Because “mobile first” design, means “PC last (if at all)”.

It’s because the apps work as black boxes stopping the end user from blocking their telemetry, advertising and tracking.

What I hate more is how companies deliberately add blocks to their websites if you’re on mobile so as to force the user to download the app.

Two of the most egregious samples I’ve seen so far is Microsoft teams that shows a banner saying “this browser is not supported”, but switching your user agent or enabling desktop mode from within your phone’s browser makes it work perfectly fine.

Another is Facebook (yuck) which displays a fake loading bar that never finishes unless you trick it the same way as with teams. Their mobile site prevents you from posting anything, commenting, viewing random posts, uploading files, or seeing notifications. If you don’t have the app installed, you’re essentially locked out of messenger because it is reluctant at opening any shared files or posts as that has to be opened through the facebook app (obviously). What’s worse is I’m prompted to log in to Facebook every time I open any link Facebook or not from within messenger.

I’d love to fully uninstall meta’s apps but I have family members that only use their apps (fuck the networking effect)

Use RTINGS next time for electronics reviews. They’re so much more in-depth than any other review site; they test every single aspect of the products and lay out the info in a manner that’s easy to understand, while still providing all the technical jargon for geeks like me. And no mobile number needed, either. The site is well-optimized for desktop.

Yes, I hate it. In fact, I hate most of the impact of smartphones on the internet:

• I’m not giving you my phone number. Shu’up. Stop asking.
• I’m not installing your broken browser made for a single site. Aka, your “app”. And if you don’t let me check your site without that “app”, I am not doing it.
• Smart web devs can deal with different screen ratios, but those are a minority. So guess what - I get blank space on both sides of my screen!
• I’ve noticed (based on myself + acquaintances) that people have worse basic reading comprehension when using a phone than a computer. And I’m tempted to blame the sorry state of social media partially on that.

I have a feeling there are more mobile users than PC users now.

They don’t prioritize mobile users, they prioritize mobile apps - easier to track and gather telemetry, easier to show ads (harder to use adblock), easier to send notifications, you can expect the user to return if they already downloaded an app.

I’m also frustrated. But at work the other day I learned that like 75% of our usage is from mobile phone users. Sometimes you just have to realize you’re in the minority; and that other people will make bad choices.

It’s okay. They are wrong for using their mobile phones for everything. PCMR brother. Never change.

On Instagram

Funny you describe all the annoyances of web vs mobile, but visit this awful site. Instagram wont let me see anything at all, web, mobile or otherwise because I don’t and won’t have an account.

Maybe avoiding social media all together is a better idea.

I know it’s not what you were asking about, but you will probably find this website helpful: https://www.rtings.com/

They are by far the best consumer electronic rating website I’ve ever seen. There’s a table view where you can do things like show me all computer monitors that have black frame insertion or show me all headphones with an audio delay of less than 5 ms and other weirdly specific stuff like that.

I used to be upset by all the mobile shit and then I went to college for computer stuff and started hating looking at computers after working on them all day. Now I’m a help desk tech and I don’t own a working computer of my own because using them outside of work feels like work. If I can’t do something official on mobile, I just get permission to do it on my work computer. If something for fun doesn’t have a mobile version, I don’t do whatever that thing is.

I do not like all the requests for phone numbers and shit, though. Just let me look at the site without being bothered.

Ironically enough I only use lemmy on my phone (browser or voyager) and it works way better than desktop for some reason. I couldn’t even get a post to work on firefox the other day, and images were not loading.

Also the opposite can be infuriating. When a company asks you to install their app, you usually find that the website has more features. Looks like usually the app is just a bare bones version of the actual website with several core features missing.

I only ever browse social media on a PC and that’s the way it will always be. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like desktop/computer users are becoming an afterthought. Anyone else have similar feelings? 🫠

They are. This gives much better control to them of what we’re doing when we’re doingon ‘our’ phone, and much less control to us at the same time. It’s a Win-Win situation… for them only. And a lose-lose for us (worse experience and much less control of it).

That’s one of the reasons I refuse to use my phone to do anything… where I still have the option.

This shouldn’t really be surprising, I’d think most people’s internet usage is probably on their phone, and has been for some time.

People don’t want to sit at a desk or whatever and browse or do their socials stuff, they want to do it sat on the sofa while the TV is on or in between chores in the house.

I think the last two companies I’ve worked for, both B2C have had mobile web and app usage way higher than desktop web.