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How do we pay for parking?

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Re: How do we pay for parking?

#301

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

reilly3000 wrote: post #67

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

There used to be systems whereby consumers could get all kinds of services and just have them billed to their phone account. I don't know how broad or widespread this was, but certainly there were pay-per-call services and such. Unfortunately, the scammers ruined this model, because it was far too easy to force or fake consent over a voice telephone line, and many laws and regulations later, I hardly ever hear of this practice at all.

P.S. my parents became the victims of a phone sex line. They had been receiving mysterious hangup calls in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Then my aunt was planning a trip and dialing a lot of airline (800) numbers, and she accidentally dialed (800) + my parents' number, and got an earful, and so thus my parents found out what all the callers were after.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#302

Post by liendolucas »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #300
liendolucas wrote: post #111

Oh yes, the world is enshittificating at an unbelievable pace. Here's one I have recently had to deal with. Sometime ago I failed my theory driving exam. The computers presented a series of 30 questions, to which you answer true or false. Fast forwarding to a few weeks ago, I found myself for round 2. The computers have all been changed. Shiny IBMs ThinkCentre with a small camera on top. The exam is supposed to start…

Proctoring exams is a crazy, messed-up world. It has always been extraordinarily difficult for human teachers and TAs to prevent cheating on tests. And the tech companies have convinced administrators that technology can proctor exams better than an eagle-eyed human, and so they've designed elaborate biometrics and heuristics and ML to determine who the cheatingest students are, and it's a dumpster fire of false posi…

For this particular case, the camera thing that I mentioned is absolutely pointless, it's doesn't prevent anything, just an annoying thing that forces you to sit in a rigid, uncomfortable and fixed position to answer questions. But besides that, there are always 30 computers in a relatively small room with each computer spaced from other ones, one person watching from a desk and another one always stood up watching for everyone. Is way way more complicated to cheat than to actually prepare yourself to pass it. Before entering you are even scanned with a magnetic detector! Just in case you are wearing an electronic device that will help you to answer a randomized set of questions.

> And the tech companies have convinced administrators that technology can proctor exams better than an eagle-eyed human.

This to me denotes complete ignorance on the persons that are supposed to evaluate the implementation of a particular technology.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#303

Post by aembleton »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #296
brw wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Full Year?! Good to know, and perhaps at this point, a burner phone is the best choice for overseas travel.

Or a second Google account. Just have a USA account you can switch to. I'm heading to Canada next month and hiring a car so I should get on that now

Edit: Just tried and you can't do that, all accounts are in the same country and you even need a payment method for the new country!

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#304

Post by bmitc »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #297
bmitc wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great observation. Corporations just keeping pushing costs, infrastructure, features, quality assurance, and even testing onto regular people and customers. We're everybody's little compute engine.

Self-checkout groceries: wow, what an insult that I should have to train myself as a cashier at every store I shop, and further insult that you can't employ deserving humans for it. Interestingly, the move to place the POS in front of the customer rather than handing our cards to the cashier, is a valiant effort to make things more secure and efficient, I suppose, so I kind of approve of this change, although it some…

Grocery stores in general bother me. I'm not even that old, but since I sacked groceries as a teenager and was actually trained, like no one seems to do today, I actually prefer to sack my own groceries in the regular checkout line. Even extremely basic things like keeping raw meats or chemicals separated away from food is completely lost on 99% of sackers at grocery stores these days. In just 10 to 20 years, we have lost the ability to sack groceries properly. It just makes you wonder what else has fallen by the wayside in the capitalist and consumer race to both the top of profits and bottom of prices.

The self-checkouts are the greatest waste ever. They never work, but most stores have a single, actual checkout line these days. Things literally got worse, no matter how you slice it. The real checkout line is long, and the self-checkout is incapable of being useful for anything other than a couple of items. Even then, it just yells at you every step of the way.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#305

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

aembleton wrote: post #303
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full Year?! Good to know, and perhaps at this point, a burner phone is the best choice for overseas travel.

Or a second Google account. Just have a USA account you can switch to. I'm heading to Canada next month and hiring a car so I should get on that now Edit: Just tried and you can't do that, all accounts are in the same country and you even need a payment method for the new country!

Yeah! But I was also thinking of all the hassles with SIM/eSIM, and having a second phone just to travel seemed smoother.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#306

Post by kzrdude »

mongol wrote: post #259
kzrdude wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A newer parking house in Oslo has this as one of the options for billing. Do nothing and this happens. (Road tolls already do this in Norway.)

I vacationed in Norway in July. Have yet to receive any bills from my trips on ferries and highways. My car had Swedish registration plates. I don't know whether to expect any bills any more.

I got the road toll summary from 2022 by may 2023 or something like that. Pay to Swedish bank like a normal bill, so pretty easy.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#307

Post by raverbashing »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #254

Radical idea for this century: pay someone to stand at the entrance of the packing area to put cash in a safe or hold a card reader up to the drivers' windows. With some training, this person is also your health and safety officer, your security personnel and even your 'sorry sir/madam we are out of spaces' person (who saves each customer ten minutes of driving in circles). As a computer programmer, I love it when te…

No, sorry, this doesn't have an App or uses AI, no VC will put money in this idea /s

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#308

Post by Too »

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.…

Some parkings here have a terminal where you enter your license plate and pay right before you are about to leave. Time of entry was registered automatically by scanning your plate. Once you’ve paid you got 15 mins to get out of the gate, again controlled by plate scanning.

Solves all the problems you’ve listed.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#309

Post by Too »

There are a few of these apps that are decent and do work, once you get used to it, they are actually quite convenient.

What I dislike is that since charging is now as simple as putting up a sign. Every single parking can and do charge money, no matter how small, remote or ill-managed it is. Previously only the most heavily used lots in the city center would invest in a machine. Meaning now not only you have more to pay, also that parking company knows your every move.

Re: How do we pay for parking?

#310

Post by seabass-labrax »

raverbashing wrote: post #307
seabass-labrax wrote: post #254

Radical idea for this century: pay someone to stand at the entrance of the packing area to put cash in a safe or hold a card reader up to the drivers' windows. With some training, this person is also your health and safety officer, your security personnel and even your 'sorry sir/madam we are out of spaces' person (who saves each customer ten minutes of driving in circles). As a computer programmer, I love it when te…

No, sorry, this doesn't have an App or uses AI, no VC will put money in this idea /s

But it is DeFi; the finance is decentralised between all the parking attendants!
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