[IncandescentGas]

These regularly spaced and frequent junk notifications are so important to tech companies because they drive product addiction. Interrupting your day 16 times forcing someone to decide to scroll their feed yet again today, until they're as helpless as Pavlov's dog.

How is this kind of computer science any more ethical than the chemists who worked to modify tobacco to be more addictive?

Apple and Google are complicit in this too. Product addiction drives smartphone addiction, so don't expect them to take any real steps to protect the average person from this sort of psychological abuse by their phones.

[stackskipton]

I'm shocked Apple hasn't tried to fix it and use it as selling point. Smartphone companies don't need to hook the user anymore, almost everyone is high on the smack at this point.

[jerlam]

Apple used to not allow ads in push notifications when the iPhone was first released. Sadly, that restriction was removed in 2020:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21165087/ios-apple-push-no...

[daxelrod]

Part of Apple clearly wants to do that with Focuses giving more control around what notifications people get in which contexts.

Unfortunately other parts seem to think the opposite. For example, Apple News by default sends notifications for puff pieces like years-in-review rather than just urgent breaking news.