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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

#341

Post by jjulius »

macintux wrote: post #327
crazygringo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you sign into Ticketmaster with an email address you don't have access to and use it to buy tickets? Don't do that. Create a new account with the email address you have access to. Apps require you to sign in again all the time , and send a verification code to your e-mail to do so. Changing locations is, yes, a reason to require sign in. Sorry, but that one's on you.

Ticketmaster failing to recognize that someone might want to use a ticket in physical proximity to the event is not the user's fault.

Exactly. Ostensibly, one would assume that getting closer to the place you have a ticket for wouldn't flag the use as "suspicious". To have OP demand that everyone use the app, but then blame the user for... traveling to the venue? Wild.

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

#342

Post by reaperducer »

ryandrake wrote: post #282
tomwheeler wrote: post #84

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…

He shouldn't even need a reason. "I don't want a smartphone" should be sufficient and should not lock one out of commerce, events, and other cultural experiences. In 50 years, everyone's going to have an advertisement-injecting brain implant, and stores are going to require you to have one in order to purchase anything, and they'll lock you out of commerce as a filthy Luddite if you don't get one. And, 50 years from…

He shouldn't even need a reason. "I don't want a smartphone" should be sufficient and should not lock one out of commerce, events, and other cultural experiences.

When I run into this (most recently at a hospital), I tell them "The court doesn't allow me to have a smart phone because I'm a hazard to national security.†"

When they argue (very rarely), I tell them "Take it up with judge Kelso in the 225th District Court. He's in the phone book." That's usually enough for them to break out the backup non-smartphone plan. In my experience, there's always another way, but they're just too lazy to do it.

† Absolutely a lie, but I really don't GAF.

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

#343

Post by 9rx »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #305
9rx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon also only sells digitally. So now he has to buy a smartphone in order to get a smartphone from Amazon in order to get tickets? The guy doesn't even want one smartphone let alone two.

Okay or Walmart are you now suggesting that the world should never move on from anything analog?

I am suggesting that if you have enough money to buy a ticket, but then take some portion of that amount away to buy a smartphone, you will no longer have enough to buy said ticket.

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

#344

Post by everforward »

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…

> 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.

This doesn't track to me. I can send someone else my QR code to use without actually transferring the tickets to them unless they're checking ID, and if they're checking ID then it doesn't matter whether the tickets are paper or digital.

I can't really see a way that digital tickets prevent something paper ones don't.

> 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.

That happens way less often than you'd think. I can still ride a horse on the road, I can still heat/cook with wood, I can still call customer support on a landline, I can still use email over landline. There are tons of things that were superseded decades ago that we still support.

It's certainly their choice to make (unless someone can make an ADA complaint or some kind of age discrimination case) but it seems like a shitty thing to do. If he can't use a computer or cellphone, they're clearly willing to _sell_ him tickets non-digitally like at a ticketing counter. Throw a cheap printer behind that counter and have the employee print them off. With the amount this guy is spending for tickets he'd probably buy the printer for them.

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

#345

Post by bradlys »

ryandrake wrote: post #277
guidedlight wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s not ridiculous. It’s for you to verify. It’s setting up 2FA. How can you not understand that?

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

#346

Post by ryandrake »

carefree-bob wrote: post #324
ryandrake wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He shouldn't even need a reason. "I don't want a smartphone" should be sufficient and should not lock one out of commerce, events, and other cultural experiences. In 50 years, everyone's going to have an advertisement-injecting brain implant, and stores are going to require you to have one in order to purchase anything, and they'll lock you out of commerce as a filthy Luddite if you don't get one. And, 50 years from…

I do worry how smart phones have become mandatory for a lot of services. Viscerally, I don't like it, because of the monthly payment aspect. I don't have an elaborate theology that is not self-contradictory, it just seems wrong to me.

I think it's a normal reaction to have a visceral negative response to this. You shouldn't have to buy a harmful product as a condition for buying the thing you actually want to buy, or even more broadly as a condition for participating in commerce in general. I don't think the theology needs to be more complex than that.

Do the Dodgers have the right to exclude non-smartphone owners from participating in commerce with them? I suppose they have the legal right to, but we have a visceral reaction to it because it is morally questionable, and even smartphone owners can easily come up with examples where they'd be harmed by similar discrimination: The Dodgers also have the right to exclude non-smokers. They could say tomorrow that you can only buy a season ticket if you're a smoker, and I think that would be considered equally unacceptable to most of us.

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

#347

Post by bradlys »

kleiba wrote: post #229
stetrain wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-factor authentication codes via SMS are pretty common and don't require a smart phone. You haven't run into this before?

No, I don't really use a lot of service that require 2FA and for the ones I have to (e.g. work), there's always been a workaround. But this might not really have been a 2FA case - I mean, I was physically sitting in the bank.

It’s setting up 2FA.

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

#348

Post by jeroenhd »

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…

They can have a paper process still. It's a bit harder, but you can have someone go up to the counter, show some form of ID, sell a season pass with the name on it, and have them show some form of ID when they're not using a smartphone ticket.

Not a difficult process, blocks scalping, and is unwelcoming enough that it'll probably only attract the people who can't or don't want to use smart phones.

They already had a ticketing flow they invested money into altering it. They could've put in the absolute minimal effort to keep some kind of flow for non-smartphone users.

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

kube-system wrote: post #328
robin_reala wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a blind person / person with low vision without a smartphone these days: they’re a near-essential window into services that aren’t accessible though plain paper.

If they're 81yo, you definitely will.

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by jeroenhd »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #216
throwawaypath wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out you must have a smart phone Any phone that can receive SMS, not a smartphone. You could purchase a burner flip phone for this purpose.

I don't think the assumption that SMS is enough is valid anymore. My wife's elderly aunt has a flip phone that can receive SMS but not MMS. We just went thru an "identity verification" procedure with a major bank last week that sends MMS, not SMS, and could not reach her flip phone. The whole ordeal was a huge pain in the ass and if my wife and I weren't there to help her it would have been completely impenetrable to…

MMS is ancient. Ancient enough that my carrier disabled it entirely. Maybe the flip phone UI is shitty, or the carrier hasn't supplied the necessary APN info to the phone, or the phone hasn't been set up to use that APN because of a bug, or they're using some kind of modernized, non-standard MMS media type or something, but there's no way that phone can't receive MMS at all.
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