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by nodamage 1433 days ago
> More restrictive and more transparent handling of permissions. Maybe this mechanism was caused by Uber bundling some sort of library that led to permissions leak. Perhaps the OS could expose that permission being triggered.

I don't think you've thought this all the way through. Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.
1 comments
Apocryphon 1433 days ago
Then it sounds like we have found ourselves a problem that is unsolvable both by OS-level protections and App Store review restrictions, and perhaps we should look beyond to other ways to rein in Uber.

> Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.

Wait, can't an improvement upon the OS be to make it more granular so that Uber is forced to establish separate permissions channels for rides (vital) vs. ads (not-so-vital), and that every time a notification of a certain type appears, the user is given the option to mute that channel entirely?

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nodamage 1433 days ago
Sure, you can offer me different notification channels for rides vs ads. But remember, I am an unscrupulous developer. How are you going to stop me from sending you ads through the rides channel?

My underlying point, of course, is just because the operating system provides certain APIs, does not mean they are going to be used in good faith.

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Apocryphon 1433 days ago
What I mean is if a notification presents itself, allow the user to mute it. If that channel was intended for rides, then the unscrupulous developer simply disables their own app.
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nodamage 1433 days ago
That's pretty unfortunate for the end user who is then forced to choose between having all notifications or not at all.
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hellisothers 1433 days ago
Fight the good fight, this is all valid concerns, I don’t look forward to the Netflix store to download Netflix, the Spotify store to download a Spotify, etc
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Apocryphon 1433 days ago
Both Netflix and Spotify are having mounting problems with user retention and growth. Pulling their apps off of the official, most highly-trafficked, App Store is literally suicide for them. Not to mention the inherent difficulty of creating and maintaining their own app stores, of which trying to convince users to sign up for would be a hurdle on its own.

Perhaps they could team up with Facebook and create a rival app store of those who don’t want to pay the 30% tax. Of which they can all hemorrhage users together- it should be noted that FB is also having issues maintaining and growing DAU.

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