The Eurovision App is a Scam

Eurovision week is over. Thanks to Tel Aviv, ESC 2019 was a nice show. Congratulations to the Netherlands! But I'm not here to write about who won and who lost or who should have won. This is about the Eurovision App and how it gets advertised in the show and why it's a scam. During the whole week, they say you have multiple options to vote: voting by calling a premium number, voting by writing an SMS to a premium number and voting by using the app! 

The costs on premium numbers are not that high. But still, some people might prefer to disable premium numbers for multiple good reasons. Maybe you're an underage person who got premium numbers disabled for your own protection — or the protection of your parents' money. So voting with the app would make a lot of sense! And the Eurovision Song Contest advertises the app a lot. They treat it like a real alternative: you can vote using the app. Voting using the power of modern technology! As every year since they offer the app, I download the app, because I already forgot why I hated the app, I mean, it's been almost a year since the last I used it. And I cringe the very moment I want to vote and get disappointed in life again.

As soon as you hit the vote for a country button you get a text box telling you they won't be sending the vote through the internet, as any sane modern person would expect. No, they just write the text for the SMS for you. So you still need to send the SMS to the premium number. This is not an alternative! This is just a bloated interface for writing a SMS! And yet every single time they mention the app they treat it like a real alternative method to vote! You don't need to call or write an SMS! They just write the SMS for you!

So what did I end up using to vote? I just didn't vote. I am just to cheap to pay 20 cents per vote? Maybe. But then, most likely not. I mean, I'm one of those people who happily pay 20 bucks for having access to a bunch of pixels that look like a fat cat. What bothers me that it's a scam. And being scammed like that killed all the hype for Eurovision to me. Will they ever fix that? Not likely. I mean, they haven't for years. All you get if you do confront them about it is some generic “due to technical limitations” text.