81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone • Hacker News Board

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#131

Post by comprev » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #105

crazygringo wrote: post #52

From my quick research online, it seems they've gone digital-only for season tickets because they don't want people just reselling them to turn a profit. They want actual season-long fans, so now if you transfer too many games they can track it and ban you. This is essentially anti-scalping. There's a legit justification. You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anym…

> you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. It’s hard to argue that having to manage a smartphone and its ever-changing apps and UI flows for purchasing and handling tickets, is simpler than buying a paper ticket with paper money. Is it really better?

It's better for the company not the customer

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#132

Post by teeray » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #46

Molitor5901 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point. I'm surprised the box office cannot print it for him for a fee at Will Call, which might be the solution here.

No, it's not. If you are physically incapable of operating a piece of technology, the ADA covers reasonable accommodations for that. If you are simply unwilling to learn how to use a piece of technology, it doesn't and shouldn't cover that. Being a luddite is not a protected class.

If your ticket was in the form of a piece of music that you had to perform on your violin to gain entry, would you feel the same way? Keep in mind, it’s only in the last 15 years that playing the violin in this world became commonplace and only in the past 5 that these performances became required to access common goods and services. Violins also still cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#133

Post by IncreasePosts » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #90

mrweasel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an amusement park we like to go to. We get season passes, which normally means renewing the small plastic card we got the first year. They've switched to app only this year, with the option of getting a card, if for some reason you cannot or will not use the app. I believe there's a small fee for issuing the card. I believe their reasoning is much the same. They have some types of tickets, which can technical…

> Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. That's not desirable either. You often can't make it to all the games, so they want you to be able to give some tickets to friends, etc. They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. So you real…

It's pretty common for people who rely on networking to have season passes and hand out various games as "gifts" to whoever they want to get on the good side of.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#134

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #52

From my quick research online, it seems they've gone digital-only for season tickets because they don't want people just reselling them to turn a profit. They want actual season-long fans, so now if you transfer too many games they can track it and ban you. This is essentially anti-scalping. There's a legit justification. You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anym…

> Honestly, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me. At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. You also can't buy tickets any more by snail mail with an enclosed check.

The problem is, in the end it leads to a society where you NEED a smartphone to enjoy basic human existence - and yes, access to cultural and sports events is a fundamental part of being a human.

That in turn almost always means: your smartphone must be either Apple or a blessed Google device. And that in turn means: no rooting (because most apps employ anti-root SDKs these days), no cheap AOSP phones, no AOSP forks like Graphene OS. And that is, frankly, dystopian when your existence as a human being depends on one of two far too rich American mega corporations. Oh and it needs to be a recent model too, because app developers just love to go the easy route and only support recent devices on recent OS versions.

And that's before we get into account bans (which particularly Google is infamous for), international sanctions like the one against the ICC justices, or pervasive 24/7 surveillance by advertising SDKs or operating systems themselves.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#135

Post by Lammy » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #52

From my quick research online, it seems they've gone digital-only for season tickets because they don't want people just reselling them to turn a profit. They want actual season-long fans, so now if you transfer too many games they can track it and ban you. This is essentially anti-scalping. There's a legit justification. You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anym…

> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better.

I don't agree that it's better. Why should I have to worry about my ticket running out of battery power or being such a high-value pickpocket target once I'm already in the venue?

The latter is a huge issue at music festivals for example:

- https://old.reddit.com/r/OutsideLands/search/?q=phone+stolen...

- https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=pho...

- https://old.reddit.com/r/coachella/search/?q=phone+stolen&in...

Can't just leave it at home if you need it to get in to the thing.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#136

Post by mixtureoftakes » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #41

ggoo wrote: post #7

I wish people would stop posting twitter links, they're a coin toss if they're even viewable

There are various extensions you can get to automatically redirect Twitter links to xcancel or something, very much recommended. I don't like that these get submitted either, but unfortunately people do post worthwhile stuff there and only there, and I don't want to just categorically forbid those posts.

I like these being submitted.

Twitter still does have quite a lot of unique content that either appears there first or isnt accessible anywhere else at all, unlike paid article websites, previews without logging in actually work for the most part, and xcancel as you said is a thing. Which extension are you using for redirects?

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#137

Post by rchaud » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

moondance wrote: post #67

crazygringo wrote: post #52

From my quick research online, it seems they've gone digital-only for season tickets because they don't want people just reselling them to turn a profit. They want actual season-long fans, so now if you transfer too many games they can track it and ban you. This is essentially anti-scalping. There's a legit justification. You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anym…

Have you had the pleasure of coaching a technologically illiterate grandparent through the process of learning how to use a smartphone? It’s a never-ending job and disheartening for all parties involved. Modern mobile UX is not designed with accessibility for the elderly in mind, and it is constantly changing in a way that demands constant re-learning. Not to mention the disabilities and neurological conditions often…

At airports and drugstores, the magazine racks will usually have a "Guide to iPhone/Android" type publication with a ton of pictures that are aimed at this market. I picked one up and realized while flipping through it that there is way too much for a brand new user to be able to absorb. The gestures needed on iOS to pull up options that are otherwise invisible in the UI will be nonsensical to someone whose UI/UX frame of reference is an ATM screen or a gas pump (or self-checkout kiosk which they might not use) where every option is shown on screen without needing additional navigation. Just like the first iPhone, come to think of it.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#138

Post by whartung » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #90

mrweasel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an amusement park we like to go to. We get season passes, which normally means renewing the small plastic card we got the first year. They've switched to app only this year, with the option of getting a card, if for some reason you cannot or will not use the app. I believe there's a small fee for issuing the card. I believe their reasoning is much the same. They have some types of tickets, which can technical…

> Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. That's not desirable either. You often can't make it to all the games, so they want you to be able to give some tickets to friends, etc. They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. So you real…

They could force you to re-sell your tickets through the team MLB site, and to sell them for face value.

If the tickets come in at less than face value because of the season sale (not unreasonable), that can work OK (particularly for good seats for a team like the Dodgers). Most folks simply won't be able to sell all of the tickets. The goal isn't to make ad hoc ticket sales a necessarily profitable enterprise, the goal is to sell season seats, so you have to be somewhat accommodating. Pretty hard for anyone to go to all 81 homes games.

This can only go so far, unless you make the sold ticket not transferable.

They can also allow some margin to be just outright sold at market. I know several season ticket holders who sell the tickets to the big games (like Dodgers/Yankees) at a premium to help offset the entire season ticket package.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#139

Post by moondance » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #120

moondance wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you had the pleasure of coaching a technologically illiterate grandparent through the process of learning how to use a smartphone? It’s a never-ending job and disheartening for all parties involved. Modern mobile UX is not designed with accessibility for the elderly in mind, and it is constantly changing in a way that demands constant re-learning. Not to mention the disabilities and neurological conditions often…

Now have your grandparent try to teach you something you aren't interested in and don't really want to learn, and see how it goes.

This guy has a flip phone. Seems like that was the last “new” thing he could learn. Its user flows never change and he’s memorized it. The idea that the average old person is so obstinate that they would refuse to learn the new technology if it was easy to do so is not something I can accept. Not being able to communicate and interact with the modern world on its terms isn’t fun for anyone.

Re: 81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone

#140

Post by bikezen » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

nwallin wrote: post #118

crazygringo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. That's not desirable either. You often can't make it to all the games, so they want you to be able to give some tickets to friends, etc. They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. So you real…

The last time I had a season pass to something, they printed me the equivalent of an employee id badge with my face and name printed on it. The badge was the ticket. How do you resell an individual ticket?

You literally hand them your badge. Requires a lot of trust sure, but I did this to see Real Madrid in spain via hotel concierge, their friends just handed us their badges.