Amen. What really pisses me off is that there are certain apps where I really have to enable notifications like Uber so I don’t miss my ride, but then they abuse that privilege and start pushing “special offers” etc to me with no way to selectively turn these off.
Or else, if there IS a subcategory to turn off then they just invent a new subcategory a few months after I’ve opted out, and auto opt me into that instead. eg I opt out of “marketing notifications” and then “relevant suggestions” is created. I’m looking at you, Google Maps.
Android has notification categories ("channels" as they're called in the API) that can be individually disabled. But it's on the app developers to assign the right one to their notifications. Many apps do honestly do it and do have separate categories for their marketing spam, but some make just one channel called something like "Miscellaneous" that includes everything all at once.
> Or else, if there IS a subcategory to turn off then they just invent a new subcategory a few months after I’ve opted out, and auto opt me into that instead.
Nextdoor is the worst for this. Their UI to disable them also requires clicking into 15 different groupings of notification and turning off each type one by one. I always find myself getting random Nextdoor marketing spam and sure enough they've added a new category and opted me in.
>What really pisses me off is that there are certain apps where I really have to enable notifications like Uber
Really though? I have multiple necessary apps (and some I don't really need) on my phone and universally just cut off all their notifications of all kinds, because fuck that shit.
If, as per your example, I need to know in some context when a certain app is going to remind me of something genuinely necessary/ueful soon, I just check it often while waiting without enabling notifications.
If we're talking about your average Uber, that's a few minutes of checking periodically until you get what you want. A bit tedious? Sure, but only for a few minutes here and there, vs letting these scummy little dark patterns hassle you all the time with their notification turds.
Or else, if there IS a subcategory to turn off then they just invent a new subcategory a few months after I’ve opted out, and auto opt me into that instead. eg I opt out of “marketing notifications” and then “relevant suggestions” is created. I’m looking at you, Google Maps.