Mastodawn

Holy fuck -- Google (as in The Google Play Store, the built-in app store on all Android devices) just sent me a notification, WITH SOUND, telling me not to lose my "GAMING STREAK"?? As in, that I should stop what I'm doing and play a video game, in order to not risk "my streak"???

This is, like.... just capital-e Evil???

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RavenWorks Mar 22

like! the idea of an app reminding you of your "streak" is like, barely socially permissible when it's in service of something *objectively good*, like exercise, or practising/learning something; a habit that you *want* to form despite how difficult it is to do so.

encouraging people to stop what they're doing and just Play A Mobile Game, Any Mobile Game? just feels like something out of a cynical "idiocracy"-style satire, that I'd describe as too beyond-the-pale to actually believe???

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RavenWorks

I guess when I put it like that, I've lost count of the number of new things in the past few years that I'd describe that way, and this is a far cry from the worst of them..... idk, it's just so unjustifiably crass?? My jaw honestly dropped. Like god knows that individual games are all doing this, but -- Google is just fully, fully, openly mask-off at this point, even to their own end users? They're laying it THAT bare?