Also they REALLY dont like hearing about how the phone they have now is obsolete and theres no way to get parts for it, or its just too far gone and they'll need to buy a new phone. I feel for all of these people as I totally agree with them.

Plus, even if you live in an area where a car is required you have the option to opt out and move (housing crisis aside), which isn’t an option to avoid smartphone requirements.

The Ford Mustang was introduced 18 years after the end of World War 2.

I would love to ditch my car but it’s impossible in my city and I have no power to change it. I could move I guess but choosing lack of car over my friends and family feels a bit drastic.

But yes, getting old sucks and walking takes some discipline.

and it also requires you to fully buy in to the city-centric lifestyle. Whether you like it or not there will always be a lot of people that don't want to live in an urban center or even a small town. For them, personal transportation is non-negotiable. Even people who live within walkable towns or cities will often prefer to have a car so that they can access other locations and services whenever they feel like it without having to rent or limit themselves to places accessible by mass transit. Cars just aren't going away, nor should we wish them to. I'm all for building more walkable and human scale environments, I enjoy them as much as the next person but I also want those places connected by good roads so that I can access, or leave, any of them freely.

And before you ask, I hate having to have a smartphone. It is required to VPN into work, or to do so many things. I changed grocery stores rather than let them use my cellphone for the "loyalty" card.

I also hate living in a state where public transit is useless.

TL;DR - something about "get off my lawn" and "old man yells at cloud".

Note that I am not arguing one way or another, but outright dismissal is not an appropriate counter argument.

I’ve needed all of these sans the car to interact with just government services in my state.

That is reality in a lot of the world including Europe, China, and South America.

I agree with the sentiment of not generally needing to have a car and fortunately that is the case in most of the world (except the USA)

Compact layouts that enable walking or biking are another alternative.

That’s one of the main reasons that elderly people from the suburbs often move to retirement communities which are designed at pedestrian scale.

Walkable, bikeable cities are human cities.

(And they’re also the kind of cities that mobility aids like scooters can thrive in.)

Even for people lucky enough to live in those rare areas where you can walk to a grocery store, it's extremely useful to have access to a car you can fill up with large items.

Plus, look at the Netherlands, geriatric people who've biked their whole lives and maintained good physical shape have no problem continuing to bike.

For elderly people who have trouble pedaling, the answer is an e-bike.

Well, no surprise there are so few passengers: the bus comes every half an hour! Make it once every two hours, and there will be no passengers at all.

"Every half an hour" is an option for the desperate. Also, that bus is probably stuck with cars when there's heavy traffic, while being slower than cars when there isn't. And it does not go exactly where you want to be. Would _you_ use such a bus service if you weren't forced to due to circumstances?

The answer for shitty public transport offering should not be eliminating public transport offering.

If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.

I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides nor any other handouts from the local council.

For clarity: the context was for local councils to give money to Uber instead of running a bus service. Which is plausible idea. I just don't think you need to be so specific: give people money, so they can buy goods and services they deem most beneficial (including Uber rides).

Now going one step further: only give the money to poor people. Welfare for rich people is a bit silly.

I'm a regular user of public transport. I don't own a car, don't have a drivers license and call taxi/uber maybe once or twice per year. I am lucky enough to live in a place where that's not just possible, but easy, easier than driving a car. And I'm not poor. I can afford a car, just don't want to have one.

Public transport is not a handout to the poor, it is a service which makes life better for everyone. If yours is so bad only poor people would use it - maybe it's time to fix it.

(I currently live in Singapore, which has excellent public transport.)

My suggestion was conditional: if a city has already decided that Uber is better than public transport, then they should still not give Uber money. But instead, give the money to poor people.

However: public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.

If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.

I don't say that density needs to become before public transport. Just the opposite: you need to put transportation in place before people come. But you also need to make density legal before you think about public transport.

I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.

I think there does come a point where a community can decide their public transportation costs more to operate than it's worth, but unless it's consistently losing massive amounts of money it's probably not worth it to take a valuable resource from the public just to save a bit of money. Especially if that community has any desire to grow.

In places where public transport works and is used, I agree.

Similar. I spent part of my teen years in a children's home in the U.S. -- it turns out that even though the state may go in for a [driving] learning permit (pre-req for a driving license), it won't sign off for the license to drive. So I never got a license until older and dropped it later.

I'm definitely healthier for all the walking I still do :)

It's getting so bad, that some insist on being able to drive to work even if you live within 15 minutes walking distance.

"But what about bad weather?" They ask.

"I'll dress appropriately." I reply.

3 days later: Phone rings.

"We're sorry, but we decided to go with someone better suited for the job."

The job... was at a restaurant, as a cook. Cooks... don't need to be able to drive to work... usually. (There are maybe some jobs where driving would be ideal, or necessary, but let's be real here. Most don't need to be able to drive.)

Quite frankly, I think the entire restaurant industry (in Canada) needs to be audited for multiple reasons. Tax evasion, disobeying the law in regards to discrimination, etc. (Canadian laws) There may be some innocent owners caught in the crossfire, but if they truly are innocent in this case; they should be fine and worry free. It's not a line of logic I like to use in many things, but in this case it really is true.

I once worked where I lacked a car. There were 3 buses going there in the morning. The next bus going there left downtown Denver at 4pm. Between 0545 and 1600 there was no bus service to that destination. Missing the 0430, 0505 or 0545 buses meant missing work that day. When I finally managed to get a car (legal problems), I got a new job within a month.

But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards. Heck, here in Canada we have a tribunal system to deal with human rights abuses, even in the workplace; not just societal. And it gets underfunded due to be under utilized due to the very lack of backbone I speak of. What I am saying right now is right from the horses mouth no less.

Yes, that means it's all our fault. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and so they do nothing; and so they get away with more than they should.

To be clear though for those on the other side of the fence.

I'm the employee who will usually say "yeah, sure boss. Just maybe give me some time to get down there, or cover my cab fare so I can get there faster."

Heck, one employer literally drove down to get me just to get the shift covered without any lost time.

But recently I've been getting flak from employers for even that sort of thing. (Getting a cab, or taking the bus I mean.)

So, I don't care anymore. We have rules for a reason, and you all can follow them, or uphold them. Which ever may be the case for whoever is reading this.

In the US there is no authority that oversees these sorts of things. It's perfectly legal to make insane demands on an hourly employee's time. Hourly employees are lucky if they can get a set schedule and don't have to constantly check to see what days/hours they'll work because those hours can be changed at any time without notice. They can be expected to come in at any time to cover for other employees and fired if they aren't making themselves always available at the drop of a hat.

There are very few regulations preventing employers from abusing their staff and those only cover the most egregious abuses. Walmart (the largest private employer in the country) for example has been caught for things like refusing to pay workers for hours that they worked, for locking workers inside of buildings and refusing to let them leave, child-labor violations, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and serious OSHA violations that endangered the lives and safety of their employees. While they do get the occasional light slap on the wrist for violating what few protections workers have (often only after repeatedly violating them) even the largest and easiest target gets away with all kinds of abuses not covered under law.

Companies and entire industries spend massive amounts of money on bribing politicians so they can continue to exploit workers and even manipulate the workers themselves to be so anti-regulation and anti-union that they'll fight against efforts to improve the conditions that they themselves suffer under.

Workers being exploited in the US are not uncaring or spineless. They're just working against a system that has been carefully designed and refined over centuries to keep them powerless. We're starting to see some pushes for change though. There's been an increase in efforts to unionize, but just talking about unionizing can get you fired and laws have been changed so that unions don't always have the power they used to. In the meantime, folks still have to pay rent and eat, so they're forced to suffer under exploitative practices.

Let's just say that we have it just as bad in slightly different ways. The only saving grace for us Canadians (IMHO) is that we still have stuff like the old common law stuff in effect. (of which many of our citizenry is not aware of its actual legal standing, and so they don't make use of any of it.) {Also the libertarian free-man-of-the-land types make erroneous use of some of this stuff, which doesn't help either.}

I state it as such, because when I brought this all up with a lawyer to see if I had a case at all; he was surprised I even knew about some of the old common law stuff that employers legally are supposed to be obeying. This has to do with things like wrongful dismissal for example, where an employee has decided to say no to a bad boss, and gets fired for it. A lot of our current laws state that's already illegal as well depending on the situation; but even those old laws had details in them pertaining to things like severance pay. Long story short; some employers know about this, and will pay out extra weeks even under probationary period because it could land them in court if they don't.

So it is better up here in some ways; but that kind of stuff will probably never be enacted down there, because it would mean accepting that ol Britain was right about a few things.

Especially in small towns where people know each other.

That used to kinda be the norm.

If I can't walk there within an hour, or the bus itself takes more than an hour to get there; I won't even apply to the job. My method of thinking on this is that people with their own vehicle won't go much further than an hour away anyways, so why would I with a bike, my own two feet; or transit for that matter.

It's not like the people they are hiring with vehicles are going to get there much faster if they own a vehicle taking the same amount of time. The only time this won't be true is if they live so close they really should be walking instead to save money.

"Normal Land Line" wasn't something that came from nature. It is a sophisticated technology invented by humans with the same User Interface flaws and Laggard-Ranting that every generation goes through.

When Mixed-Reality becomes popular, I'm sure there will be many complaining "why can't I just have simple smartphone" and there will probably some Gen Zers sympathizing with them and reminiscing about the simple days of smartphone.

Newsflash: Adaption and Evolution is the name of the game. I can understand if a disabled person complains inability to use gadgets(although smartphones have better accessibility features), but you can bet your bottom dollar, most of these people whine because they aren't curious about the world and stubbornly refuse to adapt and the rest of the world has to bend over backwards to accommodate them?

Yes, it’s also exponentially more powerful, but it leaves a lot of people behind.

Just a few of those factors might not be so bad but with all of them it could become impossible to do legally-required things like buying car insurance without being effectively legally required to look at Google ads. Or renewing your passport without agreeing to a software EULA that forbids you from ever suing Apple for leaking your private data. All of this "it's just opting in to societal progress" crap is why Experian even ever had your data to leak[1] it in the first place, and why Google and Braze and every other tech company has it too.

0: https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png 1: https://threatpost.com/experian-api-leaks-american-credit-sc...

There are plenty of places that offer cheap phones for the poor

https://www.reviews.org/mobile/how-to-get-free-government-ce...

All Android phones have shitty long term support - even the Pixels.

Of course iPhones are a different story with Apple releasing a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s as recently as June of this year. But I’m not going to suggest an iPhone as an alternative.

On the other hand, developing countries manage with $30 unsubsidized phones and people use them for banking.

Maybe you shouldn't, but in terms of pure ability you perfectly well can. (And somewhat ironically, if you take matters into your own hands and update the OS yourself, quite a few banking apps will then refuse to run for "security reasons", while at the same time they're absolutely happy to run on an outdated OS version.)

https://a.co/d/imNpbBS

I purchased a pair of docs for about 300$, 10 years ago. Still wear them as my day to day shoes/boots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_phone

If you can use a computer, you can use a smartphone. It's just a form factor.

The amount of mental gymnastics some people go through to justify their irrational decisions is always mind-boggling --- and these are some of the smartest people

I don't install apps because I 100% don't trust the devs who write apps. Or well I don't trust their bosses. Corners are cut and security and UX typically takes a back seat to "the funnel"

My gym (located right across the street from my house) requires me to check in via an app. I have no issues walking across the street and getting the clerk to manually do it for me. NO I didn't bring a phone to my workout.

Your ignorance about other people's thought process doesn't imply they don't have a thought process.

It's the same stuff just in a cycle.

Cellphones are completely different. My "daily driver" smartphone, bought in 2017 for ~1/4 of my monthly salary, is obsolete and I have rooted it in order to continue to install security updates. This has locked me out of my Danish bank account.

My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works, even when the mains electricity is out, no technology change required.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_telephone [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_dialing

And they were state-of-the-art until the late 1990s, when mass consumer mobile phones became a thing.

You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.

Their generated developed this technology - it can't be beyond them to learn it?

> My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works

Well it doesn't for much of society - that's the point.

My point is that, actually, no: nobody alive predates the popularisation of the telephone (the oldest person listed as being alive at the moment was born in 1904 – by which point there were ~3 m telephone subscribers in the US [1] https://www.technofunc.com/index.php/domain-knowledge/teleco...).

I think the point about being resistant to learning new skills is one thing, extreme poverty and the historically incredibly rapid widespread adoption of the smartphone is another. A smartphone from ten years ago is as good as useless for banking nowadays. If you're an 80 year old pensioner on a fixed income, it may well both be a significant proportion of your income, have taken a long time to learn to use and not exactly be understanding of your (statistically quite likely to be present) visual or fine manual dexterity difficulties, and I can very much imagine that you feel locked out of society for no good reason.

And, of course, it's trendy to keep "modernizing" UIs, so how to use it or any given app probably changes a fair bit every year or two.

I didn't claim that. I said it was the state-of-the-art until recently, and it was.

But I know what you mean.

(Except newer smart phones tend to have better support for accessibility as people realise it's more important.)

I am already dreading what fresh clever hell Apple is going to unleash upon her when she gets shoved off this one because enough “critical” apps won’t run on iOS 15 anymore.

My dad, early 70s, is still holding out with a flip phone (fortunately still available in 4G). His hands are quite useless on a touchscreen after 50+ years of concrete-oriented construction work, and I would LOVE to see Siri attempt to parse Deep East Texan.

Newer phones are better for accessibility if lower visual or aural capability or some types of movement capacity are your main limitations, but are worse for many others. Increasingly larger phones are an awful trend for my friend who has severe muscular dystrophy and limited strength and range of motion, and voice assistants are a cruel joke for her tiny little voice.

Yes, I've heard the exact same thing from my iPhone-using elderly mother and my sister. The answer is simple: stop spending thousands on new iPhones, and get an inexpensive budget-model Android instead. They're quite simple to use. But my suggestions always fall on deaf ears.

The landline is special because laws require a line-powered phone system that can survive outages. It's a minimal and reliable layer of infrastructure which still makes perfect sense for people with limited communications needs.

Is newer better? Should people be required to buy an array of fragile and expensive devices just to function? How many things should they be required to maintain and how complex should they be?

Back in the day, one would carry coins and use a phone box when needed. Nowadays everyone gets to carry a cellphone and pay 40 dollars minimum every month for the privilege. Cellphones are a regression, and we haven't even talked about the privacy aspect.

You can also dissent.

You can also resist.

And if newer is worse (for you), it's your obligation to do so.

Covered by ‘complaining’.

No, but we have to fill up those land fills and line those pockets somehow!

When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.

Hell, even the thing where stuff sorts by "most recent access" makes learning impossible. How do you find older things? (the "search" function is contrary to how the brain works, brains are wired to find things by location which doesn't work if there isn't a location because stuff is always moved by the damn magic elves).

Tech companies have the same level of respect for their users as slaughterhouses do for cattle. We are living in The Jungle, except it’s techbro computer shit instead of meatpacking.

See: https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2022/05/23/je...

However I do not see anything resembling cell phone service happening until the 1970s.

Microsoft also licenses its operating system to third parties and you PCs can get updated by the end user without having to worry about the OEM. Microsoft Windows 7 which just went out of support in 2020 ran on my 2006 era Mac.

As far as phones, Apple released a security patch for the 2013 iPhone 5s less than four months ago.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-phone...

1 in 20 households lacked a phone in 1990, 1 in 5 in 1960, and those number his regional variations.

My ex (and still one of my best friends!) was (is?) a first responder for the Pacific North-West (think oil-spills on mountains and other ecological problems). She was required to have a land-line. It was great that it would forward to a mobile, and lacking that, dump back to a battery-backed-up voice mail unit on-premises (possibly more).

OT: Her position seemed unique to me -- working for <whatever> $company, she would get alerted/activated for things in the Canada AND the U.S. And they would do the thing of "Where are You? ....... There's a heliport at X - we'll have a 'copter there in 15 minutes" and then I get to send her away clutch when I got home.

Because they're not against "state of the art" or even the notion of "state of the art" things in general, they're against smartphones in particular.

People are also able to finding smartphones (and the requirement to have one for many aspects of dealing with the government and corporations) bothersome and annoying without having to (a) hate new technology in general, (b) have it be due to them being old.

Amazingly (I know right? Who would have thought!) this can be true even if some people back in the day disliked landlines.

It's almost like each technology is not just some magic miracle everybody should adopt with no downsides and all fun and games, but something that people can be pro or against it on a preference basis (in fact, some tech can also have bjective negative consequences and side-effects).

Case in point I always disliked smartphones, and they become a thing at the time I was a teenager. And I know kids who were born with them who hate them. So there's that.

However I won't use a smart phone for money or install an app for random things like a gym membership or a restaurant's menu. Never mind banking or medical stuff. It's really hard to verify what an app actually does under the hood and too many reports of even banking apps not getting SSL right and such. I know too much about how bad software development is security wise to trust any of this implicitly.

Thanks but no thanks.

If it was invented when you were 20-40 it's new but you're willing to adopt it after some consideration.

If it was invented after you're 40 it's against the natural order of things and must be destroyed.

It's not that they are dumb or obtuse, in their world you have to understand the risk first, then you can use it. It's like the Japanese and baseball. In the USA it's balls then strikes, in Japan, it's strikes then balls. Older people think about strikes, younger people just think about balls.

I think it is apt and we are collectively ignoring how dangerous new technology and technological trends are or can be because we can use them without understanding anything about them (I'd argue even their creators understand little about them).

This is actually pretty good advice for smartphones, too.

Okay, it won't hack off your leg, but it may affect your life profoundly and adversely in ways that are not obvious at first.

Of course most landline calls today go through dubious VoIP links and poorly maintained copper infrastructure, which is why I qualify with "from several years ago."

It regularly strikes me as absurd that quality was so much better on an old landline. It's an odd trade-off for which I would never have voted.

Even still, my main complaint is over the loss of minor things like pay-phones. I think I'll always bemoan the idea of a telephone number being associated with a person, rather than a location.

But drop your mobile device and not only are you f'ed, you have to invest in getting it fixed. And until then you're a social outcast.

To say nothing of the "sorry, you MUST update or else."

Same stuff? Hardly.

Older generations have not been asked to replace their expensive tech every 3 years. My grandparents bought one phone and one TV set and kept them for the rest of their lifes. Something is wrong with today's tech and not with the elderly people who are not able to adapt as fast as zoomers.

If they'd be complaining about their mobile phone bill being higher than their landline bill, fine - but that's not the case.

I'm pretty sure the last land line phone my parents bought was under 100 bucks and it would still be working just fine 10 years later (that is in addition to the fact that we kinda transitioned from analog to ISDN around 2000, and then back). Compare to a new mobile phone every 3 years if you want security updates.

Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.

Examples from several different countries: getting around without rideshare/taxi hailing apps, 'self check-in' gyms in Seoul, Covid-related QR codes to get into restaurants, stores that only take mobile payments.

conversely the only reason that these companies enforce such policies is because they get away with doing so and people participate.

Not only, you are also casting a vote:

"I am very sorry, but I usually don't have my phone with me, seems like I need to bring my money to another business."

I do say that, that all sounds crap and I don't want any of it even though I have a phone. (And it isn't my experience, I believe it exists but it's absolutely not hard to ignore.)

Again, if they all-caps-hate it so much...

I've walked out of places because of that.

I don't generally want to say that too loud though because some politician will point out that they still have their eyes and fingertips so why can't we use biometrics instead.

Might as well regress to hot iron cattle branding.

I don't think so. Certainly it's hard to argue that at least a feature phone that you're willing to give out the phone number for is well-nigh mandatory.

As you say, go back not that many years and cash/travelers checks and appropriate ID (drivers license and/or passport) were really all you needed in general. In addition to phone, it's really hard without a credit card today as well.

The proprietary payment app in turn relies on a proprietary app for electronic ID which authorises bank transactions. And those demand a relatively recent version of iOS or Android and that the phone is not rooted. The e-ID is only available to citizens and residents, which means that people such as foreign students or guest workers can't get one. (And then the privacy and security issues of the e-ID system is a can of worms...)

The requirement of the phone not being rooted is another blunder. This is trusted computing against the user in my opinion.

If it is QR code based, take a screenshot or picture of the QR code. I just login with the photo app anymore lol.

I get and fully support what you're going for, but friendly reminder that (in America) having an ID can actually be somewhat difficult in a variety of circumstances where people are most vulnerable to being left out. It's actually kind of a hot button issue

1) Many people who were born in the US didn’t actually ever get one! This is more likely to affect people who were not born in hospitals, particularly older, poorer people.

2) Where is it? The state you were born in, and probably* the county. If you’re now in a different state, the procedure for getting it sent to you could be tricky.

3) How do you get a copy? For Texas, that used to be up to the county where you were born, with all the variability that implies (Harris Co: 4 million. Loving Co: 100.) Now that’s “state records office”… with a catch. For any of you here, it’s marvelously simple and not that spendy. If you don’t have a credit/debit card and/or don’t use the internet… that’ll be $80 and “up to” an 8 week wait. No idea about any other state.

So what if you don’t have/can’t get a copy of your birth certificate? Every state is different, but they all accept some defined set of alternative documentation: school records, military records, medical records, attestation from the doctor/midwife that delivered you… all things that someone who is having a hard time laying hands on their birth certificate is sure to have to hand.

1) Don't have an ID, just provide your birth certificate. Oh wait... that wasn't issued to me

2) Well I can try to order my birth certificate mailed to me. Oh wait... I don't have easy internet access, no smartphone or internet at my house.

3) I got online at the library, time to order my birth certificate. Oh wait... I don't have a credit card to pay. Maybe my birth county lets me mail cash (risky), or maybe they require me to show up in person, and potentially spend $100s on travel, in addition to missing work.

4) Okay, I go to apply for a credit card or open a bank account to pay. Oh wait... I need an ID.

Rinse and repeat

And if you lose your birth certificate you may have to start all over again!

There are ways to get an ID via other methods and then build up but it can be tricky and difficult to navigate. And without a stable address it can be nearly impossible.

This was never the case in any large city.

It is (was?) the case in my large (500k+) city in the 90's at least. If you were lacking all forms of identification to get an ID, you could use a neighbor or family member who had an ID to vouch for you.

I do believe it was the vouch + another form of identification, but I distinctly recall having to do this for a replacement ID when I couldn't find my papers after a move.

I’ve run into, for real, the issue of “essential” apps in Germany not being available in the US App Store, like public parking for the commuter lot in a town on the other side of the country.

I don't know who is arguing for bank accounts without ID though.

I can't help but feel it wasn't so long ago it was widely considered a bad idea to open arbitrary PDFs of questionable provenance.

But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address… I wonder if I‘ll end up getting spam by either the restaurant or the POS vendor.

It also creates a completely new and entirely avoidable problem: I don‘t have strong signal in that restaurant, and they don‘t offer a wi-fi either. All in all, while the waiter probably saved 20-30 seconds (waiting for me to unlock my phone or get my card from my wallet, tap it, and select my tipping option), it took me almost 5 minutes to complete payment on my side.

I do not think the merchant gets a name or an email address.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/715893

Not sure about the name actually, but they do get the email address - that‘s how they were able to email me an invoice without me entering anything.

That said, my my email address does contain my name, and while I could configure an alias in my Apple Pay settings, I doubt that too many people would do so. Would be a nice way for Apple to use their email privacy relay feature.

This is not true

> But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address…

In the case of a card not present transaction, the merchant always asks for your address when using credit cards. Also the original submission is about “cashless societies” and the disadvantage of it. No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.

> No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.

Agreed, but why does a restaurant have to be a web merchant when there is a much more convenient alternative available?

The checkout site did request my email address from Apple Pay, which obliges by default.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/

> Information Shared When You Make a Payment

> When you begin a payment within an app, on the web, or within Apple Messages for Business using Apple Pay, to enable tax and shipping cost calculation your zip code, postal code, or other equivalent information is provided to the app, website, or merchant. After you authorize the payment, other information requested by the merchant, such as a device- or merchant-specific account number, your shipping address, or email address, is also provided.

No one is arguing that web merchants should accept cash. The commenter I replied to was referring to in person transactions

Further, the response is about a restaurant that has a website you have to use. The website offers Apple Pay as an option. If you pick it your email will be shared. It says so on the page itself.

* do they put up signs, and make sure not to let you in, if you don't have a phone?!

* what if it just doesn't work with your phone. you ate, try to pay, doesn't work.

* what if you have a phone, but no way to pay via phone, eg, no credit cards?

I just don't get it

Frankly, after eating, if presented with "you need a phone to pay", my response would be to ask, "so you refuse to take cash?".

If they did... well, their problem. Not mine.

I‘ve seen a variation of this (in the UK) where they really only bring a QR code, and you can‘t even read the amount without a phone. Presumably you have to ask for a printed check if you want to pay by cash or card, introducing another unnecessary step into the process. (Coincidentally they also initially brought me the wrong QR code since they are only labeled very discreetly, momentarily shocking me with a large group‘s check.)

The only reason to make it an either/or, is to try to force it.

I'd tip less, as a result too. Most places I worked at, has pooled tipping, meaning even the bus boy got some of the take.

But regardless, if my food is cold, or tasteless, I tip less too. My tip is some for the waiter's service, some for everything else.

And having to wait for a real receipt, and I presume eyerolling is part of it, would mean a lesser tip.

If someone thinks that unfair, then I say the same to them, as to the waiter. Find a different job, where the employer cares about customer satisfaction.

Re: gym, when I signed up I didn't have a phone at all. After being asked twice, I finally lied and said yeah it's um at home.

The problem with the app barcodes is simply that they are slow to load, nonstandard, and not open source.

I think a common standard, lightweight, open source app would be perfect. Stocard is proprietary, but at least it loads quick and organizes all of the cards in a uniform way.

I don't like these slow, buggy apps that bury their barcodes.

The brightness problem is real, and getting the angle right can also be a challenge, although that seems like an issue with the current quality of barcode/QR readers. I assume that could be solved if anyone cared.

Keychain barcodes are insecure, easy to damage, easy to lose, and provide zero real identity guarantee.

Phones at least can offer the level of identity guarantee that 2FA does, and largely solves those other problems.

Don't feel bad about asking them for access to the service that you paid for. Here are some good reasons for not installing their app:

- I forgot my phone at home

- My phone is broken, I stepped on it when I got out of the bed

- I can't install any apps, the memory is full and I don't want to delete my family videos

- I don't know my Appstore password right now

- This is a work-provided phone, I cannot install any apps on it

- My phone contains confidential client data, I cannot install any apps on it

- I am an investigative journalist, is your app certified for high-security applications?

- My kids have the phone, I didn't want to interrupt them playing games

- Does your app run on Nokia?

- Does your app run on Windows phones?

- Is your app on f-droid, my phone only supports f-droid?

- I am sensitive to radiation and cannot use any radio device

- I am a minimalist and I live phone-free!

I tried that in an interview. They never called back. /s

Well to that one they could reply that you better not turn on a SDR to see what radio waves are passing through you at this and every moment. XD