• Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    9 hours ago

    “There is a whole generation of people who have never been to a church or synagogue,” A British rabbi named Jonathan Romain told the paper.

    And that’s a great thing

    “Spiritual apps are their way into faith brainwashing.”

    FTFY

  • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    18 hours ago

    A slew of religious smartphone apps are allowing untold millions of users to confess to AI chatbots, some of which claim to be channeling God himself.

    There is no way that at least some of those aren’t honeypots. Three letter agencies, other nations, blackmailers, the fruit is just hanging too low. Probably not most of them, I imagine there are also just people who want to make a quick buck and not get sued. But I would not be rolling the dice on which one it was if I was doing anything that could remotely be described as confessing.

  • floo@retrolemmy.com
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    22 hours ago

    Tens of billions of dollars spent, and all these jerks managed to do is synthesize Kanye

    sigh…

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Remember when the App Store was nice?

    The top ones were wholesome apps and games you bought once for like $3-$5. I remember WolframAlpha and Osmos, or like a copy of the Bible or a funny camera or something.

    My glasses are not rose tinted: oh was there crap, but it was proper crap. It wasn’t 1000 high budget, heavily marketed SEO clone apps flooding the top of searches and promoted to the top by the store system itself like it is now. It legitimately feels like Apple and Google are in on all these scams because it makes a little short term profit.

    • 5A7A@feddit.org
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      14 hours ago

      Back then you could also just browse the store / categories or search for generic terms like launcher or adventure game or something like that.

      Today, if you don’t know the exact name of the app you want to install you’re out of luck. And even if you do, you need to actively avoid the “sponsored” apps trying to mislead you.

      Not much of a store experience anymore…

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Back then you could also just browse the store / categories or search for generic terms like launcher or adventure game or something like that.

        Like Steam!

        Policing one’s own store so it isn’t a predatory dump? Imagine that.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      I just find it mind blowing that ad bloated obvious shovelware has hundreds of millions of downloads.

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        To be fair, tons of that is bots. Or sweatshop marketing agencies.

        It’s literally an expected ‘marketing’ tactic now.