does Lyft's app provide them that a website does not?
@anildash I think another reason for this trend is the unique visibility a phone app potentially has onto the user (depending on what permissions you give it). Location obviously, but potentially info about other installed apps, microphone (god forbid), and so on. Probably also makes it easier to connect you to marketing data collected by other aggregators. (This is just my hunch, not 100% sure this explains the trend.)
@anildash The lack of websites these days is to my eyes a “feature” - that is, a symptom of enshittification. In the words of Cory Doctorow:
“app” is just a euphemism for “a web page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to mod it, to protect the labour, consumer and privacy rights of its user”.
https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5
@anildash Uber is similar.
Instacart is actually worse - it HAS a web interface, it's just incredibly buggy and borderline unusable.
It is amazing that these multi-hundred-billion dollar companies can't invest a few bucks in making web interfaces.
@anildash If privacy is the concern, you can always get a cheap burner phone just for apps that you don't trust.
@anildash Sometimes I wonder if current developers have ever _seen_ a decent desktop setup. In addition to the "app only" issue, how many of the things we use with a browser are now designed for a phone, with a ton of wasted space on the monitor?
On the public transport side I can see the advantage of, and do use, apps which show me when buses and trains are coming, but could they not get together and make one which works for every city - it could get its map data from #OpenStreetmap and could pick up local timetabling information for off-line and planning purposes, and live feeds if they were available.
They likely make more money strip-mining people's phones for marketable data than they do from driver operations. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they lose money on rides where they can't sell the phone's data. After all, their business is predicated on competing with cab companies who buy and service their cars at wholesale rates, vs. ordinary consumers buying and servicing their cars at retail rates.
@anildash Apple's resistance to WPAs may have something to do with that...!
@anildash
It’s an extreme option, but check out Blue Stacks
@anildash you can't even redeem a coupon code on the web. Let's say Lyft emails you a discount code. You open it on desktop and it redirects you to a link on their website. Their website does nothing but give you instructions to use the app. You have to open it on mobile, so it can redirect you to the app.
@anildash you have to jump through some hoops to use the existing web versions of Slack and Discord when using a mobile browser. By default both claim you'd *have* to install the app. I hate this so much.