I prefer apps and desktop apps when they are available. They feel and work nicer mostly than web based. But we live more and more in a browser world and there is less and less choice and I understand I must move with the times.
Most of the time it's just incompetence, they import the 1823 js libraries and ask for all the permissions their libraries could use in that corner case that happens once every 1760 years.
I prefer apps when they work mostly offline and don't try to send my private data to various third parties. I tend to prefer the browser which allows me to control a little bit more what it does for everything else.
It has been for decades. Also, people don’t know what the hell they want or are talking about - so often people tell me they have no apps on their phone, they don’t like apps, they’re bad and wrong - and then I see they’ve got Facebook, instagram, 10 candy crush clones, etc. “what about those?” “Those aren’t apps. Those are things.”
My mother has total disdain for “social media users” yet spends six hours a day on Facebook. She doesn’t see it as social media. “It’s more of a virtual parlour”
So yeah. People don’t know what the hell they want or are talking about.
What's social media today anyway? I've been told the likes of whatsapp or discord are also social media. But they're just chat apps to me because you use them to chat with other people and they don't have automated systems that cram cat pictures down your throat.
In recent years I've been running into more and more people who will say all sorts of things are social media on the basis that they let you talk to other people. This has happened in reference to reddit comments, web forums, Discord, Telegram . . .
There seem to be some neo-cyberpunk LARPers taking interest in stuff like Usenet and IRC for kewl points. I wonder if these are also "social media".
Of course, it doesn't help that pretty much everyone has been saying "social media" for years when they almost always meant "social networking".
It’s a crazy aunt on WhatsApp, it’s not an engagement algorithm. Does your Facebook even show you your aunts posts? I have a feeling it’s stopped showing friends and relatives for me ages ago.
Having an app is "fuck you, i don't want to install another app" these days...