NPO #23: Touch Of A Button

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

My finger is on the button.

(Push the Button)

World? My finger is on the button.

(Push the Button)

Hey, Ticketholders!

Remember the Chemical Brothers?

Remember Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest?

That's the reference!

But as good as the Push the Button album is, and as motivating as that "Galvanize" single is, this isn't an issue of Bring Back the Soundtrack (twenty likes on this post if you want me to do an actual review of Push the Button to see if my nostalgia goggles really hold up).

That's just my lead-in to the topic I want to rant about today: "the push of a button" is not as simple as advertised.

Last semester, I had a class where I was supposed to compose a blog post (really stretching my acting chops there 😏) about a "revolutionary virtual communication device" that let business leaders and millennials continue to be asshats in public by holding on-demand conference calls at any time, anywhere, with (roll commercials!) the Touch Of A Button. The problem is, no one realizes just how much inconvenient, time-consuming bullshit needs to be done to set up that one button press. You need to gather phone numbers and names, enter them into a contact list, add those contacts to a call group, make sure your "revolutionary virtual communication device" is compatible with your phone and everyone else's on your group list, possibly download an app, import your group list to the app interface, set up a Bluetooth connection with your virtual communicator (which you've hopefully already made sure is charged and you know how to turn it on and what buttons do what), and only then can you "simply" press a button. It's like someone in Hell designed a Rube-Goldberg machine that made its way to Earth.

Speaking of apps, those shopper loyalty apps where you can "simply" scan barcodes to get digital coupons if you forgot to add them on your computer at home? They're not much better. I'm not naming names, but some stores have choppy wi-fi, the zipcode-based geolocation behaves like it was programmed in a maze with magnetic walls, and let's talk again about all the steps that lead up to a "simple Touch Of A Button": you need some kind of web-enabled device. You need to register an account with the store's loyalty program, including all kinds of personal information, as well as a memorable username and password of your invention. You need to download the app (which, I'm not naming names, but as ambitiously programmed as they may be, they are limited, buggy, and have unstable data storage, so good luck getting it to work on demand in a store where the wi-fi flickers off and on every time too many people breathe at once--which is the etymological definition of a conspiracy), log in with that username and password you wrote on a card that's been in the ass-crack of your backseat long enough to wad itself around some loose change and get dyed with spilled KoolAid and Cheeto dust before your significant other decided to do some spring cleaning or one of your kids shoved it up their nose on a dare. Then you have to find the barcode scanner option in the app that's been buffering on the login screen for ten minutes, and only then can you "simply" scan in your discount.

And speaking of scanners and cameras, why is it that people in movies can just whip out their phones and start filming whenever something cool or deadly happens? Whenever I want to take a picture or video of something cool, I have to turn on my phone, unlock it, open the camera app, choose which lens or medium I want, push the shutter button, and wait for my phone to register both the button press and the image/recording?

Another app with the fake, "Touch Of A Button" message at the heart of its advertising is Rocket Money (formerly Truebill). They claim that the app can "find subscriptions you didn't even know you were paying for, and cancel them for you." Of course, because this is an app, the subscription search is about as reliable as the results of an old credit report inquiry (conflicting and incomplete information that you have to correct and fill in as you go item by item figuring out what anything is). To get anything of help or accuracy, you have to go premium. And that whole, "we'll cancel subscriptions for you that you didn't even know you had!" thing? That's bullshit, too. Like logging into a shopper loyalty app, Rocket Money requires you to know your login information...for subscriptions you didn't know you had! It won't be long before the only subscription you'll want to cancel and forget you had, is Rocket Money itself.

Another kind of deceptively advertised app is the "cash advance" app. Unlike a lot of apps, they are competent with regard to stability and information security, and offer a lot of helpful finance-planning services for little to no extra cost. The deception here is with the suggestion of free money; how you can dip into your next paycheck any time you want, interest-free. The truth that you have to discover for yourselves, as I am inserting my obligatory Simpsons' meme here, is that these app commercials are the Lionel Hutz business card of advertising.

Comedy aside, it means that a loan is still a loan, and loans need to be paid back, even if they are zero-interest and you are borrowing from yourself. So that $200 payday advance you took out to treat all your friends to a late-night showing of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey with overpriced candy and drinks? That needs to be in your bank account on payday so the service provider can withdraw it! Congratulations! You just spent all your money twice! And tortured your loved ones with a terrible movie that I will tell you about on Friday. I hope your quick, easy, simple solution made you happy!

Okay, rant over. If you want to see that Push the Button issue of Bring Back the Soundtrack, at least all twenty of you need to register for a Facebook account, get the Facebook app, login, go to the bottom of this post, and click the Like button with the little Facebook thumb on it. It's as easy as pushing a button! Also, comment and subscribe to my blog, and click some ads so my revenue can quickly, simply, and easily go up by a few cents a year. And as always, Stay Tuned to Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook for the latest news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Button Masher,

Out.