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How do we pay for parking?

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Re: How do we pay for parking?

#91
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 6 minute video weighting at about 150MiB for "explaining" what can be summarized in a couple sentences of text is another particular version of hell.

Why didn't you explain it? Is this more hell?

Why didnt you? Now I have to go watch the video on expensive data, darn it

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#92
I was at Dick's sporting goods and the cleats section was this special "app" area where you could either enter in your search criteria or scan shoes so associates would approach you with the shoes in hand.

The app was slow as f - and only really worked if you brought up and scanned the shoes.

Was there any instruction? No - you had to figure it out yourself. To be honest if felt like you were playing myst.

Why was this done? IDK - to stop shoplifting?

Why was the old way so bad that you had to add all this crap. They're goddamn shoes - put them in boxes and let people try them on like we've been doing for 40 years. Creating an app is not going to improve the experience 10x.

If it's not going to improve the experience 10x - why are you doing this? WTF?

These are the instances where I understand a Steve Jobs type blowing their lid.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#93
Why have parking lots not kept their usual parking payment station things? In France, all paid parking I've seen has both options of an app or just using the parking meter payment thing (with the smartphone option usually being better because you can pay exactly by the minute instead of paying 1 whole hour)

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#94

We built a startup. You scan a QR code, that sends a text message. If you have a saved card, you pay in the text thread by replying 'pay now', if not you get a link to save a new card. No apps required. Hoping that with enough adoption, it will obviate the need for experiences as bad as this.

Sounds good, and you probably have the best intentions, but right now, that would just make you standard no. 15.

It's quite possible that the third sign on OP's parking lot would have led them to a perfectly user-friendly app with a pleasant and simple payment flow. But with so many apps to choose from and each lot only supporting a random subset of them, it'd be basically luck if you get to use the "good" app, even if there exists one.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#96

We built a startup. You scan a QR code, that sends a text message. If you have a saved card, you pay in the text thread by replying 'pay now', if not you get a link to save a new card. No apps required. Hoping that with enough adoption, it will obviate the need for experiences as bad as this.

Scanning the QR code makes your device text the company? Or you scan it and enter in your phone number? What if I don’t have a saved card? Still seems just as bamboozling

I assumed it was using one of those old pay-by-SMS mechanisms to bill the user, so they have to first type in their phone number?

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#97
post #5

Modern parking lots always seem ripe for physical phishing, whats stopping someone from sticking up a couple of QR codes that link to a fraudulent payment page or some other malware? This is one of those things that tech really didn't "fix" and now I have to select from one of 20 apps instead of just paying with cash or even a credit card.

This is a well-known problem at more than just parking lots. Any proprietor using QR codes in their place of business should generally be policing the property for rogue stickers. Obviously, quality of the business matters here a lot for that.

Fix: “using QR codes” is unnecessary. Just every business with public access to the property. Customers of a business not using QR codes are vulnerable to the same scam.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#98

My personal pet peeve is lots that show you the apps you can pay for parking with, but then make it extremely difficult to find the lot ID. Pay-for parking feels like the kind of thing that should become a utility with one, easy, well-known way to pay for parking anywhere.

"One way to park anywhere" sounds like a federated system, which is exactly how I think it should work. You could install one of many client apps, but all the parking companies can be paid for from any of them.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#99
In my city, we have the ticket machines and a single app which you can use to pay as well. The instructions for said app are literally on the ticket machines. This system works; tech literate people can use the app, others can use the ticket machine. No one is forced to do capitalism to avoid a parking ticket.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#100

We built a startup. You scan a QR code, that sends a text message. If you have a saved card, you pay in the text thread by replying 'pay now', if not you get a link to save a new card. No apps required. Hoping that with enough adoption, it will obviate the need for experiences as bad as this.

My rear camera doesn’t work, am I screwed?
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