Similar situation here.

My take on it is that frequent users perceive apps as desktop launchers/shortcuts.

They don't care about the difference between app and web, per se, but the bookmarking situation in mobile browsers is awful (desktop too, honestly), and an app presents a convenient launcher for the service/site/data they want.

Adding a springboard launcher for a PWA is easy but still apparently more frictional than installing an app.

Android and iOS both require user permission for apps to access contacts or location.

Are there other platforms that can't even manage this basic level of user protection?

As long as the application is made aware of the permissions and can prevent functioning when they get denied, that doesn't really help much. It's the choice between getting mugged or never leaving the house.

The ability to deny permissions without the app noticing or filling it with fake data doesn't exist on either system.

In the time it took you to write this comment, you've thought more about the abstraction than most of the people who are confused by it -- and it will never succeed to coax them out of their confusion with such logic. :)

Credit agencies do not report income to the IRS, so there's no tax relevance. Credit agencies are not party to your obligations to the IRS at all. You can lie to credit agencies all day long if you like.

However, if you do so for the purpose of some kind of benefit, financial or otherwise, it's clearly fraud.

It's hard to remember that that's still illegal these days -- but it is, for you and for me, at least.

Is it Fraud though? Think about it...sounds to me like data obfuscation. There are no laws that enforce the truth if there is no financial damage. So the previous comment stands.

I think you're wrong, but I'm not a lawyer and I don't operate on the fringes of fraudulent behaviour, so I might be miscalibrated.

But my premise is that there is benefit derived from the lie, either financial or otherwise. I believe this is clearly fraud and risks civil penalties if pursued by the party who used the information to extend the benefit.

An interesting case is if you lie about previous salary to a prospective employer who does not have the ability to confirm the data. In that context, with no formal pre-employment agreements or contracts, the lie is probably just negotiation strategy with no civil liabilities. I repeat that I am not a lawyer. :)

In the US, I regularly see bathrooms and kitchens without GFCI.

I looked up the history:

  1961 GFCI invented by a professor at UC Berkeley
  1971 Added to NEC code for outdoor outlets
  1981 … bathrooms
  1987 … kitchens
  2005 … laundry rooms and unfinished basements
  2014 … crawlspaces, around pools and hot tubs

Lots of bathrooms haven't been renovated (or at least not with permits) in the last 45 years, apparently!

A great deal of pop music, performed by teens-20yos, is written and produced by seasoned professionals who are in their 30s-40s-50s.

The exceptions to that pattern are remarkable.

If an app can make an HTTP request, the app can know the user's public IP address and the geolocation derived from that.

This data has well-known limitations, but I think it is the fallback people are talking about here.

No one is trying to go that far down the path.

https (specifically the CA chain of trust) is imperfect, and can be compromised by well-placed parties.

LEGO does it too, with "mystery minifigure" packages.

I watch kids squeezing the polybags trying to find an identifying bump or edge, hoping to either get the one they want, or at least not get one they already have.

And yeah, baseball cards are/were no different, going back decades.

But at least the financial loss here is constrained to a few dollars. I don't think these are the gateway drugs to gambling problems, but they are definitely exploitative.

3. A Memorial Wall for those who have mistaken ChatGPT for a therapist