Comment by drstewart
12 hours ago
>If I order an Uber, I already know it is coming. I was the person who ordered it.
Which makes me wonder why you have notifications for your bank and Whatsapp enabled.
If I have an account, I know what transactions are coming out of it. I was the person who owned the account.
If I have someone's number, I know if I want to see messages from them. I was the person who gave them my number.
Seems really sill that you have notifications enabled for those apps. If you care about missing something, you'd just check them anyway.
I have notifications enabled for my bank because it may alert me to transactions which were not made by me, and because it does not abuse that permission to send me marketing spam.
I have WhatsApp notifications enabled because it is the primary way people communicate where I live. If my elderly mother messages or calls me, it will most likely be through WhatsApp.
Both of those notifications contain genuinely important or time-sensitive information which may require action on my part.
That's the distinction between them. A person contacting me is fundamentally different from a brand attempting to engage me. Transaction alerts are fundamentally different from “your order is out for delivery”.
The criteria is not “did a thing happen”. It's whether the notification gives meaningful new information that is important or time-sensitive, and requires me to take action.
Most app notifications fail that test completely.
>If I have an account, I know what transactions are coming out of it. I was the person who owned the account.
What if you receive notification about transaction that you didnt make? :)