No! I Don’t Want to Download Your Damned App!

Shôn Ellerton, September 15, 2026
I’ve had enough with all this apps bullshit that we keep getting thrown at us.

I’m utterly sick and tired of navigating through all the crap apps that I’ve got littered all over my smartphone.  I’ve got nearly two hundred of them, even after valiantly removing the ones I don’t need anymore. However, the ones that remain I still need to use, some of them frequently and some not so much.

Take banking, for example. I do not use apps for banking. I use bank cards and, at home, I use their website with a full keyboard and mouse, items of equipment which I’m comfortable with.

And by the way, I fucking hate using my smartphone for doing anything other than to speak or take pictures. I struggle with texting already and I simply struggle to understand how some people, particularly women, are so annoyingly adept at using both hands to tap away without any effort or mistakes on a smartphone. I spend double the time because I have to backtrack everything I type on a smartphone! I do not have Elvin-like slender fingers.

The reason I have bank apps on my phone is because the damned bank requests that I log on to my app before I can log on through the website on my desktop. Although, I think only very recently, they’re finally going to bring out 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication), you know, those apps you have to open with a synched up number you have to enter into the website to get in?

As much as I like 2FA, the problem is that now I have five of the damned things on my phone because not all the applications can use the same 2FA app. For example, there’s Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, RSI Token and Secure Sign In to take a few. Every time I log on to my workplace computer remotely, a brief message tells me to open an authenticator app with a number but then I unlock the phone and struggle to find which app the number came from. And when I find it, the number’s gone. And then I have to request a new number before I can get in.

It’s so damned tedious and it’s getting worse.

However, to be fair, I am onboard with the idea of 2FA because out there in the big bad world are a bunch of determined hackers, most of them seemingly coming from India these days, determined to steal your money, your identity, your property, your crypto, your daughters, your grandmother, ok…. You get the picture!

Now I had written about this before, but kids, sports and schools?

Jesus! How many apps do we need for all that shit? It’s utterly insane. I’m serious, my son’s school has us, as parents, wielding no less than six individual apps while sporting events, another half a dozen or so depending on the sports season.

Then there’s a whole bunch of government-related digital ID apps, which, to be honest can probably go down the toilet as most of them have delightfully failed during the government’s push to ram digital ID and COVID apps down our throats. Too late though, the government’s got pretty much all our personal details. If anything, I wouldn’t put it pass them that they have been responsible for much of the data hacks and leaks that have been occurring in large corporations in Australia!

The brilliant early 1980s British sitcom, Yes Minister, already jokingly discussed the idea of creating a national database to track people but when Minister Hacker, played by Paul Eddington, who was for open speech and access to own personal data, specified there should be safeguards built in, the shifty but suave civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby, lovingly played by Nigel Hawthorne, specified that the people didn’t need to know.

As you can surmise, I am not a fan of overarching big government.

Now, back to more apps!

Ah yes, all the messenging apps. Oh my God! They royally piss me off to such an extent, I have to turn off all notifications because of the constant petty dribble in chat conversations that almost makes my blood boil.

The biggest offender out of all of these is WhatsApp. I fricking hate this app with the utmost of passion. Whoever decided that this is a great app to communicate should very much seriously need brain surgery.

And yet, we’re told that to get the latest info for this and that, you have to subscribe to the group to keep up to date. And for the last part of that sentence, repeat it in your head in a whiney weaselly way. You have to do this you know. Tut tut tut.

Here’s a typical bullshit kind of thread that I experience every day until I just switched it off.

“Hi @Lindsay, where’s the campsite?”

“Can’t miss it. The boys will love it there”

“LOL! Can’t wait.”

“Oh yes. What time does it start?”

“I need to know as well. Thank you dearest!”

“Sorry everyone XXX! The time will be 5pm at Mostyn Lake”

“Do boys need sleeping blankets?”

And you can see your phone light up every time when each of these useless little bits of information comes to fruition.

Stop! Stop! Just fucking stop!

Christ on a bike! Send ONE email that gives the location, preferably with a little map, the time, the necessities that are required, when to pick up and who to contact in case of emergency! Job done! And ALL in one email!

But no. We have to suffer through a veritable vomit of replies from everyone in the group, most of which is total dribble.

And then there are the apps that are utterly unnecessary but only created to capture an audience for the purposes of making more money.

I’ll start with pumping fuel for my car.

In Australia, you are generally forced to walk into the store to pay for the fuel. Although saying that, there is a relative newcomer, U-Go, that allows you to pay for fuel using your credit card at the pump, but it’s very rare. A friend of mine says you can to this at an OTR petrol station, but I disagreed. I couldn’t find the credit card slot.

Ah! He said. You have to download the OTR app first.

Bullshit! I’m not downloading yet another app for their enfranchisement and personal gain and me having to take the time to set up the app and link my monetary details to it.

Piss off! Just put a credit card reader at the pump. They’ve done this for decades in the United States, so why can’t they do this now?

And finally there are the totally useless and crap apps. The ones anyone anywhere will try to get you to download.

“Please scan our QR code for all the benefits and privileges we can offer!”

“Scan our QR code in order to redeem your prize if your draw is successful!”

“Please scan our QR code so we can see all your warts on your bottom!”

And in no time flat, you’ve just accumulated an additional hundred apps that you will probably use only once in your life.

And then we have restaurants that, somehow or another, decided that actual printed menus are old-school, and instead, replaced them with QR codes to make it “convenient” for you, but in reality for them, to order your food instead of speaking to an actual real human being to take your order.

I’d have already buggered off by now and proceeded to another restaurant without all the QR code bullshit.

Seriously, the app craze is a near-disease and, at some point or another, there will be nothing in the entire world that does not require an app for anything to work. You’ll probably need an app to use the public toilets because somewhere out there, someone will be monitoring your everyday bowel movements for some obscure research program which the taxpayer is paying for.

Already these days, there are many people out there, especially those which are of in their autumn years, struggling with all this unnecessary technology. And all of these utterly ridiculous apps, most of which, unfortunately will only run on the very latest smartphone because anything older won’t work.

I think, given a few years or so from no, there’s going to be a big paradigm shift away from reliance on apps because our ageing population are going to struggle more than ever to do the most basic of things without the necessity of downloading an app.

But maybe, this is all part of the masterplan by the nefariously driven corruptness which is has now become so engrained in our society.