Expected, but just leads to reinforcing the idea that PWAs won’t ever be as good when every one people try from someone with a popular app is so awful.

Can an app uniquely identify me if I don't give it control over my phone number / nearby devices?

Can apps geo-locate me if the location permission has not been granted? (seems like they could just make a network request to their servers and use the IP address of the request for a rough idea).

I _really_ wish using the network was a permission (even if it was an "advanced mode" thing).

I needed a couple of grocery items and happened to be next to an Amazon Fresh. Cool, let’s try it! Went in, found everything I needed and went to self checkout. When it was time to pay, the machine wouldn’t accept Apple Pay. I ask an employee who helpfully informs me that I can pay with physical cards or my Amazon account.

I didn’t have my physical cards, nor wanted to do my Amazon account so I had to leave empty handed. Why don’t they accept Apple Pay? Because they can’t track you. If you use a physical card, they can likely link that card number to an Amazon account and thus attribute the purchase to a person. If you pay with contactless payment they get a one time token that they can’t tie to anyone.

Obviously if you're not competent or are lazy with whitelisting apps when you need them to use the internet and then disabling it again this will be unhelpful to you; continue to feed the machine.

See ya, jerks.

I think it's also saving me money!

I know there's various data apps can collect. On iOS at least it seems like you have to grant permission for the app to access most of it. But how on Earth is this supposed to work? How does the app on my phone know if I just got paid?

This behaviour is pretty prevalent worldwide, I believe. Especially the phone plan setup use case happened to me in Bangkok, too. This happens to me in India at gas stations, cafes and even local supermarkets. All want me to install their apps, and the first step is to log in with my mobile number.

With auto-detection of mobile numbers/Google Accounts on Android, it's even easier to create an account in one click.

Not sure iOS has anything equivalent

The problem with "apps" isn't the surreptitious attempts to access remote servers for data collection, surveillance and tracking/ads. Websites do more or less the same thing. The problem is that the corporate mobile OS sucks, it's user-hostile and exceedingly difficult to try to control

The advantage of websites is they do not require using a computer running a corporate mobile OS

any social things i add as pwa through the browser.

not interested in any of those fast food or store apps. never selling ad-space (and privacy) on my own device to save $2 on a hamburger and some fries, and even if i did want them, chances are high they wouldn't run on my device anyway (feature not bug) lol

thankfully in my area, we have some good local places where you can order food just fine over their website. and if it didn't work over the website, i can simply do it the old-fashioned way, pick up the phone and say "i'd like to place an order for XYZ.."

I've resorted to using the online web app.

McDonalds doesn't hire them either. But, they will pay a bigger share of the arbitration fees than you do.

>they’d have to settle it out of court with a mediator that Disney hired

It would be a mediator hired by JAMS, a neutral 3rd party.

You only need to make two changes to make your native app a better choice than your web portal, even for privacy:

1) Make your app open-source, and remove all the tracking.

2) Don't make a web portal. Your website should just be a website that displays information, not 5 MB of JS+WASM with a load of security issues.

I am skeptical, though, of the price discrimination claims. If McDonald's decides that the right price of a Big Mac for me is $1 and for you $4, that creates an arbitrage opportunity. You can pay me $3, and I pocket $2. The result is that I buy more big macs, and they bump my price up. You buy less, and they take your price down. Now it just trades at the market rate it was before, but with more steps.

> but the new trend is surveillance pricing. A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for your chicken nuggets than they do when you haven’t been paid in two weeks.

First of all, no, a company has no idea when you get paid. The reality of lots of apps (like McDonald's) is discount pricing. You pay full price at the store if you're a rich person who can't be bothered with apps. Downloading an app and creating an account is the modern equivalent of cutting out coupons or buy-10-get-one-free cards -- price-conscious consumers will go to the trouble and get cheaper prices. They're just loyalty programs. Price discrimination like this is nothing new, and it lets rich people subsidize the lower costs for people with less money.

These apps run in sandboxes. There's not much to surveil. Obviously don't grant them permissions to see your contacts or track your location all the time. Will the app be able to tie all your purchases to a single identity? Of course. But the stores already do that anyways if you use the same credit card for each purchase.

I don't mind downloading apps for the 5-10 stores/restaurants I go to most. Beyond that, I obviously won't because it's too much of a hassle. But the loyalty discounts I get save me real money. I have no problem with that.