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Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

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Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#51

Post by cyberpunk »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #27
_s wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 5G speeds and unlimited data* - do you even need WiFi? Not to mention most companies nowadays have clear policies of (not) connecting to free public wifi's or even working in public spaces where your screen may be visible. * Usually the first 50gb is max speed and then it drops to 25/25 etc - which is still really fast.

Because network coverage in Germany is pretty bad, so you are mostly out of reach from networks when traveling by train. It's gotten better over the years since I moved here. But I'm basically still offline 80% of the journey between Berlin and my parents place in the Netherlands. As soon as you cross the border into NL, it's fine. It's a German issue. You have this effect on all its borders. You travel to the border…

What network are you with? This doesn't match my experience -- I've traveled around 35,000km on trains inside Germany in the last few years, and apart from one 5 minute section just outside of Berlin when going SE dresden, I've pretty much always had a full signal.

YMMV I guess. But I just wanted to say that I don't think this is completely accurate.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#52

Post by rippercushions »

ben_w wrote: post #39
BasedGroyper99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a public good? It only benefits the individuals who are travelling. If I take the train to visit my sister, I don't see how that is in the public's interest.

Public parks you don't sit in are still public goods; public litter bins are still public goods even if you never have anything to put into them; public roads are still a public good even if you don't own a vehicle. Likewise, if you want them to be, so is public transport. Though, here's a question: I don't think I've ever seen planes classified as public transport — is that just my observations being weird, or is th…

People usually distinguish between local and long-distance travel, nobody is arguing that bullet trains should be free and planes fall into the same category.

The fact that long-distance highways tend to be free speaks more to politics than logic, and there are a few notable exceptions (eg Japan) where all expressways are tolled.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#54

Post by beebeepka »

Escapado wrote: post #24
lakomen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the problem is, especially in Germany. If someone is a "Beamter" which can't be fired, has low income, there's no motivation to make a good job. It took me 3 months to get a Bescheinigung über Daueraufenthalt" . In theory, yes, transportation as well as communication should be owned by the public and available for free. A state that has 100 billion for buying weapons can afford that too. Buy Germany has deterio…

I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you look in certain german states. But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and the people working there are entirely complacent with the state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait more than two months to get…

> I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church tax.

Learning something new every day. How does it work. When and how does one get signed up for this lovely tax

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#55

Post by govolckurself »

HPsquared wrote: post #26
PicassoCTs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pyramid scheme grinds to an halt, if it does not. Everything goto join the MLM scheme, or those running the whole affair get a existential crisis.

Central banking and social security are the MLM schemes. Free markets, if we had them, would rebalance that kind of thing.

[dead]

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#56

Post by nforgerit »

helge9210 wrote: post #32
Escapado wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you look in certain german states. But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and the people working there are entirely complacent with the state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait more than two months to get…

> Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she even typing it at all Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will she do? If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this evil, since people are losing their means of earning salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since they have guaranteed employment. [Edit: typo]

German speaking here. Keeping people busy with bullsh*t jobs just for the sake of keeping them busy is not a good investment, not financially nor for the sanity of the people themselves.

In fact, in Germany you can see that it leads to government paralysis everywhere. In contrast, they should free "Staatsbeamte" from those stupid jobs and encourage them to start thinking themselves instead of blindly executing top-down commands. No jobs lost, but talent attracted. This eventually leads to operational excellence. The current state of affairs is overly defensive and reactionary.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#57

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

BasedGroyper99 wrote: post #31
thanatos519 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.

Why is it a public good? It only benefits the individuals who are travelling. If I take the train to visit my sister, I don't see how that is in the public's interest.

Public transit gets the workers to where they need to go to serve you at your Starbucks, your Target, your luxury hotels, you name it.

Public transit gets consumers to the mall and other shopping areas where they can circulate their hard-earned cash in a capitalist economic system.

Public transit gets individual cars off the road, increases safety of those roads, and makes everybody's transportation more efficient.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#58

Post by odiroot »

TekMol wrote: post #7

The problem is that in Germany, the city-to-city trains that can be used with this ticket do not have WIFI IIRC. Can anybody confirm this? Traveling time without WIFI is a much higher burden to me than normal traveling time, where I can work on my projects. I actually like working on the train. It is a nice environment. But without that possibility, long train rides are a chore to me. And it will be interesting to se…

Even if there was WiFi available on the train, the mobile network outside large population centres is so terrible, you wouldn't be able to get much done. Train WiFi is not magical, it needs proper infrastructure all over the place.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#59

Post by dsfyu404ed »

timellis-smith wrote: post #9
bleep_bloop wrote: post #2

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

Theres a really interesting graph showing rail usage under both public and private ownership in GB. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GB... I'll let you draw your own conclusions From this page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail

[dead]

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#60

Post by woodpanel »

As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying tickets across German transportation systems: I’ve been working on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue (by people like us - the E-Mail caste).

Even the juggernaut Deutsche Bahn (they handle public transport in almost every municipality) couldn’t break through these structures (eg the city of Munich just couldn’t be pressured to comply with their ticketing schemes).

In the end mandating it by the federal government was the only way. Although I’m curious who’s really benefiting from it: yes we solved the annoyances for the E-Mail caste, but the service quality itself will surely deteriorate by this measure.

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