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by mullingitover 407 days ago
> I can't get into my coworking space without a door unlock app on my phone.

And that app is probably free, covered by the costs of the paid apps, the majority of which are brainrot games and social media[1].

Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity.

[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/29389/global-app-revenue-by-s...
1 comments
TheDong 407 days ago
The app is free for users, but the coworking space pays the app's company a considerable fee to manage access to the doors and audit logs and such, so it's not that it's subsidized by brainrot games.

Free apps on iOS should be subsidized by, I don't know, the purchase price of the phone and the $100 yearly developer fee I'd think.

> Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity.

The system isn't funding "virtuous activity", the system is a for-profit system for the benefit of the richest company on the planet.

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mullingitover 407 days ago
> the coworking space pays the app's company a considerable fee to manage access to the doors and audit logs and such, so it's not that it's subsidized by brainrot games.

I think you're well aware that these fees don't go toward the iOS SDK licensing/infra/staffing/security/distribution costs of the app and the App Store. That's what is being subsidized by the brainrot games.

Furthermore, there's nothing stopping that app maker from bypassing the app store and simply making a webapp, so this argument that you need an iphone to open the door is really moot. It's not the smartphone makers' fault that the door company's customers demand this product.

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TheDong 406 days ago
> Furthermore, there's nothing stopping that app maker from bypassing the app store and simply making a webapp, so this argument that you need an iphone to open the door is really moot

The door opener uses NFC, and iOS does not allow webapps to use NFC, only app-store apps: https://caniuse.com/webnfc

Apple has consistently made the experience of using webapps worse, including making installing them so convoluted that most users continue to not even know they exist.

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