I tried looking at the reviews for a monitor, and when I clicked “see more reviews” I got redirected to a page asking me to login and to provide my mobile phone number (which I didn’t do for privacy reasons).
On Instagram I was confused at everyone else mentioning Instagram stories because I only have the option of uploading pictures and videos. Then I found out that it’s something you can only do if you use Instagram on a phone… I swear I’ve came across a few sites that wouldn’t even let you sign up if you were using a PC
I only ever browse social media on a PC and that’s the way it will always be. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like desktop/computer users are becoming an afterthought. Anyone else have similar feelings? 🫠
They don’t prioritize mobile users, they prioritize mobile apps - easier to track and gather telemetry, easier to show ads (harder to use adblock), easier to send notifications, you can expect the user to return if they already downloaded an app.
It’s okay. They are wrong for using their mobile phones for everything. PCMR brother. Never change.
No, everyone should browse the web on Wii
/s
I’m also frustrated. But at work the other day I learned that like 75% of our usage is from mobile phone users. Sometimes you just have to realize you’re in the minority; and that other people will make bad choices.
On Instagram
Funny you describe all the annoyances of web vs mobile, but visit this awful site. Instagram wont let me see anything at all, web, mobile or otherwise because I don’t and won’t have an account.
Maybe avoiding social media all together is a better idea.
I used to be upset by all the mobile shit and then I went to college for computer stuff and started hating looking at computers after working on them all day. Now I’m a help desk tech and I don’t own a working computer of my own because using them outside of work feels like work. If I can’t do something official on mobile, I just get permission to do it on my work computer. If something for fun doesn’t have a mobile version, I don’t do whatever that thing is.
I do not like all the requests for phone numbers and shit, though. Just let me look at the site without being bothered.
Ironically enough I only use lemmy on my phone (browser or voyager) and it works way better than desktop for some reason. I couldn’t even get a post to work on firefox the other day, and images were not loading.
I know it’s not what you were asking about, but you will probably find this website helpful: https://www.rtings.com/
They are by far the best consumer electronic rating website I’ve ever seen. There’s a table view where you can do things like show me all computer monitors that have black frame insertion or show me all headphones with an audio delay of less than 5 ms and other weirdly specific stuff like that.
I only ever browse social media on a PC and that’s the way it will always be. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like desktop/computer users are becoming an afterthought. Anyone else have similar feelings? 🫠
They are. This gives much better control to them of what we’re doing when we’re doingon ‘our’ phone, and much less control to us at the same time. It’s a Win-Win situation… for them only. And a lose-lose for us (worse experience and much less control of it).
That’s one of the reasons I refuse to use my phone to do anything… where I still have the option.
Also the opposite can be infuriating. When a company asks you to install their app, you usually find that the website has more features. Looks like usually the app is just a bare bones version of the actual website with several core features missing.
This shouldn’t really be surprising, I’d think most people’s internet usage is probably on their phone, and has been for some time.
People don’t want to sit at a desk or whatever and browse or do their socials stuff, they want to do it sat on the sofa while the TV is on or in between chores in the house.
I think the last two companies I’ve worked for, both B2C have had mobile web and app usage way higher than desktop web.
I think they get more data from your usage on mobile.
yep. tons of telemetry.
Even moreso for apps, you can still retain some control through Firefox and others on mobile, but it’s still limited.
They want to push people to apps because you have no control over how you view the site, unlike on a traditional web browser where you can tweak such things and block advertiser connections.
I think it’s also that just significantly more people own a phone than a laptop.
It’s like those demographics maps that are really just population maps.
Phones have web browsers. You can view websites easily from your phone.
Apps give them access to everything. You can request access to contact lists, even, and most people won’t even think twice to allowing access.
Ayup. Iphones at least sandbox, but even then, you’re still talking a sieve over a bucket leak-wise
no. its one of my pet peeves that we spent decades creating sites with dynamic viewports (mobile friendly/any screen size) only for kids to wonder where the ‘app’ is for your site.
and conversely, server products created with such minimal features as to require an external app to fulfill basic functionality.
god i hate apps.
On the flip side, applications now suck because everything is a shit web wrapper. Nobody wants to develop using native UI on desktop anymore.
its the trend of everything being a service. organizations dont have on-prem data centers anymore, its all web services tied to other web services.
its all about that subscription revenue, per-process nickel-and-diming and super fast development cycles.
But they already have APIs in a lot of cases, so just wire the application to the API? Why the random HTML/JavaScript trash?
By the way I’m a web application developer. I understand SaaS, infrastructure and all why it’s easier to wrap it all up but I don’t care. Why do application developers tolerate this?
Fret not! Lots and lots of apps are just PWAs packaged into thin wrappers so they can be distributed through an app store. Humanity gets all, or at least most, of the benefits of the web with unmatched cross-platform support, and our Grandmothers and 12 year olds still get to tap on the Spotify and Starbucks icons. Win-win!
I’d way rather use a pwa than an election/react native/whatever app
there is NO social media that’s worth getting frustrated over
the first time a site does something stupid (“enter your ph # to continue!” or “disable your adblocker to continue!”) i’m out and never going back. the internet exists to provide me with things, not the other way around
Same.
There’s almost never only a single option to offer me what I’m after, so I’ll just go back to my search results or whatever and pick the next link and move on.
There’s no way in hell I’m giving some jackasses my phone number, though. I don’t even like giving people who really actually need to be able to call me my number, so why would I give some sketchy-ass website it?
As someone who is on mobile a lot, I find the opposite to be the case. So many websites are not optimized for mobile browsing.
check out pixelfed its like instagram but on the fediverse and its been in browser up until the app released only yesterday so you can do both now but browser is where its at
I made a Pixelfed art account a while ago and I think it’s pretty good! The site’s very responsive and I prefer it over Instagram. Pixelfed has been experiencing an influx of new users lately too which is great! Do you have an account there?
