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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

#431
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally can't wait until one will be labeled crazy for wanting to live without a brain implant and its lovely personalized, curated life experiences.

not because of the lack of a phone, because of the relatively unprompted, outlandish and obvious lie. He might as well say "i don't have a phone because aliens took it".

>i don't have a phone because aliens took it

I'd be inclined to take something like that as the customerspeak version of "fuck off" rather than the person being crazy

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification. For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer.

>For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". >Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer. The last (and likely the last ) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual ga…

Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.

The only downsides are that sometimes it doesn't work if their shitty form verification insists that the plus character isn't valid in an email address. In those cases I tend to set up an actual mail alias (yourcompany@mydomain.com), but that's an annoying extra step - pluis aliasing is simple, requires no configuration, and works everywhere. But this is pretty rare. And if you're using it to sign in to things, you'll want a password manager so that you can remember what plus alias you used for each site.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not defending the behaviour you're posting about - it's reprehensible and I wouldn't have bought tickets at all under such a system. What I'm offering is a way to make it more manageable for people who don't want to go without things that you can only buy under these user-hostile models.

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

#433
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That could still get prohibitively expensive. Take the example from this article, where there's only one person still using the paper ticket option... I could see someone arguing you need a specially trained staff member or supervisor to verify your ID for anti-scalping, which they don't need to do for other e-tickets. Say only one person uses this option all season, they could be asked to pay for an entire employee'…

> I could see someone arguing you need a specially trained staff member or supervisor to verify your ID for anti-scalping

They can argue that all they like, but they'll stop pretty quickly when I ask why they can't just print out the same barcode as the smartphone user would use, and have the same person scan that using the same equipment so that they can enjoy the same anti-scalping protections (i.e if that barcode has already been scanned, you don't let them in).

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

#434
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of this is an obvious lie and/or outlandish? Kevin Mitnick was banned from using any computer for quite a while. This absolutely would have included smartphones if they'd been a thing at the time. People are banned from using computers and the Internet all the time. If you're going to claim that the "national security risk" bit is outlandish, you might be interested to know that when Mitnick was in prison h…

Is your point that because you can name one person who was banned from using a computer before the invention of the smart phone, a receptionist working at a hospital would therefore consider that a reasonable and common reason for someone to not possess a smart phone?

I could name a bunch if I spent 30 seconds looking. I could probably name half a dozen others - including names most people would recognise, e.g julian assange - who I think (but am not 100% sure from memory) suffered similar restrictions without even searching.

I happened to name Mitnick because of the "national security" example.

I noticed that you haven't given any reasoning as to why a receptionist working at a hospital would not consider "I'm banned from using smartphones by court order" reasonable, or why said receptionist would need to consider it common for it to be valid? Hospital receptionists deal with all kinds of edge cases all the time.

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

#435
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your point that because you can name one person who was banned from using a computer before the invention of the smart phone, a receptionist working at a hospital would therefore consider that a reasonable and common reason for someone to not possess a smart phone?

I could name a bunch if I spent 30 seconds looking. I could probably name half a dozen others - including names most people would recognise, e.g julian assange - who I think (but am not 100% sure from memory) suffered similar restrictions without even searching. I happened to name Mitnick because of the "national security" example. I noticed that you haven't given any reasoning as to why a receptionist working at a h…

"I'm banned from using smartphones by court order" is perfectly reasonable and not at all outlandish if you're a sex offender.

"I'm banned from using smartphones because I'm a hazard to national security" is not reasonable. it's crazy. like, who the hell asked? are you saying that if you manage to get your hands on an iPhone the state would be in danger? are you bragging? trying to impress me? i've never heard anyone say this before, it doesn't make sense. are you court ordered to say this? why wouldn't you say that you just don't have one?

that's a more likely thought process than "oh yes, just another mean, lean walking threat to the security of the state. i hear this all the time when asking someone if they want a text message confirmation of their appointment" as the short, wimpy looking man wearing khaki trousers you're serving continues to grin at you disconcertingly.

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. Case in point: I traveled from St. Louis to Houston for a concert a few years ago. Before I left home to catch my flight, I installed the Ticketmaster app on a phone and verified that I could bring up the tickets. When I tried it again in my hotel an hour before the conference, it no longer worked because the fraud…

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.

>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.

What? TicketMaster is the only app I use that does this. Probably because it's too hard for end-users to get rid of it. If some Telegram or some food delivery app or something tried to periodically re-prompt me to log in because I went outside my house or whatever, it would get uninstalled and replaced with something that didn't.

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

#437

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…

In my country there is a large religious population that eschew the smartphone. This is great - no government or private service simply assumes that one has a smartphone. All services are available via traditional means - most in three to five languages as well.

How is that good country named?

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

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". >Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer. The last (and likely the last ) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual ga…

Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets. The only downsides are that somet…

>Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.

I don't use "plus aliases." I don't need to. I've owned my own domains for just about 30 years, so I just use @mydomain.com and then block any emails that start spamming or are just annoying.

Protip: Host your own emails so those greedy scumbags can't cut you off whenever they please, leaving you unable to access all the crap you authenticate through your "plus aliases"

Edit: N.B., I appreciate that you brought that up. Some folks may find that useful even if I don't. That said, I still say folks should host their own email if they have the resources (minimal) and inclination (less so).

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

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country there is a large religious population that eschew the smartphone. This is great - no government or private service simply assumes that one has a smartphone. All services are available via traditional means - most in three to five languages as well.

How is that good country named?

Israel

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

#440
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 year old people do not have the same neuroplasticity as 20 year olds. It is not reasonable to expect them to quickly learn new things that are constantly changing. In particular, it's very reasonable to be 80 and decide "I don't want to deal with learning how to use a smartphone and getting one".

> It is not reasonable to expect them to quickly learn new things that are constantly changing. Of course it is. Maybe if we didn't normalize people refusing to learn things for no other reason than "I don't wanna" they'd have better neuroplasticity. > it's very reasonable to be 80 and decide "I don't want to deal with learning how to use a smartphone and getting one". I agree with you 100% on this but it doesn't log…

Then it’s reasonable to expect ticket sellers to use modern technology to implement zero-knowledge, physical rfid token, etc measures that prevent scalping.

The technology does exist, but it might take more effort than a lazy smartphone app - that probably isn’t effective against scalping anyway. Can’t a phone app / QR code etc be forged?

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