Pine64s “problem” was they only ever did the hardware. Like they sponsor some software, but they make and sell hardware. They gained a lot of popularity from the Pinephone, but very little changed internally at Pine64. They’re still the same they always were

I know someone who works in software security at Plaid. I can’t give too many details because there’s only like 20 of them - but no, you REALLY should not trust Plaid. (Allegedly) phones intercepting 2FA in their server rooms, (allegedly) bank connection issues that have led to people getting access to the wrong accounts, (allegedly) using browser bots to handle login on the backend for banks without API access, (allegedly) customer info leaks that weren’t reported… Now that I think if it, I should tell my friend about the whistleblower programs

I’m just surprised this guy’s played games for 64 days straight

Ex-app developer here. We do it because reminder notifications boost our re-engagement by over 10%.

When an average user downloads an app, there’s like a 70% chance they’ll use it day 1, a 10% chance they’ll use it day 7, and 1% chance they’ll still be using it by day 30. A simple reminder notification after day 3 or 15 can drastically boost those numbers.

Why do we care about the numbers? Because Google and Apple care. They see higher numbers, assume it’s a good app, and make it show up in the search results more frequently. This gives us more downloads.

If you’re putting the time in to craft a quality app, you probably need money, which comes from ads and subscriptions, which is funneled by the number of downloads. If you don’t like that as a user, stick to FDroid.

He’s at 13,115 posts on the Phoronix Forums as of writing. He’s the third most prolific commenter in the forums.

No kidding