Clearly application software runs our lives. It isn’t like we have a choice. Every commercial enterprise we patronize tries to force us to sign up for their application or portal. They tell us life will become so much better if we download and use their app. And it does. For them not for us. Once we sign up for an app, all of the effort required to review merchandise, place an order, close a sale, select shipping criteria, make an appointment, and make a payment for goods or services passes to us. We are virtually doing all of the work. An additional benefit to the owner of the application is they get to review all of our browsing activity. By plugging in artificial intelligence they can bombard us with a vast array of targeted offers totally directed to AI’s interpretation of our wants and desires. From their perspective this all happens “untouched by human hands”. They have effectively passed all of the maintenance functions over to their customers.
For many of the necessities of life, we are forced into this paradigm. Try to make a doctors appointment, airline reservation, dinner reservation, golf tee time, food take out order, car servicing appointment, or newspaper subscription, without going through an app or a portal. Try getting tickets to a sports event or entertainment event. How about reporting an outage issue to your cable or streaming provider.
It is bad enough that we have to do all of the work as “customers” of these vendors. The problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that so many have provided crummy, insufficient tools to get the job done. Often the applications don’t work well or work at all. They are half baked solutions that I like to call Half Apps.
The vendors and service organizations have done a Half Apps job of designing and implementing the technology. It is stunning that so little empathy for the customers has been baked into the implementation process. In essence, the App providers never seem to spend much time in our seats before they release this software. Very often, these Half Apps efforts are thrust upon customers, clients and patients, long before they are sufficiently tested.
Here are a couple Half Apps examples.
Occasionally, I shop at a National Grocery Store that is owned by one of the largest online Shopping Entities in the world. I stop at the Grocers and pick up some sale items and a gallon of my favorite chocolate milk. It comes from brown cows that only have consumed totally organic grasses in a nation that has the lowest level of polluted air on earth. They have piped Brahms lullabies into the numerous oak trees that are used to shade the herd, resulting in the most optimally contented bovines on the planet. Chocolate is fed to the cows and the resulting milk is brown and chocolate flavored. At twenty seven dollars a gallon, it is a little pricey but worth it.
I have a membership in the Shopping Entity that provides me with special discounts and sales at the Grocery Store. Of course, to take advantage of the sales, I must pay with a credit card that is offered by the Shopping Entity. The first time I check out, I proffered the special credit card. I noticed that I was not credited for the discounts and sales. The clerk points out that I can’t actually be credited for the discount if I don’t sign in with the Grocery Store App when I am in the check out line. I forego the discounts and I prepare for my next visit. I downloaded the Grocery Store App. On my second visit, when I reach the check out line. I turn on the Grocery Store App on my mobile phone. The App won’t come up. The clerk responds that it probably doesn’t recognize the browser I am using on my mobile phone. I replied that, when I downloaded the App, the technology never warned me that specific browsers were required and I am not leaving without my discounts. The manager comes over and overrides the computers to activate my discounts.
After the second visit, I go online and determine what environment is required to use the Half App solution the Grocer has in place. Takes a mere hour and fifteen minutes but I believe I have the fix. Okay, back to the store for more of the chocolate nectar and some sale items. I touch the app button on my phone, the symbol appears, I pay with the special credit card and everything works fine. In addition to all of the other duties I have to fulfill to buy groceries from this store, I have now added software engineer to my job description.
Everything works well for a few weeks. Suddenly, when I push the app button on my mobile phone, it tells me that the activation failed. The checkout professional says that… “They are having problems activating the Grocer’s App and things would go a lot more smoothly if I downloaded the online Shopping Entity’s App into my mobile phone. That one comes up all the time.” At this point, I have invested two or three hours to get the flawed app to work and they are telling me that I need to switch to a different app because the original is flawed again. How bad is this! I am standing in their Grocery Store using their App which they required me to download and use and they can’t make it work. Talk about Half Apps! I have a lot of experience with the large online Shopping Entity’s technical people and anticipate that several bad things will happen if I try to utilize the parent company’s mobile App. First, it will require an hour or two of effort for me to make it operational on my mobile device. Second, I will be providing the opportunity for the online Shopping Entity to bombard my mobile phone with solicitations. Third, it will only be a few weeks before they make me use a totally different App.
I suggested that the sales clerk page the manager to give me my discounts with her magic bypass code. I formally introduced myself to Ms. Smith. I said: “It looks like we are going to be close friends. Your technical people have done a Half Apps job with the Grocery Store Application and your assistance will be required every time I check out. Downloading your parent company’s application has a lot of negatives for me. Notwithstanding, if it was developed by the same technical staff, it will probably take a few hours to make it work on my mobile phone. I will allot an extra ten minutes for every visit because of the protracted check out process. Certainly, I won’t be frequenting your establishment very often as long as the app is malfunctioning. I am addicted to the ‘Nectar of the Gods’ chocolate milk, however, so you can expect me every two weeks or so.”
Recently, I had an equally rewarding experience with my favorite airline, Gamma Airlines. I have nearly three million life time, frequent flyer, miles with this air carrier. So I am at least a minor Pubah with the company. Several years ago I was encouraged to sign up for their mobile App. My life would get a lot better. It did get better because they cut back very significantly on phone support. What used to be ten minute phone conversations, on the privileged customer phone line, turned into sixty minute adventures. I spent an hour enrolling in the mobile App. I answered a few dozen questions describing all of my preferences. I preferred non stop flights, unrestricted main cabin fares, aisle seats. When travelling with my spouse, aisle and middle seats or aisle across seats. I preferred automatic wait listing for first class upgrades, and upgrades to Cozy Class if aisle seats were available.
For years, I have been using the airline’s on line application to make my reservations because there is such an incredible variability in air fares to the same destination. Changing flight times a few hours could save hundreds of dollars and often more than half the cost of the airfares. After I find satisfactory times and flights, I will check out the available seating. When I have the ideal times, cost and seating, I book the reservation. My ten minute phone conversation has moved to a forty five minute on line session so that I can accommodate Gamma Airline’s algorithms to maximize profits.
After I have booked everything on line, I use the mobile App to monitor the flight.
On our last excursion, I received a congratulatory text. “Good news! You have been upgraded to Cozy Class.” Cozy Class is truly no big deal. In essence, Cozy Class is still in the main cabin. The primary benefit for me is that I can get kettle chips instead of the cookies and Cheez Its they offer in the main cabin. My wife can enjoy wine at no cost. If I was still a practicing alcoholic instead of a recovering alcoholic it could be a big deal because I could enjoy complementary beer and wine. Before October 3, 1978, when I quit consuming alcohol, that would have been a huge dollar savings. Using the mobile App, I decide to check out the seat assignments. Yikes! Our pre upgrade seat assignments were aisle and the adjoining middle seat. Our complimentary “upgrade” puts us in center seats in two different rows. When I check the seating chart, only center seats are available on the entire airplane.
I have had a lot of bad of experience with center seats. The worst was probably a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles where I was seated between two athletes competing in the World Sumo Wrestling Championship.
So I called the preferred flyer customer service number. I spend twenty minutes fighting with the Half Apps robot that wants me to resolve the problem with no human assistance from the airline’s staff. It appears that the primary purpose of the App is to keep me from sucking up living human being resources of the airline. The robot directs me to the mobile App. I decline. It directs me to the on line App. I decline. It recommends that I start a chat with the Artificial Intelligence tool. I decline. The robot finally says “Okay, to ensure that I send you to the right agent, can you specifically tell me why you are calling?” Evidently, “To bitch about your crummy system changing my seats” is not an option the robot understands. After I say “speak to a representative” thirteen times the robot says “Okay, I will connect you with an Agent who can help.”
Five seconds later, I am disconnected.
I call back and go through exactly the same process, requiring another twenty minutes, a second time. The good news is I didn’t get disconnected and in four short minutes I am talking to a Gamma Airlines ticketing professional.
“Hello Mr. Sinelli. Thank you for being a life time platinum member of our frequent flyer program and for racking up nearly three million life time miles. My name is Barbara. How can I help you?” I reply, “Hi Barbara, I just received and email saying that my wife and I have been upgraded to Cozy Class and Gamma Airlines has assigned us center seats. In addition, when I go to seat selection to make a change, only center seats are available anywhere on the flight. Barbara indicates that the computer automatically takes the best available seats and the upgrade is automatically executed by the computer. I suggest that she look at the preferences in my frequent flyer profile. They clearly indicate that I don’t ever want to be upgraded to Cozy Class center seats. Barb says that she sees I selected that option. However, the selection is only a preference and the computer will respect that preference if non center seats are available. Otherwise, it will automatically change you to the best available seats which, currently, are all center seats. I respond, “Why did you give me that preference if your computer is going to ignore it?” Barb says, “You know we hear that a lot”. Not surprised. Frequent flyers really don’t like center seats. Gamma Airlines has done a Half Apps job in delivering something that is supposed to address the needs and desires of their customers.
The bottom line to me is I do all of the work and your application software overrides several hours of my effort to give me something I have tried very hard to avoid. Then the computer sends a message telling me how happy I should be with the choices the algorithm has made for me. I liked Gamma a lot better when I made reservations with a ten minute phone call. Now it takes at least forty five minutes and the dreaded algorithms can change my choices because “the computer does that automatically”.
These are Half App solutions. If he has time, I would be pleased to discuss my experiences with the President of Gamma Airlines. In fact, he has my permission to use my frequent flyer number to make a few reservations. I wonder how fulfilling he will find these software applications.
So this is life in 2026. Everyone we do business with forces us to use their Applications. Far too often they are really Half Apps.