"You will have to download the app first"

I was told yesterday.

No, I won't. I am not downloading any "apps" on my very basic mobile phone. Even if I had the capacity to do it I would not do it. Why should I have to download an "app" simply to buy something? All it really means is that I am going on to a data base so I can then be bombarded with their advertising. Their "free" whatever it is really is not free at all. It is built into the price and their "special" is not really a special at all.

"Thanks. If I need to do that then I won't be buying it here."

"You won't get it cheaper anywhere else," I was told.

"Perhaps not but I don't download apps on my phone."

"Why not? You can get some great bargains here that way. It's a free app."

"Nothing is free."

The young one in the shop just looked at me in disbelief. I did not bother to try and explain. I went out and considered my next option. I had researched "on line" for what I needed and this had been the best option - apart from the app. That had not been mentioned on the website, certainly not the necessity to first "buy" the app in order to get what I wanted.

I prowled off feeling decidedly put out. It would have been a simple matter to "download an app" on a fancy phone perhaps but I still do not have a fancy phone that connects to the internet and does all those whizz and bang and whistle things. 

I stopped at the booth which repairs mobile phones and the lovely pair who work there finally sorted out another problem. The boy had researched it on line and actually thanked me "because it was good to learn how to do that - never came across that problem before". No, I could not pay them because I had helped them too. (English is their second language and I had told them how to write something.)  They agreed about "apps". I was interested in that. Neither of them has the latest phone. The girl's phone is about the same age as mine and the boy's is not much better. No, their phones are fine and they do not need all those "apps". These are people who work all day with other people's phones. I wonder what they do at night but I am sure it is not play games on their phones.

Apparently there are also "apps" on computers but I have never knowingly downloaded one - unless the sort I have for the purposes of actual work are also "apps". There are no "business" apps but I still need to "unsubscribe" from all sorts of things. It irritates me. When did the idea of putting someone on a data base in order to force advertising on them become a right rather than a privilege? There are two places which, despite my efforts to "unsubscribe" have continued to send me information. One of them is a real estate firm from my house hunting days. I sent them a polite message saying I had a new place for my sleeping mat and please to take me off their list. It has been ignored. Why? I will never do business with them. The other company no longer does business in Downunder but they still send messages. I have tried explaining that they no longer send items here (and it was for my BIL anyway) but they have ignored that. I will never do business with them again.

But apparently there are "apps" for things like the weather and ordering pizza and playing games I have never heard of.  I look elsewhere for the weather (mostly the sky) and I last ate pizza more than a year ago but not by ordering it on line. I do not play games on the computer, let alone on the phone. 

"Oh, I have dozens of apps," someone told me as I grumbled some more. His partner raised her eyebrows at me. I did not inquire how many she has but it would not be many. 

Perhaps this is what is wrong. Perhaps it is not the phones themselves but all these "apps" that are causing the problems? Is this why people do not talk to each other as much as they once did? If that is the case then there is even less reason to download an "app".