Judging by the number defenders of advertising every time one of these sorts of threads shows up on HackerNews, it's astonishing to me how many people's livings are dependent on this garbage.
I’m amazed as well! Notifications are like permission for strangers to interrupt my life at their leisure. I don’t want their coupons, their announcements, their... whatever else. I’ve got important things in my life that I want to give my attention to and the last thing I need is a direct line into my pocket, desk, and home to try and get my attention. To me this sounds like a dystopian society where ad agencies rule the world. I recognize that not everyone is as extreme as me, but why can’t we agree that such notifications are not the best thing for us?
I agree. I ended up turning all notifications off except for the ones that I do want to be interrupted for (like texts from my SO or Uber) and my time spent on the phone decreased significantly.