You know, in the last thirty years, we've grown from shopping a very limited selection of items over a dial-up connection to basically managing our entire lives on a smartphone. It really has been an achievement for mankind. I can't think of hardly anything you can't either purchase or pay for via your phone. My Lawton water bill was the last and only paper check I wrote for some five years until City Hall finally made the jump to outsourcing an online company to bring it into the 2000's... but not all websites are friendly to mobile devices, and even more shocking, some of them are from the biggest retailers in the world.

Take for instance, Walmart. The biggest company in America, a worldwide conglomerate, and yet shopping the retail giant on their mobile website is a huge pain of clunky menus and aggravating experiences. Yes, it's gotten better over the years, but it's still not completely optimized for how a majority of people shop these days. I'm sure you're saying "Download the app, it's better" and I'd agree, but here's the thing... I don't like having apps on my phone. I'll explain that later.

Home Depot is another titan of retail that makes the process of me giving them money a headache. Over the weekend, I realized I needed something for a project I was going to do on Monday, so I hopped on there, put what I needed in the cart, checked out to pick it up at our local store, then learned later they opted to ship it to my home address. I thought to myself, well, I must have messed up... so I cancelled that order, did the entire cart process over again, double checked everything so I could pick up what I needed curbside and again, they opted to ship it to my home address. Ultimately, I cancelled it again as I walked in the doors, grabbed what I needed, paid and walked out frustrated because that's not what I wanted to do.

I know, it's a first world problem... but we live in the first world, and the lack of mobile optimization is a problem. And I can hear your inner thoughts just telling me "Download the app" but here's the truth of that... I don't trust apps. Why does a retailer like Walmart or Home Depot need access to my contact list, phone, and messaging? If you read deep enough into the terms and conditions, the apps aren't created to make life easier for consumers, they're made for data mining and earning tertiary revenue by selling off that data. With access to your contact list, they get a ton of phone numbers to sell to the vehicle extended warranty guy. Same with messaging, email, social media, etc...

Do all apps work like that? Mostly. Does every company actually sell your information? Probably not. I'm not saying that every company with a developed app is evil, I'm just saying that I agree with that successful CEO turned hippie drifter that once said "You can never count on a company to do the right thing" as his conscience forced him to turn in his seven figure paycheck and enter a world of nothingness.

Am I off topic at this point? Probably... but that's how conversations usually go right? The point being, it's 2021 and I like to shop via a mobile browser. I'm sure you'd prefer to shop on your phone too. It's time technology caught back up with current trends instead of trying to force the masses into their endless overreaching apps.

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