once upon a time, going from polling (mail, news, ...) to push seemed like a good thing. good, as in, you didn't have to worry about remembering to check stuff so every often any more. one fewer interrup handler bound to your mental clock.

but that was then. in the age of sparsity. when the internet was populated by people who were building it and had something original to say. there was a balance between how much time you had to engage, and how much time others had to engage with you. so push instead of pull looked like an efficient idea.

yet today, we are in the age of the grand reversal. fighting a losing battle against the deluge of unsolicited chatter in the form of automated spam and “gamified” addictive behavioural manipulation, and the contest of the masses vying for popularity.

my thousands of undread emails are just one small piece of evidence of that. but i'm now pulling the plug, instating a policy of “deny (almost) all” against push notifications.

selective polling is back on.

#internet #marketing #consumerism