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

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's their choice, but they also choose to suffer the consequences. Expecting the world to cater to your needs specifically is such a typical boomer attitude and should no longer be tolerated.

While we're at it, let's get rid of the ADA. Those disabled people expecting the world to cater to their needs specifically are so abusive to those of us with perfectly functional bodies and flexible minds.

There's a big difference between legislating accomodations for people who physically can't do something, vs. those who can but choose not to.

The former makes sense. The latter doesn't. I don't get to park in handicapped spaces that are closer to the store just because I'd like to.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone. Maybe he has dexterity issues that make using a smartphone difficult. Maybe he doesn't want to install their invasive app. Maybe he finds that paper tickets are easier to manage. Maybe he recognizes that the vend…

I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law, but I really wish they would pass a law requiring supporting people without smartphone apps. Obviously there would be some exceptions where justified, even for things other than “the app is the whole point” and those need to be thought through, but in this case and plenty of others, there’s just no reason they can’t accommodate non app users. “It costs more to su…

> “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification.

Then why is 'I don't wanna' sufficient justification to force non-critical services to support your preferences forever?

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

#193

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…

I don’t think this policy would pass muster under the ADA though. The guy might not be sufficiently disabled to qualify - but for example if you have a blind person without a smartphone, you can’t tell them they’re out of luck - because you can clearly reasonably accommodate them without causing “undue financial hardship” by giving them tickets at will-call.

Smart phones have had plenty of affordances for blind people. But they didn’t say he was blind or unable to use a smart phone

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

#194

I daily drive a Light Phone III, haven't had a smartphone in years and would rather never use one again. Our local concert venue requires an app for tickets, so I have just given up on the idea of going to major concerts or seeing our local hockey team play.

I was looking at the light phone 2 a while ago but don’t remember why I decided not to. Maybe they were out of stock.

I’ll check it out again… I would love to divorce my smartphone and only use it at certain times.

I’ve been using the Brick and Screen Time more often now.

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

#195
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't give the app any permissions, it doesn't spy on you either. It doesn't have any more information than the info you give it to buy the tickets in the first place.

> If you don't give the app any permissions, it doesn't spy on you either. What about the other apps? What about the phone itself?

The guy already has a phone. Flip phones still track your location.

If you don't want other apps, don't install other apps.

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone. Maybe he has dexterity issues that make using a smartphone difficult. Maybe he doesn't want to install their invasive app. Maybe he finds that paper tickets are easier to manage. Maybe he recognizes that the vend…

I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law, but I really wish they would pass a law requiring supporting people without smartphone apps. Obviously there would be some exceptions where justified, even for things other than “the app is the whole point” and those need to be thought through, but in this case and plenty of others, there’s just no reason they can’t accommodate non app users. “It costs more to su…

> I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law

No policy or law shall be enacted that directly or indirectly requires a use of a computing device where any other alternative at all is possible. Where offering other alternatives presents a cost, that cost (and only that cost, with no markup) may be passed on to the consumer.

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

#197
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...…

I'm not a fan of the "something better" phrasing myself. It's very much anti-systems-thinking. Engineers should be honest that everything is a tradeoff. For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets, you impose additional failure modes, dependency chains, and accessibility issues that simply weren't a problem with paper ticketing. The "phone-ification" of everything will probably bite us in the behind in th…

>For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets

Even as a person who does have a smartphone, I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. It's only a positive trade-off for venues or whoever. If they texted or emailed me a QR code, that would be a positive tradeoff (and a texted QR code would probably work for this guy's flip phone too)

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. Why do you need a smartphone to do this when a white list checked against ID at the door would suffice? As the other respondent says, you either generate a badge for the passholder, or have an approved list of guests that can use the season pass if the passholder chooses to offer it to others.

And that will slow it down for everyone. Not to mention that HN users will then whine about the surveillance state

It could slow it down for everyone, or just the season passholders. If it does, oh well - there are worse things than taking an extra 10-15 minutes to get into a stadium.

>Not to mention that HN users will then whine about the surveillance state.

Pretty sure, given the comments in this very thread, that HN collectively understands there's more surveillance happening on your phone than with another person making sure the name on your ID matches the name on your ticket, or that your badge photo matches your face.

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

#199

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…

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone. Maybe he has dexterity issues that make using a smartphone difficult. Maybe he doesn't want to install their invasive app. Maybe he finds that paper tickets are easier to manage. Maybe he recognizes that the vend…

> Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone.

In my country right now there's a lot of hand-wringing about the impact of social media and smartphones on teenagers' mental health and education. We've got schools banning phones, and the government wanting to introduce age checks for social media. Infinite doomscrolling in your pocket, endless brainrot short-form videos, it's not healthy and we need to get smartphones out of the hands of the young.

So there are good reasons people might choose not to get a smartphone.

Then exactly the same government also proposed people wouldn't be allowed to work without a 'Digital ID Card' - making smartphones (and google/apple accounts) mandatory.

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

#200
My wife and I had an appointment last week to apply for a line of credit. We talked it all through with the clerk and decided to go for it, so he started the whole process on his computer.

His jaw dropped half-way through when he asked for my wife's and my phone number, and I had to tell him that I don't own a smart phone.

Turns out you must have a smart phone because the system sends you some kind of code to verify your identity. Let that sink in: I am sitting in front of the clerk, but in order to identify me, he needs me to give him some phone number.

The only way we could finalize the application is by me asking my mother whether I could use her phone number briefly to get this over with. She forwared the code to my wife's phone. That worked in the end -- but so much for "identifying me".

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