Welcome back to Gizmodo’s March Madness Challenge for the greatest apps of all time! In yesterday’s competition, HQ Trivia completely defeated VSCO with over 65% of the votes. Today we have one of the most nefarious apps in the world going up against one of the most harmless.
If you’re just tuning in, you can read all of our selection criteria for this historic match right here. Check out the full list of contestants embedded below. As always, if you think we’ve missed your personal favorite app, give us a shout in the comments. Now, let’s get into today’s contestants.
Uber was a pioneer in at least two ways. It tells Silicon Valley that you can flout regulations as long as you integrate into society quickly enough. As long as you make a big enough commitment, it becomes a model for years of burning investors’ money. The company, founded in 2009, posted its first annual profit last year. It has spent more than a decade luring investors and the public with promises of self-driving cars and private helicopters. It succeeded in achieving this milestone by abandoning everything that made Uber a futuristic technology company and focusing instead on becoming the highly regarded taxi service it has always been.
Despite countless articles, best-selling books, and popular TV miniseries documenting all of Uber’s bad behavior, people still seem to love it. Or they at least tolerate it because it’s convenient. I’m sure there are edge cases where it fills a gap in rural areas or improves the lives of people with disabilities. So if you want to vote for Uber, we’re helping you make it happen.
Compared to Uber, we have Yo, a short-lived app that let you send friends a notification that just said “Yo.” Yo can mean many things. The sender might ask you if you want to hang out, remind you that you forgot about an appointment, or check if you want to hang out. Yes, texting would be more practical, but the beauty of Yo is that there’s no obligation. You might know exactly what the sender wants and ignore them without feeling like a snub, or you might reply with a “yo.” Yo ultimately means “I’m thinking of you,” which is good.
You come and go without really disturbing anyone. It did get hacked once, which resulted in a lot of people getting a lot of Yos out of nowhere, and the company then hired the hacker as a security consultant. The app shut down in 2018 and was almost a ghost town at the time. There’s an imposter on the App Store named “Yo!,” but don’t be fooled.
So, reader, what would it be? Do you want to send Uber to the next round, or the last one?
Voting is over, Uber beats Yo!
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