A great example I use is there are a ton of restaurants and fast food places around me. I used to walk to get lunch every day but eventually had to stop, these places realized most customers went through the drive through so they closed the lobby. Now even though this place is a 5 minute walk from me, it's no longer accessable if I'm not in a car.
Same thing with my TV and Router, both of which required an app to just setup. The TV required an internet connection to "activate" and I realized that if some family saved up and bought this TV but didn't have an smartphone or internet connection, well they just bought a $500 brick.
And that's why authentication standards like FIDO scare me. To me it almost seems that the standard was written by a bunch of out of touch tech bros thinking to themselves: "Well of course EVERYONE has a phone these days"
I think this may have to do COVID and then staffing shortages creating a necessity rather than a active business decision. It would be ridiculous but couldn't you walk through the drive through? (I probably wouldn't do it either but I can't really think of a reason you couldn't)
There's a Starbucks near me that was built as drive-through only. Where there should be a lobby, it's just blacked-out glass and a door for the employees to enter through. Makes the whole strip mall look really scary, especially since vagrants sleep in the doorway.
I assume it's for commuters, which means all Starbucks contributes to the neighborhood is traffic and crime. Thanks, Starbucks!
It would be ridiculous but couldn't you walk through the drive through?
I used to do this all the time when I was a kid, but more and more places won't serve walk-ups at drive throughs. They claim it's for safety, hygiene, insurance, or whatever the excuse-du-jour is. They just close the window and ignore you.
I was told "Sir please come back in a vehicle" when I tried. When I told the guy I don't have a car, the guy gave me a blank stare.
I’m a huge fan of shoving crap like that back in the box, and returning it DOA. The soulless bastards that built it don’t know if I’m computer literate or not.
Off the top of my head, both Xfinity and Google Home have this problem and it aggravates me to no end. I can reset my gateway from my PC but for some reason, *need* to use my phone to manage Xfinity or any of my Nest routers
I was a gmail user since gmail was in private beta 18 years ago. I never had a phone number associated with it. And yet two or three years ago when I tried to log in Google decided to just... not let me do that, because fuck you, and started extorting me to give it a phone number. If I don't give it a valid phone number it won't let me access my email. But I can't really do that because, you see, I don't actually own a phone number.
So now I'm essentially locked out of my almost two decades old email account, for no good reason whatsoever except the fact that Google is a bully. Fortunately I've long since migrated to another email address on my own domain as my main address, so it doesn't really matter.
Do not depend on any Google-provided service. They don't care about you, and they will screw you over sooner or later. You're just a number to them. Most importantly, pay for any critical service you need (like email). Do not wait until it's too late. Do it NOW.