Stuff like this should always have an analog failsafe like a printable ticket. I can’t be the only one who has a phone actually die out and about. Especially as this device gets a little old, battery drops maybe 1% every 2 min of screen on use. Even worse in crowded cell service situations like baseball games.
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.
In Brazil you already can't access some government services without a smartphone, such as paying for municipal parking in various cities. So if you own a car but not a smartphone, you get a fine. Sadly the least of the country's problems.
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 anymore.
Apparently they've been making exceptions for him in years past where he was able to pay hundreds of dollars to have them custom printed for him. And this year they've decided to no longer provide that exception.
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. You also can't buy tickets any more by snail mail with an enclosed check.
If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. It seems like he just likes the nostalgia of paper tickets. But that's not a reason to add a separate ticketing flow just for him any more, like they had been up till now.
> 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 a common clause in season-ticket memberships, but it doesn't actually work all that well. for instance, resale on the ticket marketplace is tracked and counts, but in general transfers alone are not penalized. so people do transactions outside of the official platforms, sell / trade in fb groups, etc.
For every "must use a phone" there is also a dysfunctional "turn the tables on our customers" which some businesses will take to creepy snooping levels, or even drive "personalized" pricing or other nonsense.
8 trackers, 49 permissions. Whatever reason they gave for requiring the application, evidently they couldn't resist selling out their users in the end. Disgusting.
My 75-year-old, retired construction worker dad’s fingers are nearly useless on capacitive screens; half a century of handling cement apparently has that effect. His deep East Texas accent was still only semi comprehensible to Siri the last time I had him try with my phone.
He recently missed several notifications from his truck’s dealership that the part they ordered was in and ready for installation, because they sent text messages that he didn’t read, instead of ever calling and leaving a message when no one responded to the texts. I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences.
He’s fine flying as long as one of us can buy the ticket for him and he just needs his ID at the airport; I dread the day airlines start requiring their stupid apps.
you can buy finger sleves on eg Amazon and any other shop. They're super cheap and work well / entirely resolves that issue
He probably doesn't want it, because he probably just doesn't want to interface with the phone ... Which is fine, I'm just pointing out that the quoted issue has an easy solution.
> I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences.
they can send scheduling info, appt reminders, etc via SMS but (1) they must allow opt out, and (2) they cannot send medical info this way — that's where HIPAA requires encrypted "patient portal" messaging because SMS can be intercepted or accessed by others.
That's good to know - I'll tell him to check that with his current doctors' offices, and make sure that he makes it clear for any new practices he visits that he only does phone calls and postal mail.
My late mom couldn't receive the verification SMS from her bank. After investigation, it appeared it was actually an MMS that required a smartphone.
She could still go to her bank counter but service there degraded considerably for everyday things, and she was always told to do things online.
In the end the bank rep was kind enough to give her an old smartphone. But, for her, it sucked because it was much more complicated, had to be charged constantly and so on...
As a technologist, it is eye opening to do the tech support of loved ones...
Can't imagine Boston or New York doing this. In Boston the'd end up giving the fan lifetime Dunkin Donuts or something on TV and just let him walk into the park since all of the ushers probably know him already. Dodgers are really missing the point here.
The Dodgers could have so easily turned this into a huge win. After 50 years they could have just awarded him a paper lifetime pass. Scan this and get in for any game! It would have been so easy.
Or if they really wanted him to go digital, just buy him a smart phone and install the app for him!
My concern here is not that a simple transaction like purchasing a ticket to a baseball game requires a smartphone, but that the purchase now binds the customer to a personal and irreversible relationship to multiple entities (MLB, the Dodgers, the ticket agency, etc.) that (1) is not necessary, and (2) adds no benefit to the customer.
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 band is tied up on your choice of phone, voting with your wallet becomes impossible -- I'm to give up patronizing my favorite artist because the venues use digital tickets? It obviously changes the balance of the equation such that nobody would ever choose their privacy over access to the world, and the vendors know this.
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.
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".
This reminds me of a story my grandfather told me about how they needed to have a bunch of infrastructure and employees devoted to telegraph based notifications in 1970s India, because some bureaucrats refused to move everything over to telephone, and didn't want to be inconvenienced by having to use new technology.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 54.2 ms ] threadhttps://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/news/local/why-longtime-...
https://www.instagram.com/arozier/reel/DWsHAvDjxeL/
You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anymore.
Apparently they've been making exceptions for him in years past where he was able to pay hundreds of dollars to have them custom printed for him. And this year they've decided to no longer provide that exception.
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. You also can't buy tickets any more by snail mail with an enclosed check.
If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. It seems like he just likes the nostalgia of paper tickets. But that's not a reason to add a separate ticketing flow just for him any more, like they had been up till now.
https://www.aol.com/articles/81-old-lifelong-dodgers-fan-012...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1s5fkni/la_dodgers...
this is a common clause in season-ticket memberships, but it doesn't actually work all that well. for instance, resale on the ticket marketplace is tracked and counts, but in general transfers alone are not penalized. so people do transactions outside of the official platforms, sell / trade in fb groups, etc.
this is a slippery slope.
For every "must use a phone" there is also a dysfunctional "turn the tables on our customers" which some businesses will take to creepy snooping levels, or even drive "personalized" pricing or other nonsense.
8 trackers, 49 permissions. Whatever reason they gave for requiring the application, evidently they couldn't resist selling out their users in the end. Disgusting.
They can't resist squeezing every bit out
He recently missed several notifications from his truck’s dealership that the part they ordered was in and ready for installation, because they sent text messages that he didn’t read, instead of ever calling and leaving a message when no one responded to the texts. I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences.
He’s fine flying as long as one of us can buy the ticket for him and he just needs his ID at the airport; I dread the day airlines start requiring their stupid apps.
He probably doesn't want it, because he probably just doesn't want to interface with the phone ... Which is fine, I'm just pointing out that the quoted issue has an easy solution.
they can send scheduling info, appt reminders, etc via SMS but (1) they must allow opt out, and (2) they cannot send medical info this way — that's where HIPAA requires encrypted "patient portal" messaging because SMS can be intercepted or accessed by others.
She could still go to her bank counter but service there degraded considerably for everyday things, and she was always told to do things online.
In the end the bank rep was kind enough to give her an old smartphone. But, for her, it sucked because it was much more complicated, had to be charged constantly and so on...
As a technologist, it is eye opening to do the tech support of loved ones...
Next step is to re-use the body parts, just as in Soylent Green.
Or if they really wanted him to go digital, just buy him a smart phone and install the app for him!
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 band is tied up on your choice of phone, voting with your wallet becomes impossible -- I'm to give up patronizing my favorite artist because the venues use digital tickets? It obviously changes the balance of the equation such that nobody would ever choose their privacy over access to the world, and the vendors know this.
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".