Just like users "used" the toolbar API back in the Internet Explorer 6 days? Used as in they got the toolbar foisted on them while installing some crapware.
The notifications API is the same. How many of those "uses" are legitimate uses that users consciously want, and how many of them are misclicks or just clicking yes to dismiss the prompt so they can access the content they wanted in the first place?
In my case there's only one website I can think of where I want notifications from my browser: Slack. I can understand that some people might want them for e-mails, social networks, etc but even then that's only like a dozen or so websites. In contrast there more websites than that which use notifications for spammy/annoying/unnecessary purposes, and sadly some people do fall for them and then get their time wasted by these notifications.
In a perfect world where nobody would try to take advantage of people I would totally want web notifications to be a thing because there's basically no downside (websites won't try to use them for spam) and potential upsides.
In a world where it's not only legal but morally acceptable to take advantage of people, waste their time, stalk them, etc (there's a whole industry around this called "martech") I would happily sacrifice the few legitimate uses of web notifications if it means non-technical users can't accidentally opt-into crap and then have their time wasted by spam because they don't know how to opt-out.
The notifications API is the same. How many of those "uses" are legitimate uses that users consciously want, and how many of them are misclicks or just clicking yes to dismiss the prompt so they can access the content they wanted in the first place?
In my case there's only one website I can think of where I want notifications from my browser: Slack. I can understand that some people might want them for e-mails, social networks, etc but even then that's only like a dozen or so websites. In contrast there more websites than that which use notifications for spammy/annoying/unnecessary purposes, and sadly some people do fall for them and then get their time wasted by these notifications.
In a perfect world where nobody would try to take advantage of people I would totally want web notifications to be a thing because there's basically no downside (websites won't try to use them for spam) and potential upsides.
In a world where it's not only legal but morally acceptable to take advantage of people, waste their time, stalk them, etc (there's a whole industry around this called "martech") I would happily sacrifice the few legitimate uses of web notifications if it means non-technical users can't accidentally opt-into crap and then have their time wasted by spam because they don't know how to opt-out.