Anybody that is too stupid to know that their smartphone receives messages from the apps that they sign up for, is too stupid to use a smartphone.
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Most people just don’t think that way. They don’t think about much at all, let alone about something like this.
Yes, if you asked them about it, they would be able to answer affirmatively that their apps can receive pushes. ‘So what?’ Many of them would tell you that it’s actually a convenience to get notifications.
But if you flesh out the fact that you are not using your apps like some old school browser worked, and it’s not some mundane request & response protocol, so the software companies can decide to send to your phone any time they wanted too, the light might start to come on a little.
Just a little. You’d probably still get a shrug out of them though. ‘So what?’
People don’t know that data aggregation has been around for decades. All your software and hardware usage habits are being stored, and almost never anonymously. Where you go... The times you are active... What you buy... What you search... Those are old school. It all gets sold, and the buyers aren’t all just trying to sell ads. These days, we have graduated to being able to assess who are you in physical contact with, or travel with, and probably how you are traveling, in real time. Even aggregating your credit rating, DNA genome, criminal record, etc. is not a nothing new at all.
Not all of that is done with data pushes, but that sure makes it easier. Even with GPS turned off, carriers automatically triangulate your position to multiple towers (for better service, of course).
I don’t work in any industry related to this stuff, and even I know this. But people just don’t care how anything works, as long as their little distractions keep working.
Good post—it is the banality of evil.
I am old fashioned and refuse to download any Apps—and I use an el cheapo cell phone—and that only to make calls when absolutely necessary.