Comment by snooggums@midwest.social on Why does my treadmill want my email address?

This is a gen x complaint. Boomers would just ask their kids to set it up because they can’t get it to work. Gen x realizes what is going on and that it is bullshit to need an account for a fucking lightbulb.

Boomer isn’t really used as a generational term nowadays

It’s also a millennial complaint.

Sincerely, elder millennial who recently had to make separate accounts for a lightbulb and an air cooler and is sick of that bullshit.

Gen Z doesn’t know what a “boomer” is…

My late 50s mum happily signs up with her Facebook to everything. Meanwhile it’s often the people in their late 20s to 30s who were introduced to computers during their youth before everything had super streamlined GUIs who know enough about software that they realize this is a privacy concern, what internet privacy means, and why it’s important. People who are older or younger than that have to go out of their way to learn how and why to look behind the easy interfaces. That’s my experience and explanation at least.

My young family members are the worst, they just click “yes” to everything, regardless of any effort I’ve made to explain how things work.

Any barrier to convenience is too frustrating to them. They don’t like even using full applications in their laptops, always say “wheres the app, this is too complex”. 🤦🏼‍♂️

that’s not just young people that’s 80~90% of users

You’re not wrong. Ffs.

I’d say you made the point better than any of us.

I know some network security folks, in their 40’s, who’ve literally said “I don’t want to be inconvenienced” when discussing why they tolerate this invasive shit.

Motherfucker, your job is securing networks. You know first hand the kind of shit going on out there.

Remember when our parents were super nuts about keeping your info private online, not revealing too much info to strangers, and not signing up for stupid shit? My my, how the turntables.

My 70yo mom thinks I’m crazy paranoid because of my data privacy stances, while she’s dealing with constant spam and account hacks. Guess who hasn’t had damn near any info issues? :D

Then: Don’t trust everything you read on the internet, and Wikipedia isn’t legitimate because anyone can edit it

Now: Some loud moron on Youtube told me a thing and I believe it 100%.

Then: people on the internet were mostly technically adept and creating webpages because they enjoyed them.

Now: people on the internet are mostly ad tech attention economy scams and creating LLM spam blogs for PPC revenue.

It’s just easier now for a conspiracy loon to find something that matches their preconceived biases.

It really sucks now for product comparisons. It used to be the you could look up productA vs productB and get an enthusiast going on about them, now it’s purely AI generated crap.

That’s because for her the only risk is about getting kidnapped or killed, stuff that needs physical contact. Getting accounts hacked and phone scams are relatively new in her life span.

Not personally, but I remember the feeling

My mom never actually had any idea what the internet was. My dad bought the PC for me, so he probably would’ve doubled down if he knew what I was seeing and maybe would’ve even said it was good for me or not a big deal or something

It’s weird to see my 11yr old brother now with the exact same access to YouTube which I’d ironically argue is a lot worse than old rotten.com. No idea if that’s true but an argument could be made, for sure

Eh the internet was a lot simpler back then. Yeah there was fucked up shit around like there is today, but social networking imo is what really screwed the pooch. Back then, people just posted screwy shit for the sake of it and had varying degrees of influence, but now almost everything out there is intended to manipulate your behavior and worldview on a mainstream level. It’s a shitton more dangerous than the weirdos in chatrooms asking a/s/l.

I was never allowed to be on Club penguin or the like. I also wasn’t allowed to be on Facebook when it became popular around me, until I was 14. Mum, what happened?

Tbf you weren’t missing much with Facebook. It was kinda cool in the early days when it replaced MySpace (like Reddit to Digg), but that went out the window pretty quick when all your extended family are calling your parents wondering why there are tagged pictures of you dancing around a fire half naked with a liquor bottle in your hand at 3am.

I really wish more things just let me log in with Facebook, I don’t want to fill out and make passwords for every pointless site. At least I can be somewhat confident that Facebook will follow security standards.

Hahahahahaha Facebook follow security standards? Your fucking kidding, right?

Facebook, probably the first greatest scourge of privacy invading companies (worse than Google), follows secjrity standards?

The motherfuckers have a profile on me, and I’ve never once been on any Facebook website or service, let alone logged into any Facebook crap.

You’re probably aware, but welcome to third party tracking. You can’t truly get away from this trash unless you start doing some hardcore blocking at the network level (apps have tracking too).

Based on their long track record of privacy excellence?

They dont care about your privacy, they do care about their security, which your account being compromised would hurt.

Might I recommend a reasonably secure browser with an in-built password generator and manager? I use Firefox. You make up a username and it generates a safe password and saves it so you don’t have to remember it’d Just use a safe password for the browser itself that you can easily remember. I personally feel that’s a decent compromise between secure and convenient.

They still have a profile on everyone, established long before we could limit anything.

I love the basic instructions for someone debating security policy nuance. It’s like you don’t get that he’s way, way, way beyond “pick a password you can easily remember” despite the technical level of the discussion.

The person I’m replying to isn’t the only one reading the comment. Chances are someone who’s on the fence or hasn’t interacted with the issue yet will benefit from it a little. That’s what I like to think at least.

That’s still shifting responsibility to the users, which is great for all these crappy products, but we should be demanding better.

Of course, but meanwhile, we have to take of our own privacy.

Boomers would get the bulb set up by their kids, then something will happen, and you come over to find your parents sitting in a rave room because they need the light and can’t fix it.

Hahahahaha “rave room” ain’t that the truth

Nope. Mom’s meross bulb got a little fucked in a power failure. She unscrewed its green self and put in a regular bulb.

Boomers WILL solve this. But they’ll go low-tech even if it means unplugging the cord to turn it off.

And haven’t mentioned the issue even though it’s been like that for months.

Millennial here. We are in agreement.

I think it’s a complaint from everyone but Gen z, who are just used to it.

I’m too poor to have this complaint, I guess. I have to do everything manually still

I mean yeah we are used to it but it’s still shitty. Are you not used to it?

Gen z to me is just the boomers mark II.

For what reason? That doesn’t make any sense.

I meet a lot of overentitled Gen z. They remind me of the boomers that I also meet a lot of. Of course neither group can see it.

This might surprise you, but people are people no matter what generation they were born in.

Boomers is a name for a specific reason.

I think this is a common-sense complaint, mostly unrelated to generation.

Somewhere between milennial and gen-z here. I can’t fucking stand making more accounts just because companies want to collect data. And neither can my gen-z younger siblings.

Used to it ≠ Not complaining about it

As genz, can confirm

Ah. Resignation is NOT acceptance.

Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.

Sadly these days, it’s a hold over from boomer managers making the decision that services require logins, which in turn require accounts and emails. So gen-x managers who were taught by boomers do the same thing. It’s systematic really.

It’s happening purely because people tolerate it.

I don’t think it’s boomer managers doing that, necessarily; I think it’s an unholy alliance of liassez-faire tech bro entrepreneurs and the ~~propaganda~~ marketing industry.

Gen X here and can confirm.

what kind of lightbulbs are you guys buying? I’ve never had to set up an account for this kind of stuff

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