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Websites/apps that have driven you insane

Started by peanutbutter, June 19, 2021, 02:28:36 PM

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peanutbutter

[General bullshit because it should be more about the being driven insane than the apps specifically]

Lets just ignore twitter, unless you can be super specific about the exact way it drove you insane.
Obviously this place has had its fair share of people just lose their minds with the social dynamics of the place over the years, so lets maybe ignore it too to avoid _drama_.



The dating apps have driven me a bit insane a couple of times, I'd wind up just making a point of exhausting my daily swipe limit so I didn't have to think about it later in the day, eventually this becomes so tedious that  I just delete them all and have a few weeks of peace before going back into the awful cycle.
Not even anything to do with individuals, just the limit makes me a bit deranged.

Back years ago when I had a blog I pretty much lost my mind with all the feedburner metrics, trying to balance becoming fixated on self marketing, SEO and making attention grabbing things. It did have the net gain that it made me a lot less susceptible to chasing Likes and Follows in anything I've gotten involved in since but it was absolutely fucking awful for a while.

TrenterPercenter

There was that WAYZE app I started using as secondary sat nav that would have pop up ads over the map making you have to clear them whilst driving.  Really dangerous.  Got rid of it after that very journey.

GoblinAhFuckScary

Quote from: peanutbutter on June 19, 2021, 02:28:36 PM
The dating apps have driven me a bit insane a couple of times, I'd wind up just making a point of exhausting my daily swipe limit so I didn't have to think about it later in the day, eventually this becomes so tedious that  I just delete them all and have a few weeks of peace before going back into the awful cycle.
Not even anything to do with individuals, just the limit makes me a bit deranged.

so much misery and shame associated with my brief dip into tinder for a few months in 2015. thankfully my time was short lived as though that app i met my partner of nearly six years so ebbs and flows innit

JaDanketies

Before I got my Tinder Game down, I found the app very frustrating. I remember updating my bio with all the bad things about me once, and then getting a message from some match that was going nowhere telling me it was unattractive, and then deactivating it (for the first time). When I figured out how to use it successfully, it was loads better (obviously). I hope they give kids lessons on this in school

peanutbutter

Not a website or app, but I lost my fucking mind the time I had to buy a mattress; can totally see how there's such a business advertising them on podcasts cos it's a fucking nightmare trying to figure out what you want/need from reviews. Positive reviews that only got them a day ago, negative reviews that are unhappy with the shit mattress you're only buying to have something ASAP for being shit after 5 years of daily use.

Amazon's reviews in particular are such trash that it's gotta catch up with them eventually.

The whole trying to pick things off the basis of an aggregated online reception is a misery really and its not hard to see how the streaming service algorithms are their key selling point for a lot of people, but my data fixated control freak brain struggles to let an algorithm decide anything for me (in the case of mattresses I'm definitely right though, all the top ones on Amazon had major issues once I dug into the reviews)


Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 19, 2021, 02:40:09 PM
There was that WAYZE app I started using as secondary sat nav that would have pop up ads over the map making you have to clear them whilst driving.  Really dangerous.  Got rid of it after that very journey.
That's surely illegal?

paruses

The WAYZE things surprises me - I had to go on a speed awareness course a couple of years ago and both the instructors on there recommended it over GMaps and whatever - Tom Tom, I suppose.

Duolingo is driving me mad at the moment. Am surprised how into the gameification I have got. Problem is it's easy to game the system and do the refresher bits to keep your streak up and get points. Thing that drives me mad is I am aware of getting into learning by rote to get the points rather than a more positive socratic (?) method which I think sticks better and is a better springboard for advanced study. Still, I can say Aino is a nice friend in Finnish now.

Icehaven

The Network West Midlands app that's supposed to tell you when the bus is coming seems to have gone a bit shit. It tells me my bus i a due is 7 minutes, then 12, then 3 all within about 30 seconds. Not a lot of use.

Small Man Big Horse

Back when I was single prior to 2014 I used OkCupid a fair bit and found it easy to use, but when I rejoined for a brief period earlier this year they'd changed the site completely, I imagine if I became a paid member it might be better but the search function had all but been removed and I couldn't look for things I had in common with people any more, and I just can't be arsed with it now.

peanutbutter

Quote from: paruses on June 19, 2021, 04:17:00 PM
The WAYZE things surprises me - I had to go on a speed awareness course a couple of years ago and both the instructors on there recommended it over GMaps and whatever - Tom Tom, I suppose.

Duolingo is driving me mad at the moment. Am surprised how into the gameification I have got. Problem is it's easy to game the system and do the refresher bits to keep your streak up and get points. Thing that drives me mad is I am aware of getting into learning by rote to get the points rather than a more positive socratic (?) method which I think sticks better and is a better springboard for advanced study. Still, I can say Aino is a nice friend in Finnish now.
Yep Dualingo is pretty toxic imo, it doesn't do anything to springboard you into deeper learning and it has an unusually aggressive notifications service that seems to cancel your options to disable emails every few months. Am pretty sure any other service that spammed users as aggressively would be consigned to spam by gmail.


They could've expanded the format into in-person lessons in various places or something like that as a bonus monetiser (it'd actually be great to do in person beginning lessons under the context that everyone has already done the duolingo course tbh) but it seems like the key monetiser is to get you to pay to maintain your streak if you happen to miss one day

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on June 19, 2021, 04:26:52 PM
Back when I was single prior to 2014 I used OkCupid a fair bit and found it easy to use, but when I rejoined for a brief period earlier this year they'd changed the site completely, I imagine if I became a paid member it might be better but the search function had all but been removed and I couldn't look for things I had in common with people any more, and I just can't be arsed with it now.
Pretty sure it's just a dying app these days. Def seems like Match Group's have a kind of dating app life cycle plan of:

- new app arrives, has UI and quality of life improvements that start bringing in a high quality user base who are loving it
- Match Group acquire this app
- with their backing it gradually becomes very big
- at some point it has a huge number of users and momentum will ensure further growth for a while, so they start monetizing
- app experience gradually gets worse and more obviously against helping users meet anyone, the kind of people who initially boosted the app are put off by the general masses swarming it that don't seem particularly engaged in meeting new people
- another new app arrives, has UI and quality of life improvements that start bringing in a high quality user base who are loving it
- Match Group start bleeding the people too tech averse to leave this app whilst letting the app fall apart


Okcupid is deep into its death stages now, most new features are likely to hide how few people are actively on it, Tinder has been on the way out for Hinge (both also owned by Match Group) for an age now and Hinge is beginning to shift towards monetisation mode for a while now too.

Sebastian Cobb

'apps' that don't do anything special and offer functionality that could just as easily be provided by a well-designed responsive/mobile website annoy me to begin with. And I suspect they're either "install out app!" marketing bollocks, harvesting data or both. Similarly-related are sites that remove or don't implement features just to force installation of their app. Imgur is a good example of this, and I think their mobile pages did allow this, but now don't, of course uploading pictures isn't something that requires an app, as evidenced by the fact you can simply switch to desktop mode and do it without installing their shitty app.

Now, into specifics, BBC Sounds. It's worse than their radio player in most ways and when it launched it didn't even have chromecast ability so was pretty useless for me as I mostly used the app to listen to 6 music on my stereo via a chromecast audio. It's also a pig to navigate, because it neither feels like a catch-up service with radio tacked on, or a radio service with catch-up tacked on, what the fuck is it supposed to be? The search is wank as well, and the way bbc implement radio on the websites has been updated to promote it as well, and have got shitter as a result. They also got rid of the radio player/playlister function, which was handy as you could click on the current playing track and add it to your playlister list for further investigation - handy when working when you like something but don't want to get distracted.

But also they seem to have ratcheted up sending unsolicited "recommendations", which can get to fuck as well. I'm sure I could turn them off, but I'm inclined to just mute the app entirely because they took it upon themselves to just start doing it without consent. Wankers.

Mixcloud is a buggy piece of shit as well. I wouldn't use it if I didn't use the chromecast feature. It's buggy and unreliable, and also forgets what you were listening to last when you reopen it. They're also dickheads for removing backwards seeking on app/web and making it a 'premium' feature to subscribers. Nice try lads, but I'm just going to download the track using youtube-dl or offliberty if you pull stunts like that.

Zetetic

Hope we get a long read one day on what the fuck BBC Sounds is and why no one was able to stop it.

Zetetic

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on June 19, 2021, 04:32:24 PM
The search is wank as well
Yes, and in a fascinatingly inscrutable way where it feels that a lot of effort has gone into making that bad for a purpose that's very difficult to discern.

Sebastian Cobb

It's like a little puzzle game where you have to trick it into displaying what you want.

Zetetic

I'd happily swap a 'Vid Inquiry for a BBC Sounds Trial.

Sebastian Cobb

There was an article from last november about them moving to AWS. Which raised some questions in the article.

I guess the question about the BBC Sounds thing (whether cloud or not) is why aren't they using something like Elasticsearch which generally seems to work on most other sites?

Bazooka

I just had to change the time on my computer to allow a payment to be made for a flight to China. Chinese websites  in general are pretty Archaic, they actually work better on old versions of Internet Explorer, so hipster.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: peanutbutter on June 19, 2021, 03:56:01 PM
That's surely illegal?

Don't know this was ages ago (5 years ago or something) so it has probably changed a lot now.

Attila

Hands down the website that did my head in was the official government site/pages I had to use to first get a visa to move to the UK, and then the application stuff for Leave to Remain. It is deliberately obscure and obtuse to discourage people; you'd click on multiple links only to find yourself going around in a circle. Contact phone numbers led nowhere, or just to long menus that hung up on you.

In the end, the only way I could sort out the applications and paperwork was to hire an immigration lawyer -- who explained that my frustration with the site was exactly what was meant to happen.

Runner up is my university's intranet. Originally, you logged in, and were on the intranet. Search functions worked. One or two clicks from the home page, and you were in the library & its resources. Midway through a semester two years ago, the entire intranet and access portals were overhauled. Now you are stuck with the front page that the  general public sees, even when you're logged in to your uni account. The search function is useless. Using the library is a completely nightmare for staff and students alike: resources that were easily found with one or two clicks are now three, four, and five, and it's not always obvious how to navigate*.  Students and staff alike complained mightily, but senior management's blanket response was that the new marketing team felt this was a more robust and dynamic intranet.

*Their latest wheeze is to take the rather efficient reading list system we had that linked Canvas with the library and completely and utterly overhaul it. Again. I spent several weeks last summer rewriting completely the reading lists and their links on the updates to the old system -- no mean shakes considering I was teaching on 13 modules last year. Now we've got a completely new system, which will take forever again this summer to reload with materials (and goody, I'm on 16 modules next year).

More of a 'why fix what isb't broken?' scenario, but my university excels at chosing the worse, more awkward, and bloated systems and interfaces available. Whee.

seepage

Intranet apps that also have a public-facing webpage that says "Sorry, this app is not available on the Internet". So when they don't work, outsourced IT support just says "Well, the webpage says this app isn't available, so that's the answer."

Fambo Number Mive

It doesn't drive me insane, but it does annoy how many US news websites say I can't view their stories as I am viewing their website from within the EU, even though I am not. They have a big line of text saying "Our European visitors are important to us" even though they clearly aren't if their website is still not compliant with EU data regulation.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on June 19, 2021, 07:02:38 PM
It doesn't drive me insane, but it does annoy how many US news websites say I can't view their stories as I am viewing their website from within the EU, even though I am not. They have a big line of text saying "Our European visitors are important to us" even though they clearly aren't if their website is still not compliant with EU data regulation.

Without being allowed to harvest the data, you are of no value to them.

touchingcloth

Search on Google drive is somehow massively fucking broken, and won't return files you know for a fact are stored there when you search for their exact names.

Imgur are doing their utmost to prevent mobile users from uploading images via their browser. Using desktop mode lets you upload images, but they're always tweaking things to make it ever more difficult to actually get the URL for the image you uploaded.

shagatha crustie

Quote from: Attila on June 19, 2021, 06:46:20 PM
Hands down the website that did my head in was the official government site/pages I had to use to first get a visa to move to the UK, and then the application stuff for Leave to Remain. It is deliberately obscure and obtuse to discourage people; you'd click on multiple links only to find yourself going around in a circle. Contact phone numbers led nowhere, or just to long menus that hung up on you.

In the end, the only way I could sort out the applications and paperwork was to hire an immigration lawyer -- who explained that my frustration with the site was exactly what was meant to happen.

Yep - it's the same if you're running/setting up a small business, the levels of obfuscation and going round the houses are insane, and it seems to become more so if your query is urgent or important. I can only assume they want you to fall foul of the various fines.

Dusty Substance


Spotify. It'll often take up to five minutes to go from "I want to listen to song X" to song X actually starting.


greencalx

Any website that has arbitrary restrictions on the structure of a password and doesn't tell you what they are. Bonus points if secure passwords like those generated by password manager apps are rejected, but "passw0rd#1" is allowed.

Zetetic

This system does tell you their password requirements, but 1) they're insane, 2) they're at odds with NCSC suggestions, and 3) there's no reason for it to even have its own authentication system:



Edit: Fuck that's not even up-to-date. Minimum length is now 12. (You can now use 'special characters'.)

And over 1.3 million people are forced to use it.

Edit: And up until 2 months ago, you had to change your password every three months (I think this policy is still the case in many places).

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: peanutbutter on June 19, 2021, 04:30:43 PM
Yep Dualingo is pretty toxic imo, it doesn't do anything to springboard you into deeper learning and it has an unusually aggressive notifications service that seems to cancel your options to disable emails every few months. Am pretty sure any other service that spammed users as aggressively would be consigned to spam by gmail.


They could've expanded the format into in-person lessons in various places or something like that as a bonus monetiser (it'd actually be great to do in person beginning lessons under the context that everyone has already done the duolingo course tbh) but it seems like the key monetiser is to get you to pay to maintain your streak if you happen to miss one day
Pretty sure it's just a dying app these days. Def seems like Match Group's have a kind of dating app life cycle plan of:

- new app arrives, has UI and quality of life improvements that start bringing in a high quality user base who are loving it
- Match Group acquire this app
- with their backing it gradually becomes very big
- at some point it has a huge number of users and momentum will ensure further growth for a while, so they start monetizing
- app experience gradually gets worse and more obviously against helping users meet anyone, the kind of people who initially boosted the app are put off by the general masses swarming it that don't seem particularly engaged in meeting new people
- another new app arrives, has UI and quality of life improvements that start bringing in a high quality user base who are loving it
- Match Group start bleeding the people too tech averse to leave this app whilst letting the app fall apart


Okcupid is deep into its death stages now, most new features are likely to hide how few people are actively on it, Tinder has been on the way out for Hinge (both also owned by Match Group) for an age now and Hinge is beginning to shift towards monetisation mode for a while now too.

That's interesting to read, I didn't know much about the way match operates but it seems to be a right old mess, taking away all the functions people liked about the site and just making it another tinder-esque affair where you're encouraged to either pass on or like someone, and hardly anyone seems to bother filling out their profiles these days too.

paruses

Quote from: peanutbutter on June 19, 2021, 04:30:43 PM
Yep Dualingo is pretty toxic imo, it doesn't do anything to springboard you into deeper learning and it has an unusually aggressive notifications service that seems to cancel your options to disable emails every few months. Am pretty sure any other service that spammed users as aggressively would be consigned to spam by gmail.

Appreciate this and I have decided not to do my few minutes today. Was well aware I was just playing the system and not getting anything oit of it - just feeding the obsessive/addictive bit of my personality and also getting stressed/dread of having to do it in the evening.

I'll pick it up again in a few days but do it like if did at the beginning which was to learn new things then reinforce them.

pigamus

Quote from: icehaven on June 19, 2021, 04:19:42 PM
The Network West Midlands app that's supposed to tell you when the bus is coming seems to have gone a bit shit. It tells me my bus i a due is 7 minutes, then 12, then 3 all within about 30 seconds. Not a lot of use.

I use this
http://www.buschecker.com/app/UK/