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How do we pay for parking?

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Re: How do we pay for parking?

#281

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

dang wrote: post #198
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #104

I. Hate. Technology. I hate working in this field. I hate how unprofessional every company is, from the largest to the smallest. I hate how incompetent all the engineers are. I hate how no business I have ever worked for has ever trained its workers on anything but how to fill out a time sheet. I hate all the blog posts about inane technical details. I hate how people start building a solution to a problem they're no…

Ok, but please don't fulminate on HN. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

What specifically should I have said to change it from fulminating to a declaration of the inherent problems in the technology industry that causes the concerns listed in the article (and nearly everyone else's comments) ? Should I just have said "I dislike very strongly ..." ?

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#282

Post by zekrioca »

bluepnume wrote: post #191
zekrioca wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is requiring a smartphone in the first place

Assuming you've linked a card in the past, or you have a basic browser of any kind to link one, our thing does not require a smart phone. Just SMS.

Unless I’m missing something, one still needs to scan the QR code though. That’s a smartphone feature.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#283

Post by winrid »

notatoad wrote: post #243
winrid wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chargeback!

chargebacks have consequences. they could easily ban you nationwide, at all the parking facilities that payment processor serves. or if their ToS doesn't allow banning, your payments will just start failing their fraud checks, and you'll be effectively banned. if that's an acceptable consequence then go ahead and do a chargeback, but don't recommend it to others who don't know the consequences.

That's fine. I don't do business with crooks.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#284

Post by vel0city »

NeoTar wrote: post #107
reilly3000 wrote: post #67

Bill my license plate. That is the UX I want.

I think that introduces some problems: - who should have access to the database linking license plates to addresses? - what about people with vehicles other countries? Less of a problem in North America, but I recently was in Canada, and saw some vehicles with German number plates! - what about false number plates? Or misreads? How does one defend against them? For the last one - a hilarious example: https://www.bbc.…

The airports near me use the toll RFID tags as an option. I wish most pay parking would be able to bill through it as well. It seems to have a low enough rate of false positives.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#285

Post by rich_sasha »

I totally know the pain.

I also find it surprising. UK has 1 "main" app that just works. Has simple UI, 1-2 features and that's it. Then there is a bit of a tail of 4-5 SMS-only providers, which I never used as you first have to "register", maybe call someone first...

I don't mean, UK consumer software is somehow better, I'm just surprised something as straightforward as a parking app becomes a pinch point.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#286

Post by supertrope »

valleyer wrote: post #133
utybo wrote: post #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)

Yeah, I've seen more than a few public parking facilities that got rid of their existing payment terminals (which take credit card, and sometimes cash) in favor of smartphone-based payment. I struggle to understand what would motivate it, from the perspective of the parking lot owner. I would presume the up-front cost of the old terminals was already paid off. And they certainly are more user-friendly. Is it that the…

This is like Apple Pay. Banks wanted to reap the benefit of technology without paying for the hardware. Better yet people are clamoring to pay $800 for the widgets. Like banks other businesses and even government agencies want to take advantage of BYOD. Better yet if the app replaces manual assistance.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#287

Post by supertrope »

burcs wrote: 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.

Nothing. But you the customer are burdened with this fraud risk so the business does not care since it’s not their problem.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#288

Post by supertrope »

13of40 wrote: post #174
burcs wrote: 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.

What it's ripe for is for someone to put up a box that accepts cash and credit cards then works as a proxy to one of the other services.

Parking provided by TicketMaster.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#289

Post by brw »

ncpa-cpl wrote: post #257
foresto wrote: post #196

This story makes me sad and a little angry. The bits that stand out for me are: - The requirement to have a smartphone and mobile data service. - The requirement to run untrusted code (granting whatever "permissions" it demands) on her personal device. I think it's important that necessities and other basic services (including parking) remain equally accessible to everyone, not locked away behind expensive, often bur…

I'll add another one, that is an issue when traveling: - Having an app store account of the country you are visiting. Some of this apps are geo restricted and can't be downloaded with foreign app store accounts. Sometimes they can't process foreign cards or foreign phone numbers.

While on holiday in the States for the first time recently I actually changed my Play Store country to be able to download some US specific parking app, not knowing that I apparently have to wait a full year before I can change my country again (I don't remember reading this during the process).

Explaining this to Google Play and Google One customer support led to nothing, they just told me to wait out the full year essentially. I'm just stuck with it for now.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#290

Post by culebron21 »

Everything digital nowadays is a liability, not any kind of improvement. That's why I swore I'd never have IoT things at home, even though I myself played with PCBs, ordered PCB manufacturing, and assembled couple devices.

Any IoT and Web pulled upon daily routines is just pain all the way.

I wonder, whether if the internet goes out, modern "advanced" fridge won't unfreeze.

Jokes apart, I walk with my kid in stroller, and to navigate public transit, have to use the awful bus monitoring apps. It's a pain to use even with both hands free and without child to monitor. But 30-yo rich vice-something from the government (that never takes public transit) thinks it's how we must live in the future.

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