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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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This is your brain on fraud apologetics

In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

https://research.google/pubs/pub334/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the “large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!

On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).

We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.

As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.

This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.

This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.

Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia

Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.

These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.

Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook

The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016

The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.

The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).

Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/

“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.

There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).

If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.

Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.

Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud

Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.

Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?

I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.

This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.

This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.

The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:

https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension

In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.

Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:

https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/

[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]

#pluralistic #victim blaming #fraud #going meta #douglas rushkoff #ad-tech #local search #wix #amex #thai food #business #rent-seeking #entrepreneurship #passive income #chokepoint capitalism #platform lawyers

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onlineappreviews · 6 months

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Learn how to switch ride requests from Uber to Uber Eats and vice versa in a seamless manner. Double your profits with a simple option present in the Uber app itself.

#uber clone app #uber clone script #uber eats clone

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nickgerlich · 1 year

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Ghost In The Machine

Leave it to human ingenuity. Or perhaps I should say corporate genius. It seems that for every process, law, or method, there is a hack to work around it. Never mind that things were probably good enough the way they were. It’s just that, in our zeal to have an edge over others, we look for the loopholes.

Like all of the ghost kitchens and virtual brands we have discussed earlier this term. While I lauded them early—and correctly so—for leveraging their physical locations so they could test out new concepts and menu items on Uber Eats, DoorDash, and others, it has now become apparent that some of these players have simply duplicated their menus and slapped on a different brand name just so it could grab another line on the list of restaurants we see on our phones.

And now Uber Eats is fighting back, saying that in order to get those multiple listings, the virtual brand must have at least a 60% different menu. Who would have thought it would all come down to this?

But it is a good response from Uber Eats, because they have been taken advantage of in all this by those restaurants and ghost kitchens—which we define as an establishment with no indoor seating, and often located in an industrial park or even parking lot—who are trying to simply boost their odds of making online sales.

Whoa. That may very well qualify as the longest sentence I have written this semester. But I digress.

It is fair conclusion jumping to agree that the kitchens being accused of such chicanery are just being smart. They can try different price points, names, and a slew of other marketing variables, without having to actually create new products. And they are betting that most consumers will never notice. Just imagine, though, a Little Caesars—for example—also selling Bigga Pizza Pies, but they all come out of the same oven with the same crust, sauce, mozzarella, and toppings. Could you tell? And would you even care? 

Uber Eats, et al., all want to make money, to be fair, but they do not want their service to be scammed like this. Getting two listings is little different form somehow managing to wrangle two display ads in a newspaper when you bought one, or any number of other of duplicative examples.

But wait, there’s more! Uber is also raising the bar on those it does list, requiring each establishment to have at least a 4.3 out of 5 rating on their app, have fewer than five-percent of orders canceled, and have fewer than five-percent delivery and order errors.

Thus far, Uber has removed more than 5000 entities it attests are simply clones of their parent, finding, in one instance, that a New York deli had 14 such clones under its umbrella. Can you imagine submitting 14 resumes for a job, each with a different name, but the person were the same? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but that doesn’t work so well in job hunting or restaurant listings.

Uber says, though, it counts 40,000 virtual listings. Its internal police department is going to have its hands full enforcing its latest policy decision.

I know. You’ve probably already started thinking of a new hack in the wake of Uber clamping down. Why not simply give different names and/or plating variations so that the items are still pretty much the same, but look different on your screen? That would likely be easy. Imagine a meal of the Monster Burger and French Fries also being listed under a different brand as the Hamburger Monstre and pomme frites. Pretty much the same thing, but one sounds so cosmopolitan and worldly.

I’m pretty sure the ghost kitchens are already preparing their workarounds, because that’s the way we all roll. The spoils go to those who can hack the best. Meanwhile, just be careful placing your food orders. You might just be a victim as well. I can see that international burger fetching a higher price tag if only because it uses French words.

And I can imagine you looking like a ghost when you find out you’ve been duped, too.

Dr “Or You Could Just Cook At Home“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #ghost kitchens #restaurants #dining

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innow8apps · 1 year

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UberEats Clone Development | Build UberEats Like App | Innow8 Apps

Build your UberEats like app in no time. We provide white-label UberEats clone app development for on-demand food delivery businesses. Contact us and discuss your business app features.

#uber eats clone app development #ubereat like apps #develop food app

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on-demandappdevelopmentcompany · 7 days

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How to Build a Successful Rappi Clone App: A Step-by-Step Guide

In the era of convenience-driven digital solutions, on-demand delivery apps have revolutionized the way we access goods and services. Rappi, a Latin American super-app, has set a benchmark in the industry with its diverse offerings ranging from food delivery to grocery shopping and even medication delivery. Building a successful Rappi clone app requires a strategic approach, attention to detail, and understanding of user needs. In this comprehensive guide, we'll delve into the step-by-step process of creating a Rappi-like app that resonates with users and delivers value.

Understanding the Market

Before diving into app development, it's crucial to conduct thorough market research to understand the dynamics of the on-demand delivery sector. Analyze existing players like Rappi, Uber Eats, and Glovo to identify trends, user preferences, and potential gaps in the market. Determine your target audience, geographical scope, and the types of services you aim to offer through your app.

Defining Your Unique Value Proposition

To stand out in a competitive market, your Rappi clone app needs a compelling value proposition. Whether it's faster delivery, wider service coverage, or exclusive partnerships, clearly define what sets your app apart from the rest. Your unique selling points should address specific pain points of users and offer solutions that enhance their experience.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack

Selecting the appropriate technology stack is fundamental to the success of your Rappi clone app. Consider factors such as scalability, security, and compatibility across different devices and platforms. Opt for robust backend frameworks, reliable payment gateways, and seamless integration with third-party APIs to ensure smooth functionality and optimal user experience.

Designing an Intuitive User Interface

User experience is paramount in on-demand delivery apps, where convenience and efficiency are key drivers. Invest in an intuitive app design that simplifies navigation, facilitates quick order placement, and provides clear communication at every stage of the process. Pay attention to visual elements, typography, and color schemes that reflect your brand identity and resonate with your target audience.

Building a Scalable Backend Infrastructure

Behind every successful on-demand delivery app lies a robust backend infrastructure that handles user requests, manages inventory, and orchestrates seamless transactions. Leverage cloud-based solutions and microservices architecture to ensure scalability, flexibility, and reliability even during peak usage periods. Implement data encryption, authentication mechanisms, and regular backups to safeguard user privacy and protect sensitive information.

Integrating Essential Features

The success of your Rappi clone app hinges on its feature set, which should cater to the diverse needs of users and service providers alike. Prioritize essential features such as:

User registration and profile management

Location-based services for accurate tracking

Real-time order tracking and status updates

Multiple payment options, including credit/debit cards, digital wallets, and cash on delivery

Ratings and reviews to build trust and transparency

Seamless communication channels between users and delivery partners

Loyalty programs and promotional offers to incentivize repeat usage

Testing and Quality Assurance

Before launching your Rappi clone app, thorough testing and quality assurance are imperative to identify and rectify any bugs, glitches, or usability issues. Conduct comprehensive testing across different devices, operating systems, and network conditions to ensure compatibility and optimal performance. Solicit feedback from beta testers and iterate based on their suggestions to fine-tune the app for a flawless user experience.

Launching and Marketing Your App

With your Rappi clone app ready for deployment, focus on a well-planned launch strategy to generate buzz and attract users. Utilize social media platforms, influencer partnerships, and targeted advertising campaigns to reach your target audience and drive app downloads. Leverage app store optimization techniques to improve visibility and rankings on app stores, and consider offering promotional incentives or discounts to encourage early adoption.

Measuring Performance and Iterating

Once your Rappi clone app is live, ongoing monitoring and performance evaluation are essential to identify areas for improvement and optimize user engagement. Track key metrics such as user acquisition, retention rates, order frequency, and average transaction value to gauge the app's success and inform strategic decisions. Solicit feedback from users through surveys and reviews and prioritize feature updates and enhancements based on their input.

Conclusion

Building a successful Rappi clone app requires meticulous planning, meticulous execution, and a relentless focus on delivering value to users. By understanding market dynamics, defining a unique value proposition, and leveraging the right technology stack, you can create an on-demand delivery app that stands out in a crowded market. With intuitive design, robust backend infrastructure, and essential features, your app can streamline the delivery process and enhance the overall user experience. By prioritizing testing, launching strategically, and iterating based on feedback, you can ensure the long-term success and sustainability of your Rappi clone app in the competitive on-demand delivery landscape.

#rappi clone #rappi clone app #rappi clone script #rappi app #rappi app clone #rappi clone app development #rappi like app #rappi like app development #rappi clone app development company #all in one delivery solution #on-demand delivery business

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karanchadda · 1 month

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What is a Just Eat Clone App?

A clone app is a term that refers to a replica or a clone of an existing successful mobile application. It focuses on replicating the functionalities and features of the original app while offering a unique user experience at the same time. Food delivery clone apps are designed to capitalize on the success of popular apps by providing similar services with a fresh twist.

With an ever-growing food delivery market, consumers are constantly in search of convenient and hassle-free ways to satisfy their cravings. Just Eat clone apps play a crucial role in meeting this demand and transforming the food delivery landscape.

Comparison with Other Food Delivery Apps

Just Eat clone apps are described as a formidable player in the food delivery market, competing with other popular apps like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. So, what sets Just Eat clone apps apart from the competition?

Wide Range of Restaurant Choices

The primary reason why the Just Eat clone app is able to stand out from the crowd is its extensive list of restaurants available for delivery. Whether you're craving pizza, sushi, or even a green smoothie, you can find a restaurant that caters to your taste buds.

Know more -

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devstreeau · 5 months

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Top Flutter app Projects ideas for Beginners 2024

Introduction:

Welcome to the world of Flutter, where innovation and simplicity converge to create stunning mobile applications. If you’re a beginner eager to dive into the realm of app development, you’re in the right place. Devstree Australia presents a curated list of exciting Flutter app project ideas to kickstart your journey.

Make a Login Screen:

Embark on your Flutter journey by creating a sleek and secure login screen. This fundamental component is a stepping stone for more complex app functionalities, providing hands-on experience with Flutter’s widget system and state management.

Build E-commerce and Social Media Apps using Flutter:

Venture into the dynamic world of e-commerce or social media by developing Flutter apps. Explore UI design, user interaction, and integration of functionalities such as product listings, user profiles, and real-time updates, laying the foundation for scalable projects.

Flutter Blog App:

Combine your love for writing and coding by crafting a Flutter blog app. Learn about data handling, content organization, and dynamic UI creation. Enhance your skills in implementing features like comments, likes, and sharing functionality.

Build FoodPanda & Uber Eats Clone App:

Put your skills to the test by developing a FoodPanda or Uber Eats clone. Dive into geolocation services, payment gateways, and real-time order tracking. This project not only hones your Flutter skills but also explores the intricate details of app logistics.

Build a Scientific Calculator in Flutter:

Delve into the world of mathematics and user interface design by creating a scientific calculator. This project offers insight into custom widgets, mathematical operations, and responsive UI layouts.

Build Instagram Clone using Flutter and Firestore:

Immerse yourself in the realm of social media app development with an Instagram clone. Utilize Firebase Firestore for real-time data updates, implement image uploading, and explore Flutter’s rich widget ecosystem.

To-Do List App:

Master the basics of task management and state management by building a To-Do list app. This project provides a solid foundation for understanding Flutter’s stateful widgets and helps you implement essential app features.

Conclusion:

Congratulations on embarking on your Flutter journey! These project ideas are designed to provide hands-on experience in diverse aspects of app development. Whether you’re interested in UI design, data handling, or integrating real-time features, these projects cater to various skill levels.

As you tackle these projects, remember that the journey is as important as the destination. Embrace challenges, seek innovative solutions, and continuously expand your skill set. Devstree Australia wishes you an exciting and fulfilling experience as you bring your Flutter app ideas to life in 2024.

#australia #devstreeau #mobileappdevelopment #mobile app developer company #iphone #web app development #ios #mobile app company #iot app development #iot applications

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