Someone explained a long time ago to me how it’s 95-99% profit due to exactly what numbers you described. It’s pretty messed up…

The profit margin on Coca Cola for a store like KFC is basically 100%.

Also, do you use all of the coupons? If you do, you can end up spending 2-3x of the coupon value easily if you are careful not to buy anything else.

Part of what you’ve described is market economics. They want your loyalty and they want to track your purchases to sell that data to advertisers. Do they need an app for that? Absolutely not. They can and do host websites with the same deals and all you have to do is login. The reason they push you to their app is because either the app is something they spent a bunch of money on and want to increase customer adoption. Or, they have added massive new tracking capabilities and want to spy on their users on behalf of advertisers, so they need you on their app.

None of this is related to the technical aspects of this question. In fact, most of these companies would resist you installing their app on an “app server” simply because then they wouldn’t be able to track your location and other phone details easily. Defeating the purpose of your idea.

Oh, and as for the watermelon - there’s a sweet spot between the prices which is usually $5 if you use their loyalty card and not their app. That’s the price you pay for your phone’s privacy and resources - a buck. Not a fair trade, but it is what it is.

p.s. I hear you about the three prices thing. It’s frustrating. Grocery shopping is not simple. It’s all about hunting for deals and accepting the time vs money trade off. I’m sorry you are in this situation. I am too.

Why does it need to be an app then? And why one server?

Literally, what you’ve described is the www. The browser is your thin client. It connects to not one but many millions of servers and is able to use their resources to run queries, access menus, place orders. All that jazz.

Oh, and with the ridiculous advancements in technology, streaming services and games work amazingly too! Video streaming is so well studied that every Tom, Dick, and Disney has started their own streaming service and is charging through the nose for it. Every year, folks get arrested for running Plex servers or IPTV with millions of hours of pirated content that is used by thousands of their happily paying customers (more happy than Disney’s customers).

And Amazon Luna and Xbox and PlayStation have all shown how game streaming can be so easily done over HTML5. The only blocker on making that the default way of gaming is Apple’s greed. Not that it’s a good default. There’s something to be said about mobile hardware and chip design that has made amazing advancements in the last few years in the GPU space, making on-device processing really worth it.

Don’t remember what it’s called but there’s an internet law - that any advancement in hardware will immediately be offset by more expensive software requirements which will consume more of those resources. Looking at you, Chrome. Also looking at you, react framework.

Now that you’ve dubbed OP a tech person…

Hey OP, can you help me fix my printer? It’s only printing “RED RUM RED RUM” for some reason.

So Biden could officially flood the supreme court with democrat judges, then officially ask them to revoke this stupid ruling?

My SO was told to travel to office every day of the week, only to sit in zoom meetings because all of their team is elsewhere.

Reaaaal good use of everyone’s time and our non-renewable resources.

Please don’t poke holes into my fantasy.

Stapu with soap water and bouncy floor. What the actual fuck.

The ability to stop time and still interact with the world. Do you know how many books I have on my TBR?

Who the fuck rates a movie out of 4 stars? USA Today is who.

I get I and F. What’s O?

So wait, the people who need the aid, came to the trucks and asked for the aid / demanded the aid, so the UN checks notes suspended the aid?!!!?!

Or maybe pirates reclaim the VCR because streaming services turned into the Cable monster?

It’s already happened. So…

Podcasts dug up the radio star.

Podcasts dug up the radio star.

Frankenstein’d it and gave it a heart!

Oh-a-a-a-oh

They always have.

To be fair, these posts seem to be youth who are hating the immediate environment which is affecting them. Not the entire country. However in typical youth hyperbole, they’d rather write that they hate the whole country rather than specific people in it.

Also, this can be generalized to be youth of literally any country in the world. These issues they’re bringing up are part of the human condition.

I use this almost every time I need to launch something on my Portainer setup. It’s not perfect but works like a charm to convert simpler docker runs into yaml files.

A better Donald T?

Get a doctors appointment on the same day.