Reading this post made me feel like I just went to the cinema, and the film that played was an eerily close rendition of my life.
750% agree with everything you’ve said in here, Dan.
My vaguely adjacent journey into something similar recently was plant care apps. I downloaded 7 of them. They were all the same. And they were all bad. Instead of helping me keep on top of my plant care, they essentially just wanted me to build little plant databases, and make plant care *seem* easy and fun. But they’re only adding an unnecessary layer of what I’m going to call “info games” - just playing around with information, putting it into a different format with no real meaningful net improvement. And the one issue I wanted to diagnose with one of my plants was diagnosed incorrectly anyway.
So I deleted them all, surprised that they cost so variably - anywhere from £25 to £100+ per year. And went back to the last (unfortunately dying) vestige of free, helpful human knowledge that has no ulterior motive - Reddit. (Or, at least, some parts of it.)
Brad, I have to admit I was terrified to see the email informing me of your comment. I forgot I'd scheduled this post and it was still a draft 😂 Thankfully, it was in better shape than I remembered 😮💨
Love the cinema analogy! I found this easy to write because I've also fallen into this hole 200 odd times. Haha, I nearly went down the plant care app rabbit hole a while ago. But I settled on a spreadsheet. And then just realised that after a month or keeping on top of it, my human brain remembered what to do (water them each Sunday, pay attention etc). +1 on reddit too, I still use it a lot for human answers to basic questions.
You're right that there is some strange fetish in trying to create collections and play "info games" with whatever data an app is concerned with. But again, 99% of the time it distracts from the main thing you're trying to do, likely to "promote engagement"
Agree 110% except for ChatGPT!
Haha, I knew ChatGPT would pop up here. It's not hit that 1% difference for me yet, but I'm interested to see how it's impacting others.
Reading this post made me feel like I just went to the cinema, and the film that played was an eerily close rendition of my life.
750% agree with everything you’ve said in here, Dan.
My vaguely adjacent journey into something similar recently was plant care apps. I downloaded 7 of them. They were all the same. And they were all bad. Instead of helping me keep on top of my plant care, they essentially just wanted me to build little plant databases, and make plant care *seem* easy and fun. But they’re only adding an unnecessary layer of what I’m going to call “info games” - just playing around with information, putting it into a different format with no real meaningful net improvement. And the one issue I wanted to diagnose with one of my plants was diagnosed incorrectly anyway.
So I deleted them all, surprised that they cost so variably - anywhere from £25 to £100+ per year. And went back to the last (unfortunately dying) vestige of free, helpful human knowledge that has no ulterior motive - Reddit. (Or, at least, some parts of it.)
Brad, I have to admit I was terrified to see the email informing me of your comment. I forgot I'd scheduled this post and it was still a draft 😂 Thankfully, it was in better shape than I remembered 😮💨
Love the cinema analogy! I found this easy to write because I've also fallen into this hole 200 odd times. Haha, I nearly went down the plant care app rabbit hole a while ago. But I settled on a spreadsheet. And then just realised that after a month or keeping on top of it, my human brain remembered what to do (water them each Sunday, pay attention etc). +1 on reddit too, I still use it a lot for human answers to basic questions.
You're right that there is some strange fetish in trying to create collections and play "info games" with whatever data an app is concerned with. But again, 99% of the time it distracts from the main thing you're trying to do, likely to "promote engagement"
Haha, ahh it's in great shape, don't you worry! The fact you're even scheduling content is testament to you really being on top of your writing!
Been there with the 'forget the app, use a spreadsheet approach' – those also end up being things I eventually ignore as well. 😅