How Navigation Apps Shape Your Choices and Where You Go

- This is maybe a controversial opinion. - Where's this going? (upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to "Outside the Fox," where we explore what's happening online and why it matters. I'm Steve Flavin. - And I'm Kim Horcher. I have a question for you today, Steve. - What's your question? - Could you, if you had to, make your way from your home to this room now, this studio, with zero directions from your phone? - Well, I just moved, so that's an extra loaded question, but the answer is no, not even a little bit. I, like most people, rely on navigation software.

I also, fun fact, I don't drive, so I rely on rideshare. So it was really just putting a destination in and I get to where I need to go, but I don't really think about, you know, navigating in terms of directions anymore. - No car is a brave choice for Los Angeles, but I didn't move and I still couldn't do that because I kind of, I've gotten used to just following the guide. You know, sometimes I disagree with it where it says take the long way, and then sometimes there's a serious issue that I do need to get around and I should have trusted it in the first place. But yeah, I think we're not really navigating the way we used to.

- And it does beg the question, are the apps that we use to get around and find new places guiding us where we want to be or where they want us to be? - I think we might have an idea of what it is. I mean, there's different ways that you would be navigated regardless, you know, maybe if you're taking a bike or walking or public transit or driving, which I think is probably the most common around here at least. - Mm-hmm. Navigation apps help guide you whether you're in a car, on a train, or on foot. But they definitely feel like they're primarily built around cars, and specifically helping people driving cars

to find the fastest route with the least traffic to get to their destination as quickly as possible. It's really all about time efficiency. - Yeah, I mean, I'll often get the thing that pops up that says, "Do you want to save two minutes?" And obviously, yes, I wanna save two minutes. Send me down some weird way where it's not safe to make a left turn or what have you. I'll do it. - I mean, sometimes the scenic route is nice though.

- Yeah, I know. I'm mostly kidding. I'm not 100% kidding though. Yeah, and I've definitely relied on it in other countries where I am a visitor. Maybe I don't speak the language, I don't know how to get around and public transit is my only option and it's helped me significantly in Japan for sure. - Oh, wow. Yeah. Interesting question. "Do you use public transportation here in Los Angeles?" - No. (Steve laughs) End of statement.

No, I used to, when I was interning, when I was in college, I went to UCLA and I interned at KTLA, which is a local TV station. And I took the bus and I hated it. Because one, it took an hour, and two, it was a little scary as a lone college girl. - Mm-hmm. - I'm not gonna get into details. You can figure it out. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did used to when I first moved here, I, you know, it's interesting because LA, the metro area is so spread out and it's, I feel like the most transit stops are sort of in the cardinal directions. And so, you know, and then the like major sort of tourist-trappy, (laughs) like shopping areas. - The places I avoid.

- Yeah, but I did, when I first came here, I worked in Atwater Village- - Oh! - and there was a, actually I lived in Koreatown at the time, and there was a bus line that went right from Koreatown to Atwater, and it was actually fairly straightforward. But yeah, increasingly now, you know, most recently I was downtown. Now I'm in a different neighborhood. I'm gonna be intentionally vague so I can, you know, protect that sweet, sweet privacy. (Kim laughs) - The tone change you took on that. Okay. - But yeah, I'm curious, do you walk a lot in LA? Do you bike or scooter?

- I try to. I have a lot of local, smaller shops in my neighborhood, so I like to go to them and order there. I'm trying not to give away where I live either, but I sometimes walk to nearby parks. I just walked to a cemetery just to look around. - Hmm. Yeah, I'm a fan of a good cemetery walk. - Yeah, when you wanna be alone, it's quiet, peaceful, it's a dead neighborhood. - (chuckles) Okay, well, speaking of dead, have you heard of the app Zombies, Run!? - Yes, I've used it before. - Okay. - My friends have used it. My partner's used it.

It pretty much, it's an audio app that simulates running away from zombies to motivate you to get your running and jogging in. - All right. I can go for that. I honestly, I had never heard of this app before we started doing this podcast, so. - I, you know, it had its initial run. It was very popular, but now it's back from the dead because its original owner reacquired it. - Oh, cool. I love that. - Yeah.

- I love when that happens. - Right? - It's been happening with a couple of tech products lately. - You know, I watched a true crime documentary recently. It was called "The Crash" on Netflix. And they were trying to figure out what happened, what time, what was going on with these people in the crash. And somebody, a friend of one of the victims, was like, "Well, this app I have was tracking where he was. So he was on his phone one minute before and he was here, then he was here." It was all on the app. And that wouldn't have been accessible to the detectives trying to figure out what happened if it wasn't for that app.

- Yeah, that's interesting. It's also a slippery slope 'cause that can like quickly, like also- - It's a little creepy. - it could be used against you. Something I will note, actually, we're on the subject of fitness trackers and GPS, a brand that we at Mozilla have reviewed in the past through the "Privacy Not Included" buyer's guide that we used to put out is Garmin. And evidently, you know, like most fitness trackers, they do collect some amount of personal data, which is the whole point of a fitness tracker. And GPS, you know, is like, it's tracking your location, but they are very transparent

around what they do with the data. They're pretty responsible with it. They give you options for opting out of how that data is used in a way that's, you know, fairly straightforward. And so just putting that out there is like, you know, we have our like big tech, you know, fitness devices that, you know, tend to get the lion's share of the attention. But I don't always think of Garmin, you know, at first- - No, I don't either. - when I'm thinking of fitness in particular. They're sort of the OG when it comes to car navigation and GPS. And so it's cool to see, you know, they're still doing their thing and evidently they have a privacy policy that our team is, you know-

- It's a fine line- - recommends. - when we're looking at something that kind of geo-tracks us. maybe it could help us with safety, but it's also, you know, maybe not always the data is used for positive purposes, for tracking or other creepy things that we don't necessarily like. Like I do like knowing that if I am lost, I can find my way back, but I don't necessarily love being tracked everywhere I go. - Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm always bringing it back to Firefox. You know, we're big fans of control around here. Something that we recommend actually is looking at your settings on your mobile device and turning off location services or turning them on,

but only while you're using the app. - You reminded me that I need to do an audit of all my apps and make sure- - It's kind of a pain, 'cause you have to essentially audit them and, you know, just like make sure that no one's creeping around where you didn't give permission. But the life hack is, it also reduces your battery consumption. - Okay. I'm more on board. (laughs) - Yeah, so, because if it's tracking you all the time, even when you're not using the app, it's really sucking your battery, so. - I bet. - So it's kind of a win-win, you know, it's like people aren't tracking you and you get a little extra juice.

- Well, it's not just, you know, navigation or traffic or transportation apps that are following us around. - True. - I wanna bring it to a topic that's close to my heart, food. - Oh, yes. - So it can help us actually decide which restaurants we might hit up, which coffee shops, you know, where are the spots that are getting the best reviews, five stars. And I think that's certainly that something we haven't really thought of that much, maybe until more recently, of how those are getting in the system and why, and is this truly a five-star experience?

- Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is something that's become increasingly part of the discourse and I think increasingly known is that there are a lot of fake reviews out there. - I've been coerced into doing them. - Mm-hmm. And not only that, even the ones that aren't fake necessarily, you know, might be sponsored or influenced in some way. And so- - Like, exchange for product, or, yeah. - Yeah. So, you know, that tends to tip the scales a little bit in favor of brands or, you know, restaurants or places that have marketing budgets in order to do that. So if you're searching for tacos, are you getting the best tacos

or are you getting the best optimized tacos? - I saw this hack online and I found it to be largely true, which is when you go to certain restaurants, instead of picking the five-star restaurants, pick the three-and-a-half-star for certain kinds of cuisines. - Interesting. And what's the rationale behind that? - So I am Vietnamese and from my personal experience that the three-and-a-half-star Vietnamese restaurants are better than the five-star experiences because they tend to be more authentic. Also, customer service expectations are wildly different between more American or Americanized restaurants than a more typical authentic experience. That's just my anecdote. - Interesting.

- But yeah, you know, typically if you find a Vietnamese restaurant with a kid doing homework or a mother yelling at the kids, that's gonna be a good restaurant, gonna taste great. - Yeah, that's a great tip. 'Cause that's exactly the kind of advice that you wouldn't necessarily find on some of these bigger apps where, you know, they're incentivizing, you know, paid reviews. - Oh yeah. - Or, you know, other kinds of, you know, ways to tip the scales. - I've been bullied into leaving a good review before by a restaurant.

- Oh, wow. Okay. - Yeah. And then when I left the restaurant, I deleted it because it made me feel bad and I didn't like that. But, you know, it can't happen to everyone that way. I think that oftentimes things may be incentivized or maybe even paid and not disclosed because I think there have been recent studies that have shown a lot of posts are paid, but it's not very clear that this is actually an advertisement. In fact, a 2025 analysis of 100 million branded posts on Twitter found that a significant portion of them were sponsored posts that were undisclosed.

- Yeah. I mean, that tracks with just anecdotal things that I've heard, you know, working in content and social media, so. - I've gotten offers to do certain things and then I've seen people I know do them and not say it was an ad, but I knew for a fact it was an ad. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. - That's also anecdotal, but it does happen. - Yeah. Well, I mean, there are some under-the-radar apps for exploration, you know, if you wanna avoid the viral video hotspots, you know, and TikTok trend locations.

So I've got a couple of hot recommendations here. - Sure. Gimme those. - For people who love art and culture, there's Atlas Obscura. - I've used that. - Yeah? - Yeah, I've used that for Portland and I found some exceptionally weird places. - Yeah. Well, it's a great app. This is a fun fact. I, back in my like early freelancing days, it's like your peak startup culture in San Francisco, I started working on a Kickstarter video for an app that was like Atlas Obscura, but like not as good. (laughs) And they're not-

- Did you all know that at the time? - [Steve] Well, we didn't finish the video. - (laughs) Okay. - 'Cause they just like couldn't get it together. And I'm like, "Peace." And I like I'm happy, it was a good kernel of an idea and I'm glad that there is an app out there that, you know, has taken that and actually put something out that's worth the experience. - I liked it. - And yeah, it's free, community-generated. There's also, for coffee lovers, there's a free, community-driven app called Roasters that helps you find the best coffee in the neighborhood, vetted by real coffee lovers.

- Ah! I thought you were gonna say so you can get roasted by strangers, but. - Ooh, okay. (laughs) - I think we have enough apps for that. - I mean, that's like, you know, every social media app- - That's every other social media app. - Basically. - This all just makes me wonder, is there still possibilities of discovering and going on little adventures on your own without the aid of your phone and finding hidden treasures? I mean, I think I kind of did recently. I went to Maui and I wanted to support local businesses.

- Oh, nice. - And I was told the best way to do that, especially for restaurants, is to go to food stalls, which are kind of like little stands that sell food and there's more permanent than a food truck and they're in little malls, sort of. So I did use apps to find the little malls of food stalls. But then from there I would pick what I wanted instead of, you know, "This truck has the number one Korean corn dog, you gotta have it." But I've found some pretty good fish and fruit and good things to eat that way. - I love that. I mean, I'm always a huge fan of just like leaving the phone in the pocket or the bag and just using your eyes, walking, use your feet and just wander around.

This is maybe a controversial opinion. I am a big fan of convenience, not- - (laughs) Where's this going? - Not convenience as in like the first thing that comes up when you search for it. But it's like, you know, "Where am I?" Like, "Oh, here's a spot that looks pretty good. Like, I'm just gonna try it," you know? It's like I remember the first time I went to New York, I was with somebody who basically every single time that we had to eat, he's like on his app looking like at reviews and is like, "Oh, it's not a cool enough place to go," or, you know, "Doesn't have enough stars," or whatever. And I feel like we place this pressure on us to like, every experience or every meal that we have

has to be like this, like obscure, like, "It has to be a cool place. (babbles)" It's like, I don't know, I just like, I'm hungry at the end of the day, you know? It's like I would challenge the notion that we have to optimize like what we eat and, you know, I guess maybe I'm optimizing it a different way where I'm just like, "That, over there, it looks good," but I think that sometimes, I don't know, location, location, location, you know? It's like, is it where I wanna be? - I mean, there's many times where I've disagreed with reviews.

Like there's a place in downtown LA that was so hot and everyone wanted to go and my coworkers dragged me. And it was terrible. It was so mediocre. The food and the decor was just like, "What's trendy? Here it is." And it just felt like it had no soul, I guess is how I'd put it. I'm not gonna name the restaurant, I'll tell you later. - Yeah, I, (laughs) I had a sushi restaurant recently that was like, it was fine, it was fine, but it was like highly recommended by a friend of ours and I don't know, it was like kind of, "Meh."

- I was like, "Whatever. Okay." - I mean, well in LA there's so many good sushi restaurants. - It's true. - Also, like, we're just spoiled for choice. But just to put a finer point on that, you know, an advantage of not using your phone to decide where you're going to eat is one less data point that's being collected. - Yeah, I think we've often been trained to stop caring about our data being taken, by who and where and what and for what purpose. Your phone knows a lot about you. It knows where you go. How often do you go there? How long do you spend there? How long do you stay? Who do you go with?

What are the other devices around you? It knows so much. So if I could maybe remove a little bit of that, I don't mind it. - Yeah, exactly. Walk sometimes, take transit. Don't always default to the fastest route. - Don't always pick the top thing, which is oftentimes sponsored. You know, sometimes it's fun to scroll down and see what else is being hidden. Or maybe ask your friends IRL what they like to do, where they like to go, - You know, and of course we're not anti-navigation app, but I think navigate responsibly, right?

It is just, educate yourself on where your location is being tracked and turn it off when necessary. - I think it's important to remember that these are tools for you. They should be working for you. You are not working for them. (upbeat music) - Exactly. Well, our question to you: has tech made navigation easier or better for you? Or would you rather go back in time and print your directions off of MapQuest? Let us know in the comments. - Uh, nobody wants that, Steve. Be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and download Firefox because you know it's the best.

We'll see you next time.