The notion that people choose to use computer applications because they are useful at accomplishing tasks is extremely outdated. The vast majority of software use is not voluntary.
We choose or are required to engage with a person, organization, business, government. They dictate what software to use for the interaction based on what is most convenient and advantageous to them.
@chris__martin I feel this in my bones. I have something like a hundred apps installed on my iPhone, and of those only a handful are things I *want* to have installed, the rest are things I *need* to have installed, just because of some dumb requirement for hardware or a community I belong to or whatever (like the spammy social media app that the clay studio I fire my pottery at uses for schedule notifications).
@fluffy @chris__martin
Yah.
I do find a lot of (Android) apps useful. But three categories I've come to loath:
* Apps needed only rarely, but absolutely required for some function when I do need them. Otherwise taking up space.
* Apps that duplicate the same function. The number of school-to-parent communication apps in particular seems to multiply.
* "This could have been a webpage" apps. A webpage might even exist and work better, but the company forces app use on mobile devices.