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--- blog [2026/04/07 09:47] – ultracomfy
+++ blog [2026/05/11 12:43] (current) – ultracomfy
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 <WRAP centeralign><fs xx-large>ULTRABLOG</fs>\\
 Tidbits here and there from my life that don't fit on any other particular page.</WRAP>
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+====== Grocery store discount strategies and why we really just get mad at ourselves ======
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+++++ 28.04.2026 |
+It was a few days ago that an event took place in the grocery store that I couldn't really stop thinking about. At checkout, it is now normal for grocery stores to ask you for your app. Every store these days has an app, and this app contains a QR code you can scan to give up your user data in exchange for some extra discounts. Of course in the past these discounts were attached to the price tag directly, but now that smartphones are everywhere you can generate additional customer retention by making them invest some effort to get these discounts. By making users install apps, you get an ad platform directly on their phone and by ritualizing the scanning you get repeated interactions with the brand in a way you couldn't have dreamed of just a few years ago. It's the "assemble your own shopping discount" for grocery stores in the way that other shops would make you assemble the furniture yourself so that you can feel accomplished and therefore happier about the product. And did I say it's an ad platform that locks product discounts behind a user data forfeiture gate? Even though we used to just get discounts for free?
-++++ 07.04.2026 The game design that turned First Strike into Stellar Commanders |
+It's quite amazing, really, the people who don't and won't care wouldn't download the app anyway - and if they are in the store anyway then there's no point in giving them things cheaper. That's lost profits. But those who do care, who would download an app, sign up and repeatedly forfeit their privacy, there's something to gain here! By locking these discounts away, we have now filtered away the people who we don't care about anyway, and we're now only giving out discounts to people who we care about, the people we think are "valuable" and who we hope we can get as a returning customer. It's brilliant! Imagine being able to just flat cut away all the discounts for people who won't be very profitable anyway. Like, let's say 30% of our customers are like that and we can cut access to discounts for **all** of them... you've just saved 30% of your losses on discounts with no downsides and you also get free customer and retention and brand reception!
+So, I was at the grocery store and, as usual, the cashier asked this customer, 70 to 80 years old retiree, whether they had the app. Hmm, little did he know, that was a mistake. The man opened by declaring that he did not have the app and that they would be outlawed in a few months anway. The cashier expressed his surprise and said that he hadn't heard of that. He asked the customer where he had that from, and after a bit the customer said that they announced it in the radio. Since none of us had heard of that before this was questionable, but not impossible. However, the man then followed up by declaring that the apps will be outlawed because old people like him don't understand them.
+(silence)
+I will have you know, I wouldn't usually be talking about things like this. But, I think this interaction lays bare a very interesting pattern of thinking/behavior this isn't usually this obvious. How much should we bet that this man has a grudge against technology he doesn't understand, heard a report in the radio about how the app system discriminates against the elderly, and his brain turned "they should outlaw it" <wrap lo>(or perhaps even "members of the ruling party are working on an initiative to outlaw it")</wrap> into "they will outlaw it"? It's an externalized frustration. He is capable of turning on and tuning a radio and does that even though this would technically discriminate against his ancestors who wouldn't be able to do even that. Now, we are able to use apps (although technological literacy is low even in Gen Z). And that, so he wants to think, discriminates against him. However, the technological progress here isn't the problem, it's the inability of some to understand newer technology that frustrates and makes them wish that the technology didn't happen.
+We have found the quintessence of "mad cuz bad", and it affects everyone, old and young, we just experience it in different ways. Not in the moment, but after the fact it's always easier to see how our frustrations are so often motivated by our own lack of understanding. If you were shown a replay of a moment in a video game that made you angry two years ago, you'll very often realize just how not-good you were at the game. In my personal experience, it always came down to me not understanding a thing and then getting frustrated. Whether it's a game you don't understand, new technology, another person, modern pricing and customer retention strategies, there is not typically a reason to get angry unless you're upset with your own failure to understand it.
+<wrap lo>I mean, nothing against getting mad at stores who use apps like this, this //is// annoying. But that's not why this man in particular was mad.</wrap>
+So, where does all this lead to? Well, ultimately this is a conversation about expectations and [[accessibility]].\\
+**Expectation** is what makes a person frustrated in the first place. If you didn't care about something, it wouldn't get you mad. It's only that when you expect yourself to perform at a certain level, or you expect something else to do something, that you can get frustrated. It is about the expectations that both others and you yourself put on yourself. In this case, the store levies the expectation on its customers that they have a phone and a working connection to the internet. And additionally, it expects the user to know how to use the phone, how to sign up, how to get an email address, how internet works in the first place and so on and so forth. <wrap lo>(Try to explain to someone in a way that they will remember that they aren't connected to mobile data and that without it their apps (but only some!) won't work, how to spot when their mobile data is not connected and how to turn it on and off - all to a person who doesn't understand cellular networks in the first place, or what the internet is at all)</wrap> Similarly, the man expects to be able to able to participate in society like everyone else. His inability to do so is what leads to the frustration in the first place.
+**Accessibility** is about enabling as many people as possible to participate in society and live a self-determined life. Essentially, the conversation about accessibility is always one about reducing the number or changing the nature of expectations that are being placed. Undeniably, if you just penalize everyone who can't meet all your specific expectations, for any reason - that //is// innately discriminatory. Some people could learn this, others will never understand smartphones, and both should be nevertheless fine and able to participate in society like the rest of us. The old man in the store would have been perfectly fine meeting any other expectation placed on him, just not these particular ones. Everyone would deserve getting expectations they can actually meet, and everyone - not just this old man - who gets expectations placed on them that they cannot meet would rightfully feel left behind.
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+Added later: There is an interesting element of friction here between technological progress and accessibility. Looking back at this rambling, I came up with another example of a thing the man is capable of that his ancestors probably weren't - driving a car. Even in the olden days, cars were not intuitive machines and required time in school to get right. This man probably has - or at least had - a driver's license, and there are some good odds that his ancestors did //not//. Now whether you actually needed a license that long ago and whether it was safe are valid discussions in their own right, but needless to say that someone who is 80 years old is going to have trouble if the car happens to be invented just then. Here again, I understand there is historical context, the car back then wasn't nearly as essential as it is today.
+But, and let's be honest about this, it's not like it is "essential" to have and use the grocery store's app. And, let's be //very// honest about this, anyone can learn how to use a phone, even at age; but a driver's license takes time to learn AND at least 2000 bucks for tuition and the tests. A price tag of 2000 bucks is NOT accessible. In fact, it's so inaccessible that 2000 bucks are inaccessible whether you're old OR young. And I'd argue that, between the grocery store's app and a driver's license, one is definitely more essential than the other.
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+----
+====== Revamping First Strike - Why Stellar Commanders is the better First Strike ======
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+++++ 07.04.2026 |
 I'm part of a community of the video game //[[First Strike]]//. First Strike is a nuclear war sandbox real time strategy game that lets you take command of a nuclear superpower and duke it out with nuclear rockets until your nation is destroyed or the last man standing*. I discovered this game back in 2017/2018 and fell deeply in love with it. The game satisfies a specific fantasy I didn't know I wanted to experience in a game setting.
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