The funny part is, this problem has already been solved by the thru-hiking and backpacking community. We call them "hiker boxes". But for them to work, it requires an agreement within the community on some unspoken rules. Things like take only what you need, try to leave more than you take, and don't abuse the system or everybody loses. Hikers actually enjoy leaving things behind that they hope will solve some immediate need for someone else, even if they never get to meet that person.
Looking out for one another in ways like this is mostly just baked into the subculture and that's one reason hiker boxes work (the other being you just don't want to carry extra weight). As someone who has backpacked through Yellowstone, I'm not sure it would work for the tourist culture there.
You’re welcome, let me know what you think! I’ve also asked that friend of mine for whom the app was originally designed to pop in here when he gets a chance and give you more of his perspective first hand.
It sounds like you and he share a lot of similar struggles. We realized that he wasn’t the only one with these needs so we’re very interested to hear about others’ experiences with the app. Look out for his response later on.
You've got the core concept of the app down, yes. My friend definitely experiences all the things you mentioned, from PDA to not remembering to open a tool/app he's decided to try to use. To work with those issues, I designed the app to be fun so that, even just by opening it, he gets those dopamine hits that his brain needs. Your points count up when you open it, there are subtly pleasing bouncy animations as you interact with it, things are colorful with customizable themes and sounds, there are haptics at just the right moments, etc. The whole thing is designed to make his brain /want/ to open it rather than being a tool he has to /remember/ to open.
As for the habit and reward system, it's similarly designed to be something he wants to use vs has to use because his PDA will immediately kick in and rebel against any kind of forced system. Our built-in tutorial tries to provide enough guidance on this to help you understand what types of habits/rewards could be effective for you and your brain so it doesn't run up against the problems you mentioned. The app does a lot of work to reward you for using the app in support of the habits you want to form without triggering the stuff like PDA that you're trying to avoid triggering. If you end up trying it out and have feedback on ways we can improve this, please do share! We're definitely open to feedback and have already received some good ideas for improving the tutorial from others we've shared this with.
The tone of the article dips a bit too far into sensationalism and fear mongering for my taste. While the concerns expressed are absolutely legitimate, I grow weary of people spreading fear for the sake of fear (or worse, clicks) without any mention of what we can do to protect ourselves. Spreading fear and then calling people to action based on that fear is not really leading us down a good path.
I've noticed the effects of this reaching normal people. It can be debilitating when they're spoon-fed fear without a corresponding dose of digital safety education. They're afraid of these companies or the internet in general but don't really know why. That kind of environment makes it all too easy for someone with an agenda to step in and take control of the narrative, manipulating people for their own purposes. "You're afraid. Let me tell you why you're afraid and how I'm going to fix it. Vote for me."
If you miss the vibe of a small community of mostly intelligent, supportive beings, you might find some of that in the tildeverse.
It's a "loose association of like-minded tilde communities", which exist on shared *nix systems, usually glued together with an IRC network. As an example, tilde.team is "a shared system that provides an inclusive, non-commercial space for teaching, learning, practicing and enjoying the social medium of unix."
Some tildes have specific focuses like gopher or writing science fiction. I've found the community to be mostly positive and accepting and it definitely has some of that ~Olde Internet~ vibe for me. I sometimes worry about the community growing too large and losing some of that, so maybe I should be keeping my mouth shut? Then again, share the love right? It is that certain day, after all. <3
> I am sceptical signal and whatsapp will *ever have a fully untethered protocol
It sounds like they may want to do this eventually, but it requires some significant re-engineering of how users are identified on the network. This is mentioned near the end of the article:
>That feature might someday even allow Signal to ditch its current system of identifying users based on their phone numbers—a feature that many privacy advocates have criticized, since it forces anyone who wants to be contacted via Signal to hand out a cell phone number, often to strangers. Instead, it could store persistent identities for users securely on its servers. "I’ll just say, this is something we’re thinking about," says Marlinspike. Secure value recovery, he says, "would be the first step in resolving that."
Looking out for one another in ways like this is mostly just baked into the subculture and that's one reason hiker boxes work (the other being you just don't want to carry extra weight). As someone who has backpacked through Yellowstone, I'm not sure it would work for the tourist culture there.