Platforms, greed, and friction

There's a kind of petty greed that's increasing, or becoming increasingly visible, as every company is captured by MBA Biz Bros who care only about their upcoming quarterly bonus.  What I mean is there's more friction to just about everything we do aimed at squeezing every possible penny out of us.

This just happened to me:  I wanted to buy my kid a Fortnite battle pass.  He plays on the Nintendo Switch.  I figured it was time to create an actual Epic account for him in case he ever wanted to play on another platform. Epic needs to be the platform of record for Fortnite player info.  Fine, it's their multi-platform game, that makes sense.  The documentation, such as it was, about how to link the implicitly created Epic account that got created when he started playing on Switch to an actual Epic account he can log in with on the web was... confusing.  I ended up trying to create an Epic account then link the Nintendo account.  Nope, this account is already linked to the ghost Epic account.  Fine.  I'll log in with the link nintendo account button.  Oh, that needs me to add an email address to the implicit account.  Fine!  But now that I've used his preferred address for the useless account I need a different one for the implicit account.  No, adding "+fortnite" to the gmail address didn't work. "Invalid address".  No it's not, you're just being stupid.  Thankfully, there's another account we can use.  Perfect, now to buy the pass...

Where the fuck do you buy a pass on this website?  You can't.  And it doesn't say you can't.  I had to Google search and find a few Reddit posts to learn you have to buy through the game itself.  That's dumb.  Oh, well I could buy vbucks right, and he can spend those in the game, right?  NO. Nintendo doesn't let you use fortnite vbucks purchased outside of nintendo.  You have to buy the special nintendo flavored fortnite vbucks through the nintendo store, to spend on the switch.  And no, this is not disclosed anywhere, except angry Reddit posts.

All these companies that have to work together scrabble to control every aspect they can and extract a toll at every junction.  No one cares about the actual experience for the user anymore.  The C-suites sure don't.

When's the last time you tried to do something a little out of the happy path and it worked first try?  Don't say Apple.  Apple has never "just worked" for me.  The entire UI is unintuive and undiscoverable, and they are just as guilty of trying to squeeze blood from a stone and control every aspect of what you can do with products you outright bought.  Example:  I dare you to try to upload an already built, already signed IPA to App store connect without Xcode.  And if you need Xcode, you need a Mac.  Or a service like Codemagic, which is what I use.  But it's a file.  To upload to a website.  This is solved technology, they don't need to gatekeep it.

Every company wants all your data, and all your transactions to go through them so they can skim off the top.  Every company wants to control what you can do with stuff you own.

"Hey Google, add apples to my OurGroceries shopping list"

"Sure, but I'll need permission to access your Keep data".

"I didn't ask you to put it on Keep, I asked you to put it in OurGroceries."

"Sure, but I'll need permission to access your Keep data".

Or this one:

"Hey Google, play Soul Coughing with Symfonium"

"Sure, do you want to play on YouTube Music or Spotify?"

"Fuck you Google."

"This is Comcast support bot, how can I help?"

"My cable modem drops connection several times a day.  I can see in the diagnostics page that the problem is the power levels of the signal is not nearly high enough, please fix."

"We will need to send a technician into your house to reboot your modem and poke around your stuff."

"No, fuck you Comcast, the problem is between your node and my house."

"We need to send a technician to an 8 hour availability window which he will somehow still not arrive within.  You must be home and allow this stranger to enter your house for the problem you've already determined is not in your house because we want to discourage people from actually calling about our shitty monopoly service."

"In order to use the HOV carpool lanes you're legally entitled to, you must install this literal tracking transponder in your vehicle.  If you don't, we'll use the cameras and database to send you inflated toll bills instead of just checking that you bought the pass you shouldn't even need because there were 3 people in the car."

"We're unilaterally changing our terms of service to allow us to sell all your behavioral data and/or train AI on anything you use our platform for.  Also, if you write something too spicy in what you believed was a private document we'll shut down your account."

Banking apps check whether your phone is rooted, and won't let you use them if it is.  But you can use a browser on that same phone no problem.

I just want things to work, and not try to control every aspect of how I do things.  I want to drive to the store without being recorded by 7 Ring doorbells and 3 Flock cameras all of which the police can access without a warrant because "LMAO".

Sure the "controversial" (wildly unpopular) bill was defeated, but it'll be attached to the next budget, or proposed again and again until it slips through.  We need to keep defeating the obvious evils constantly. Our zones are flooded, and in many cases our homes are too.

I'm mad as hell and there's very little I can do about it. The soap box speeches have fallen on deaf ears, and the ballot boxes are about to be tested.  We'll see what happens next.