Gated Community Apps

MyGate as primary use case, vendor lock-in forcing notification tolerance, apartment apps with mandatory usage that spam notifications and ads

Residents in gated communities face a frustrating "vendor lock-in" with mandatory apps like MyGate, which capitalize on the necessity of home access to serve relentless ads and notification spam. Commenters highlight a predatory business model where high user engagement metrics are manufactured through forced interactions and extensive data harvesting, including invasive access to contacts and device hardware. Unlike typical software, users cannot simply silence these platforms without losing the ability to receive guests or essential school updates, leaving them trapped behind slow interfaces and aggressive upsells. This power imbalance has even driven some tech-savvy residents to develop alternative privacy-focused solutions to escape the coercive monetization of their daily domestic lives.

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Here is a fun story. Just like you, I too live in a “gated community”, and we also default to MyGate. We have a founders group in there, and the things with MyGate and its irritations would sometimes come up. We all would wink and go about our days. The founder of MyGate is in the group and is one of the neighbors. We sometimes teased that we would just camp out outside his home, asking him to fix these excessive notification issues and bugs, and to add/edit features. ;-)

Another founder friend lives in a different mid-sized community and was using MyGate. He got pissed not just at the ads but at the massive data gathering—contacts, camera, flashlight, and everything. He ended up creating https://dobermanapp.com

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Ah we live in the same ‘gated’ community and probably are neighbours then ?

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The mygate app you have to use made me curious.

They proudly advertise:

"Capture the attention of India’s most sought-after communities"

https://mygate.com/ad-platform/ "

Faszinating, literal vendor lock in. I know that moving places suck (I am just doing it), but this would be unacceptable for me.

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They also advertise:

> 47% DAU:MAU

> Build strong brand recall with high frequency on our daily-use app

Spamming notifications is how they are getting these high frequency users.

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Presumably also because people need to get into their apartment building most days?

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> I've been happy with the solution of switching off notifications from apps that interrupt me with promotions - one strike and they're out.

I have exactly the same policy. But in my case I am forced to keep notifications enabled from apps like MyGate (since nobody would be able to visit me without it) and I have no say in the matter - my gated society uses it and my only way out is to pay for the app itself.

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Ah OK - personally that would move it from an "annoying app with adverts" charge (that I'd resist) to a "leasehold bullshit" charge (that I'd pay).

I am stuck similarly with the ClassDojo app that my kids school uses to communicate with parents. The notifications are just "You have a new notification!" which leads to a slow app load, an upsell splash, before finally having to scroll to find the important message from a teacher. In this case though, paying would not make it any less slow to use.

I just check once a week instead, and the parents WhatsApp group fills in the gaps for me.

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This is really great. I chuckled seeing MyGate. I hate that app. My society uses it and I'd need this exactly for it. I hate that Android doesn't force devs to use the right notification category. Apps need to be penalized for not adhering to that.

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