It may be hostile to you, bit that doesn't mean it is hostile. Paranoia syndrom comes to mind here.

It's true that not all apps are hostile, but my pessimism and paranoia aren't unfounded. If you think the current state of software, security, privacy, etc, is fine and dandy and doesn't warrant skepticism, then our shared reality is probably too fractured to have a meaningful debate.

I work in cybersecurity, heading the group in a company you know. I also develop open source software. So I am painfully aware of the pandemic of cybersecurity issues we face professionally and at home.

Progress has its good and bad aspects, and we must fight as much as possible in some battles, and choose them wisely. This is why the EU efforts around privacy are great, and without their drawbacks. But ultimately they are great.

Being infuriated as I see in this thread about the decision of a company to use mobiles as boarding passes is not something I adhere to. One can always fly with another airline that does not have these restrictions, and complain on another thread how expensive this is.

Saying that all of current technology is evil means going off the grid and living a quiet life in a remote forest. This is of course a solution.

Saying that some technology is evil (and it definitely is) means fighting for these specific things to be regulated. Ryan Air's digital boarding passes is not one of them.

I'm not trying to crusade against digital boarding passes, my issue is with normalizing mandatory apps for all the things.

If we had high quality, trusted software, leveraging open standards, that would be one thing, but instead we have janky proprietary snowflake apps that are borderline malware. Like you said, it's a pandemic of cybersecurity issues, so it's hard for me to accept the 'just install the app' mentality.

I agree we should pick our battles, but I don't believe regulation is the only solution worth fighting for. My comment was to nudge cultural change, by pushing back against what I see as a bad practice.