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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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The law that he can invoke in a weaponized way is the ADA. It’s vague enough about what a disability is, that something like “my hand tremor and farsightedness preclude using a touchscreen, I request a reasonable accommodation” is a valid request. If they deny admission and accommodation to somebody incapable of using a smartphone, there is a whole army of lawyers that will gladly take the case on contingency. As you…

There is a special ring of hell reserved for people who abuse the ADA.

Such abuse is an insult to everyone who needs it, everyone who engages with it in good faith, everyone who spends gobs of money to make events and services accessible to those with genuine need.

I don’t rule the world but if I did abusers of protective rules would be summarily executed. (Don’t vote for me. I’ve got a short but significant list of similar policies. Scammers those guys would have targets on their heads, kidnap for ransom criminals those guys too)

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

#272

People like to say "vote with your wallet, your privacy is your problem" with regard to smartphones, but like going to a baseball game has for a couple years now required you to have an Android or iOS device, same with many concerts and shows. It's simply not reasonable to have to give up baseball and concerts to avoid your phone spying on you. And when accessing your bank or your local sports teams or your favorite…

> It's simply not reasonable

> voting with your wallet becomes impossible

> nobody would ever choose their privacy

Drawing the line at skipping music concerts is a choice, which to you is impossible, but to others is trivial... There have always been these lines. It gets slightly harder every year to choose privacy because of people with your mindset about their specific thing they aren't willing to give up, but this ticketing change is just another brick in the wall, not anything substantially different. People who thought it was simply unreasonable and impossible to vote with their wallet about have created the environment where this ticketing change happens. And your comment here goes on to create the environment where something even more important is smartphonified later.

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

#273
post #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…

> in order to identify me We should stop accepting this ridiculous excuse. Our phone numbers are not identifiers. How does me telling a bank "My phone number is 123-456-7890" give them any assurance whatsoever that I am the person whose name will be printed on a loan document?

It's not necessarily just for the 2FA snakeoil. The worst places snap on a glove and proctologize your network identity metadata (spilled by all the underlying carriers, IIUC), and sometimes even billing records with your name and address (more vulnerable if you're still on a postpaid). The US desperately needs a port of the EU's GDPR, for starters.

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

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's next? Do they also need to have an age-verified Facebook account? Plus an attested age-verified operating system on that phone? Are they allowed to use GrapheneOS or do they need to use only the vendor's stock ROM image? Is it OK if they turn off surveillance on the device or is that required too to "participate in society"?

I know you're joking but the future will be: No. Yes. No, stock only. No, surveillance required.

I don't think he's joking, some people are just like that

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

#275

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.

You will be the "boomer" some day. I wish people had more empathy. An example: Presbyopia came on hard for me in the last couple of years Now I really appreciate low-vision affordances that, as a younger person, I couldn't have cared less about and would have seen as an unnecessary cost.

Exactly.

When OP is 85, I hope some whippersnapper 20 year old says to him, "Come on, grandpa. You need to get that neural advertisement brain implant like the rest of us, or you can't buy anything. Why should businesses need to support your lame smartphone? Step into the 22nd century, pops!"

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

#276

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…

No it’s often just stubbornness. My dad is 85 and he can take the time to learn anything he wants to learn. But refuses to change when he doesn’t. My mom is 83, a retired school teacher and she has been using computers since 1986 and has an entire networked computer setup in her office with multiple computers and printers. She went from the original Apple //e version of AppleWorks to Office now.

> My dad is 85 and he can take the time to learn anything he wants to learn. But refuses to change when he doesn’t.

I think that's natural and reasonable. I'm certainly less tolerant of drains on my time as I get older. I can imagine that, at 85, I would be making a lot of calculations about ROI on my time.

Edit: For those seeing an argument in my statement above re: forcing people to use technology or forcing business to make an accommodation for people who don't want to use technology: I am not making a statement either way. I'm simply saying it seems logical and reasonable, natural even, to value your time more when you have less of it.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in order to identify me We should stop accepting this ridiculous excuse. Our phone numbers are not identifiers. How does me telling a bank "My phone number is 123-456-7890" give them any assurance whatsoever that I am the person whose name will be printed on a loan document?

> Our phone numbers are not identifiers. I think you missed the point. The process creates an identifier, by strongly associating you with the phone number. This association allows the bank to quickly establish your identity later when you call up or use online services.

As the sibling commenter pointed out, in their case, it totally failed to create a meaningful identifier, because he used some other person's phone to get past the ridiculous gate.

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

#278

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. This logic justifies buying any other unrelated product as a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets. Does this mean that the Dodgers should be able to make "owning a car" also a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets? After all, if you can afford season tickets, you should be able to afford a car payment. Mayb…

> I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition.

Then you must not have been around pre-smartphone? Those of us who were will remember having to buy either banknotes or checks. Later, some would accept a certain type of card that you could buy. If you weren't willing to buy any of those things there was little chance of a deal taking place. Showing up with your goat to offer in exchange would get you laughed out of the room, even though there was an even earlier time where bringing a goat would have been considered quite reasonable. Realistically, the most desperate vendors will still accept your goat as payment if that is what's on the table, but, as I am sure you can imagine, it isn't worth the effort for those who have the luxury of choice. Where technology makes a seller's life simpler, they will demand it. Why wouldn't they?

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

#279

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.

I've gone entire years at work where no one ever mentions baseball or MLB. It is a dead sport. The NBA? Sure. NFL? It's practically an official US holiday. So if they want to chase off an octogenarian fan who will buy their season tickets because they demand he get a smart phone that he doesn't want to learn to use and wouldn't use anyway... why not? They've signed their own death certificate with that. This is firmly in "Please drink a verification can" territory, and I have no idea why anyone would be apologizing for them.

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

#280
post #154

Well he has no responsibilities. His entire calendar is free, for the past two decades. They came out 17 years ago. He can go get one and learn how to use it.

I have absolutely no sympathy for people who choose not to get with the times. We all took our time to learn how to use a smartphone. He could have too but chose not to. Probably refused to learn to use tap to pay, ATMs, etc as well. You chose to opt out of society. You are no longer part of it. (I’m not happy that you need an app to buy tickets, but that’s a different thing — he didn’t choose not to own a smartphone…

>We all took our time to learn how to use a smartphone

Were you 65 years old when smartphones came around? My grandparents had 8 years of formal education, they never figured out how to use computers when they were alive, not because they didn't want to but because it was too complicated.

In a society where human dignity and respect matter you don't ignore people who can't keep up, you don't treat the elderly like obsolete machines you discard, a lesson you ironically probably learned from how you treat your phone.

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