I Will Not Install Your App

Due to the infinite wisdom of a city's highway department, I had to go to a different gas station today. As far as I can tell, every road to the gas station I frequent is block off by construction. If I were the owner of that gas station, I'd be uparmoring a Komatsu bulldozer, but I digress. There's a reason I frequent this particular gas station. Filling up my gas tank only requires me to pull up to a gas pump, insert my credit card into a slot, select the fuel I want, and start dispensing. It's a straightforward process involving no unnecessary actions. Every other gas station in the area has made the straightforward task of filling a gas tank anything but straightforward. It starts the same. I insert my credit card into a slot. But instead of being allowed to select the type of fuel I want, I'm asked to open an app on my phone to scan a QR code for "rewards." If you hit the cancel button, it cancels the transaction entirely. The only way to bypass the screen is to choose a much less prominent skip button. The name is in a much smaller font. When you tap that little button, the screen then prompts you for your phone number. Again, for "rewards." Skipping it requires pressing the cancel button (which doesn't cancel the transaction entirely on that screen). Only then are you allowed to choose the type of fuel you want to dispense.

I could ignore this if gas pumps were the only thing prompting me to install an app on my phone. But seemingly every business is doing it. My wife and I went to a new restaurant last month. When we got there, we were prompted to scan a QR code on the table to see the menu. First, scanning a random QR code stuck to a table is a stupid idea. Second, we didn't have our phones with us because unlike 90% of the world's population, we're not hopelessly addicted to them. It turns out this restaurant didn't have physical menus so the server had to resort to scanning the QR code with her phone to show us the menu. Of course she acted like we did something wrong for daring to leave our voluntary government tracking devices at home. Needless to say, we're not going back there.

I traveled for work a few weeks ago. When I got to the hotel, I walked up to the front desk to check in. The first thing the receptionist said to me was, "You can check in using our app." I told her that I wasn't interested. She then said, "With our app, you can use your phone as your room key." No I can't. I don't have Google Play Services installed on my phone (because I'm not stupid) and that functionality almost always requires it. She seemingly couldn't comprehend that though because she said, "Our app works on Android and iOS." Then she tried sweetening the deal by adding, "You can also check out using our app." Had she started checking me in when I arrived, she would've had me checked in faster than it took her to beg me to install the hotel chain's stupid app. It would've been far less annoying too.

From the coffee shop telling customers to order in their app for pick up to the grocery store making their coupons available exclusively through their app, every business seems to be begging customers to install yet another fucking app. If I installed every app for every business I frequent, I'd likely run out of storage space (these apps are often poorly programmed and bloated to add icing to the cake) on my phone. If I want to order ahead, I'll call (quake in fear, young barista, for I know the ancient dark sorcery of dialing a phone number). I'm certainly not installing an app to save 5¢ on a carton of eggs.

Smartphones have fallen into the same trap as so much other technology. They're being shoehorned into everything whether it makes sense or not. I refuse to play this game. I will not install your app. If you don't like it, I'll find a business that does.