Surely your pocket computer isn't your only computer? Like, you do own a computer with a physical keyboard, right?
Pre-COVID, when I made plans to go out with folks, we arranged a time and place to meet, and, like, arrived at that place roughly around that time. It's pretty easy, really.
More and more people, particularly the younger generations, don't have anything besides their smartphone because what's the point? It's additional expense, additional maintenance, additional clutter, additional mess.
They can do everything they need on their phone.
This is the gulf UX design is supposed to cross, I guess. Designing for people who engage with tech in utterly different ways to me.
On the one hand, I rarely use my smartphone at home because I have computers.
On the other hand, I hear stories from parents at work whose kids don't want a computer because "Why would I need one? My phone works fine."
I’m 40 and if I wasn’t a software engineer I wouldn’t own a desktop / laptop computer. As you say, what’s the point? Everything except for software development can be done on a smartphone. Why even bother installing an instant messaging application on the computer when you can just take the phone out of the pocket instead of walking to the room where the computer happens to be? Even when I’m working at the computer I use the phone for music, messaging and news.
That sounds like a little too broad a generalization.
A typical office worker who creates or consumes documents, presentations, accesses corporate apps (half of them still 90s tech with lipstick), submit proposals to clients, review others' work, attending multiple hours long zoom calls with screenshare, etc ... are still using at least 13" laptop screens to do a lot of their day to day work.
Sure a sales executive or a senior manager might get away by just typing one liner commands to minions on their smartphone, hitting approve buttons on expense apps, and just listening into team calls, etc. -- but lower in the hierarchy where the real numbers and usage are ... we still have physical keyboards and mice, and decent sized screens (often multiple monitors) to help us stay productive.
Don't expect to be able to use modern services if you don't want to meet the providers where they operate. It's like refusing to use a card and demanding everyone to use cash, you're going to limit yourself and it's your choice if you think it's worth it.
I think limiting your goods and services to people with devices that have been available for more than two decades and are basically ubiquitous is a reasonable thing to do, considering the benefits that comes with it.
Personally i very rarely talk on the phone, that's never been why I've used mobile phones. I listen to music and use offline maps with GPS far more, but I also use it for payment, camera, text messages, etc.
I have gotten incoming phone calls, mostly from daycare when a kid has been sick.
what i personally want to be free from is the use of QR codes for maps in public places, like have a QR code to let people pull up a map and keep it on their phone sure, but I've been to shopping malls where they replaced the map directory with a blank poster and a QR code, presumably because the turnover on real estate is so high and they can't manage to keep anyone employed long enough to replace the map everytime a store closes...
I went back to candy bar phone more than a decade ago and I barely use it.
I imagine they would hate next time you need to organise a trip and you can't join their group chat for coordination.
Or are you one of these people who calls everyone for basically no reason when a message could suffice?
and IME cats don't self organize into a herd, it's usually one person figuring out a time and place that works for everyone, unless you're one of those insufferable people who sends out a "when are you free" survey of checkboxes ;P
That's increasingly rare. My elderly dad still uses voice calling pretty much exclusively and a friend who I'll exchange voice calls with. But I don't think there's a single other person who would call me out of the blue socially absent an emergency--and at least some of these are people I would have regularly called 25 years or so ago.
For that matter, no one at work would just call me on the phone either.
In any case, the goalposts for calling someone out of the blue have moved for a lot of people.
Now you can call them literally 24/7 no matter where they are in the world. There is no recluse.
Interrupting people in the middle of what they're doing whenever, wherever is quite rude and fixing that etiquette is a GOOD thing.
>> 30, elderly
I've had to shut down my accounts in two banks because of surprise app requirements (that weren't in the contract) for basic account functionality. Their apps are only available trough App Store and Google Play, no .apk alternative. And even if you install the apps using Aurora store, the app instantly crashes, I suppose because they implement Google's SafetyNet, or whatever it's called now.
So, unless I want to buy and carry around an extra phone for completely bullshit reasons, I'm limited to only using one bank, the only one in my country that still doesn't require an app for the type of account I want. I've thought of buying a phone just for the apps, but after that, who knows with what other bullshit they may come up with (your device is too old, it doesn't have a phone number associated, etc), so I just give up.
Owning a separate, dedicated piece of hardware for sensitive and critical activities (eg: banking) is a very good idea because it isolates them from all your other mundane, potentially risky activities.
Most people don't do this because of the various inconveniences and expenses involved, but if you can tolerate them it's about as safe as digital activities can get.
You might be fine having apps as closely tied to your real identity as your banking app on a device that's constantly collecting location and other data about you, but privacy is important to some other people.
The banking apps still won't work. They insist on some signal from a SIM card "for my security," and I'm not willing to put a SIM card in a device that won't ever leave my house.
The banks are creating their own requirements for how to access their app.
Just like some users are creating their own requirements.
Both parties seem to be content to be apart of the problem and blame the other.
Why not a computer?
I had multitudes of non-smartphone based security devices in my life, cheap and dedicated small secure things, but those are endangered species now regrettably.
Bank's goal is to prevent access by people other than account owner. When it comes to the VPN usage, there are a few risk factors:
- Concealment of connection. Malicious actor will likely use a measure to hide the request origin.
- Accessing from another country or region, human factor (a common use case of VPNs). Instant thousand miles away teleportation is usually a sign of access attempt with stolen information. While you may be smart, a lot of people aren't and will gladly tell all the info to "bank security agent calling to ask for some information to prevent your account from being suspended".
- Accessing from another country or region, legal factor. Banks in some countries may even legally require a notice in advance before using its cards or services abroad.
- Usage of known publicly available service. Multiple users using the same address makes it harder to tell genuine and malicious users apart, so it's better to not leave it to the chance.
if you remove your bank linked sim card from your phone, the app wont work. if you change your phone, the app has to be re-registered so its like that.
what i am saying is, the threat model of concealment and another region or another person is already dependent upon the owner owing their phone. if its stolen, the first thing to do is to disable access
In .cz, about third of banks require a smartphone app, about third allows SMS authorization at an extra fee and about third has SMS authorization free. However, this all happened in the last few years and every few months some bank announces it's moving towards the app group.
The spicy part is that most banks use the app as the only factor, not as a second factor (as it was with the SMS, where you had password for web banking + SMS authorization as a 2FA). You therefore cannot use a noname-brand Android with vendor-provided crapware, as your security depends on it. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have an employer-provided iPhone.
How do they do it? For example, there is no "authorization" app, only a full-blown mobile banking with full permissions that has the "authorization" as one of the features. Or there is no password for the web banking (wtf!), only a username which is your national identity number and therefore widely known.
The even spicier part is that many banks give you pre-approved loans which are impossible to reject, and therefore if someone hacks your account, not only they steal your balance, but even overdraw.
Well the answer is that in modern life it's literally impossible to access basic infrastructure of many places without a smartphone. It's an absolute necessity unless you want to be a nomad and live in the wilderness.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/fox-cites-ownership-...
I think it's a few things.
- Integration of stuff like GPS that can be done on a dedicated device but are easily done better on a phone through an app.
- Ready access to information on the go. (Much of which wan't really available on the go until the 2000s.) There's a lot you could do once the smartphone came out that you didn't have access to before. But there's a lot in general I can do today that I couldn't in the 1970s/80s.
- And yes, there are apps for things like parking, public transit, rideshare, airline notifications etc. that are more generally relevant if you're traveling and in cities.
What are you referring to? While it may be the most popular messaging app, it's not in any way, shape, or form essential. SMS is also universal, mostly unlimited, and much less weirder than it is in the US.
It hasn't been for like 15+ years since pretty much every subscription has either unlimited*/or more than you can reasonably use minutes/SMS.
>Not sure what's weird about SMS in the US?
Don't you get (or used to) charged for incoming SMS?
Examples?
Nb I have closed a bank account because I refuse[d] to install WhatsApp.
Some cities have been installing concrete filled pipes to close of what used to be access streets into parts of cities forcing them to be "foot traffic only". This started in the EU and became trendy. Now its spreading in the US in big cities. I am not complaining. In some places this actually works out. In some places it hurts business. I guess that is a matter of city planning. Even the really old town I grew up in is doing this now in the part of town that has a bunch of small businesses to encourage more foot traffic.
Another example is roundabouts. Some of the small cities are putting these in new developments. I think it's still somewhat experimental in the US as not every small city is doing this.
I believe the word you're looking for is 'bollard'.
In the 1990s, I remember payphones being conveniently available, but now I need to keep an eye on my battery if I'm going to phone home.
In 2010, I could log into any of my accounts with just WiFi and a password, now I need 2FA and often SMS is the only supported option. Sometimes a phone call. So in order to, say, check my bank account, I now need data and cell signal. That combination can be hard to get in a concrete building or while traveling abroad.
Although, to be honest, I find it pretty silly to avoid the use of a smartphone, or at least the use of a website. I guess some people like to waste time going to the local subsidiary and wait in line to solve even the most basic of problems, but that's not for me. Banking apps are spreading because they are more efficient.
In the future banking apps may be required. One thing that's happening in Europe are instant payments between banks. If you couple that with payments via apps (via phone number or scanning a QR code), the duopoly of Mastercard/Visa is under threat, as merchants would love to avoid their taxes.
The US is a little behind on this, maybe this is why Silicon Valley bros are constantly trying to disrupt finance.
Of course, they are also very wrong. Opportunities to escape poverty are lost when you are only trying to fulfill your immediate needs, then there are the psychological ramifications of being vulnerable and in constant need for aid from others.
There is a reason why we have built our technological societies. It goes well beyond the personal gratification we get from gadgets or fine foods. We do it because it offers security of being and the ability to make our world a better place.
"We" haven't built anything. A group of very powerful people planned this locked-down, dystopian world we currently live in and worked on achieving that plan.
You and I are simply living in the world they envisioned.
As far as smartphones being a necessity goes, I have never owned a smartphone myself, and do not carry any phone at all most of the time. I have just gone on living like I did before smartphones, though I am aware that I am locked out of more and more things. I am beginning to resent things like parking that requires a smartphone. I don't understand the lack of back up options.
Rather than insisting on 'smartphones as a human right', I'd rather see 'opting out' as a human right.
My government has to respect free speech but it doesn't mean I have to speak up. Just because something is a human right doesn't mean I have to execute it.
I very much appreciate those people who live without smartphones. As a society, we need these people. It's not only about people with disabilities and other marginalized groups. It's about everyone.
Last year, the smartphone of a friend of mine was stolen. Luckily, it was well protected. But still it was gone with all the 2F apps. This friend had to learn by example that those apps actually second factors. Also luckily, this person didn't enable 2F for Gmail. Otherwise it would have been much more trouble.
Apple is making it harder and harder to use an Apple ID (required for the App Store) without using iCloud. iCloud is a privacy nightmare.
We shouldn't have to give up our rights to privacy to participate in society.
Betrays fundamental misunderstanding of both.
Society so could step in via elected governments and stop this behaviour through laws. Not that I am holding my breath on this.
Apple can and does read most of the data in iCloud (due to it lacking e2ee by default) including all your iMessages, all your iMessage attachments/photos, all your iCloud photos, all your call logs, all your iCloud files, all your contacts, calendars, etc. iMessage's e2ee is effectively backdoored by all the iMessage sync keys being backed up in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup.
Apple turns over user data (including all of the aforementioned) for 17,000+ user accounts to the US government without a search warrant under the FISA (aka PRISM) system. They turn over even more user data on top of that each year when provided with actual search warrants - the 17k users figure is just the ones without search warrants!
They don't protect most of the data in iCloud from themselves, and Apple is forced to spy for their national government thanks to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA702), which allows the US to read anything in iCloud without probable cause or a search warrant - point and click access.
This works out as "You are required to carry your surveillance device at all times"
Thanks to everyone who didn't care forcing the rest of us into being part of your turnkey facist dystopia. Who do you think will be turning that key? How long? 3 years? 5? 10?
A bike does not require a minimum age but an e-scooter does. The app probably knows the age of the user, but has no way to determine the age of the user of additional scooters.
It could cross-reference data from social media accounts, and if all friends of the user fullfil the required minimum age then offer additional scooters.
If a simple yes/no prompt is good enough for porn, I guess it's good enough for a scooter too.
The fact is that there’s nothing potentially dangerous about minor watching porn where there is about minimum age requirements for electric scooters.
but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently
Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.
* The seller does not state they do not take cash before the transaction happens,
* And the buyer attempts to pay for the transaction after the fact with cash in good faith,
* And the sold goods cannot be returned to their original condition prior to sale,
Then the buyer is okay (FSVO okay) to leave and go about his day because the seller refused to take money that was presented in good faith by the buyer. Because cash, at least in the US, is "legal tender for all debts public and private" and a transaction to which you owe money is a form of debt.
Obligatory not a lawyer and not an accountant disclaimer. I'm way too lazy to go and properly research and cite this.
In real life there's not a lot of cases where someone gives you goods before you pay, and anywhere i've been to that don't accept cash clearly posts "this is a cashless business" (sweetgreen and the like, SF/NYC, YMMV) so good luck making the argument that you're entitled to your free salad
Usually this isn't a problem because "We don't take cash." signs are prominently posted, but we are speaking in the hypothetical after all.
"Sorry I don't have <admin privilieges> so someone else will have to help you with <mundane adminstrative task>"
A surprising number of things also breaks down when you don't have mobile data — and that happens every time you travel internationally and don't have or want a sim card for that country.
And as a Russian, I also have to mention how terrible it is to travel when you don't have an internationally working debit card. There's so much stuff you simply can't use without one because there's no cash option. Those same scooter rentals are one example.
Though not sure you can even sign up with a Russian id
You definitely can't. You used to be able to sign up for Vivid, a similar app, with a Russian passport and by telling them that you live in Germany with no proof required, but I heard they cracked down on this since.
People who travel or shop online often, or have to receive payments from abroad, have all got themselves accounts and cards in foreign banks. I did, too. In some countries (Kazakhstan, Georgia, Indonesia, Turkey) some banks would open an account and issue a card for you even if you're not a resident.
* except several "friendly" countries that still accept Mir cards, like Armenia. Russian Visa and MC are truly useless abroad though.
There's a surprising number of people in the West who legit think that the war can be stopped if us Russians are upset enough with these kinds of otherwise pointless sanctions. That we'll go tell our government that it's not doing the right thing. Because of course that works, right? Of course that never got anyone's life ruined, right?
The government or the people?
The financial sanctions are not about you. They're about constraining the resources of a genocidal mafia regime waging direct war against its neighbors and hybrid war against "The Collective West(tm)".
With that in mind, a far better argument in favor of loosening sanctions to allow Russians to spend abroad is that those foreign currency outflows will put further pressure on the ruble and Russia's limited forex liquidity.
Bitching about sanctions is ultimately pointless, though, as CBR would almost certainly restrict foreign payments on their own even if sanctions weren't in place, exactly because of those financial constraints.
Ultimately your payments problem boils down to Russia wasting all its resources and potential on a genocidal war of imperial aggression and that is what you should spend all your energy to address.
Putin won't be in charge forever, and they can stop the war literally right now by ceding some territory to Russia. After which NATO membership can be given to Ukraine. No more sanctions for our Russian HN members.
The problem I see is that there's no process going on to evaluate whether each particular sanction has its intended effect, and repeal those that clearly don't.
Like it or not, if you are in Russia you are making a political choice to be part of this regime. You contribute to its economy and tax base and contribute, directly or indirectly, to an organization which is right now committing atrocities in Ukraine to steal their land and children and erase their history and culture.
When I look at the injustices that exist in that part of the world, the plight of the well-off holidaying Ivan from Moscow or Peter ranks near the bottom of my list.
What's more, the relative volume of Russians' complaints about sanctions compared to the (almost nonexistent) volume of Russians' complaints about the wide-scale torture of Ukrainian PoWs, systematic kidnapping of Ukrainian children, murder and 'filtration' of civilians, etc. reveals a disheartening reality: Russians only care about themselves.
So why should we care about them?
Any time or energy spent worrying about Russians is far better spent worrying about Russia's victims: Ukrainians.
Sometimes the traditional ways are best.
Laggard only start using an innovation because they're forced by external factors.
It's using technology to go a step backward in usability.
The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your laundry, swipe your card, and that was it. Instantly started.
They switched to an app by the same service company, and now there were a bunch more steps involved. Put in your laundry, find the app, open it, scroll through their “what’s new in laundry!” news that nobody cares about, click a bunch of buttons until you find the machine number that matches yours, go through the menus to pick washer settings, then pay there, and still need to push the start button on the machine itself.
So much worse, and also more error prone — I would regularly get errors when a machine disconnected from the internet.
Why people think it’s better, I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that credit card fees are cheaper on a $20 transaction compared to 20 $1 transactions
Granted, there are probably better solutions that require neither quarters nor a mobile app, but between those two, the mobile app wins for me.
Adding app operation alongside coin operation would have been an improvement in useability. Replacing coins with apps is just making it suck in a different way.
Once you're below some use threshold, a lot of places would prefer to ditch cash entirely.
It looks like something similar is in effect here: instead of meeting the different customers where the customers alrady are, it's the company's preferred way or the highway.
It works pretty well.
Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route. I use one locally but when I travel it’s usually not the same network so its figure out how to do it.. (website, payment kiosk, another app…)
Apps tend to be a pretty good solution for regular local users. They're less good when you're dealing with different apps/kiosks/etc., with different interfaces, and different ways of storing value in different cities.
Gone that way already in the UK, ironically in lots of places where there is very patchy or no mobile signal at all.
There's an argument that this is quite the reverse: it's innovative behaviour since it demonstrates comparative rarity, leadership (pointing the way), novelty (we should do things differently), etc.
Frankly, I think this thread points to some of the weaknesses in the Diffusion of Innovations theory (which on the whole I quite like). It doesn't neatly model 'luddites', those who are exposed to 'innovations' and understand them, yet reject them for whatever reason.
I certainly don't think I'm a luddite in general but there are a lot of things that I'm just "Meh. Don't need it."
Some shops don't even accept cash anymore. Don't get me started about the worst recent innovation : a Friggin 21" monitor for the "infotainment" in a car.
But I know that if I have to change my current car, it would be almost impossible to have a car without a television on the console. Unless I buy an old car which pollutes too much.
I think that "meh don't need it" is the first step to "I'm gettin too old for this shit"
Are you also as upset that you need a credit card or debit card (which also leaves you beholden a few large behemoths) to use Lyft? Should they accept checks?
Allow unlocking a second scooter while in your own session already, I feel like this is kind of obvious.
I ran into the same situation just because my phone was dead. My girlfriend couldn't unlock a second scooter for me.
These companies don't care about you. There is no reason to defend brazenly bad practices. You're grating and attacking everyone in this thread who doesn't agree with you.
It’s like people claiming they can’t see when the sun is bright with their hat turned backwards and their shades on top of their head
Do you also complain that you can’t use Uber without a cellphone?
Most people in society are more than willing to help those who for whatever reason can’t do for themselves. But are less forgiving for those who won’t
It's great it has some accessibility features to enable such users access to some smartphone specific functions, that they can't have in other ways, such as audio directions. But that doesn't mean we should be actively push this audience to smartphones and destroy actual accesibile designs for things that haven't required a smartphone in the past. let alone berate people for failing to get on with the times and embrace the clearly inferior "evolution".
Do you think the washers and dryers have brail on them? Do you think cash is easier for blind people?
>>Do you also complain that you can’t use Uber without a cellphone?
I do actually, it's one of the major problems with Uber in my opinion, and that's why a lot of people still stick to local taxi companies that you can just call. But Uber is generally completely shit for accessibility, where law forces local taxis to be accessible Uber usually does their usual bullshit of skirting these regulations and saying absolutely crazy things like "if there is demand for wheelchair accessible taxis then the market will respond".
>>But are less forgiving for those who won’t
Who won't what? I don't understand what you're alluding to.
If you choose to use much less convenient taxis instead of an Uber because of a refusal to use cellphones that’s on you.
> despite the fact that iPhones are a minority of devices out there and in most places they are luxury devices
iPhones are big a minority in the US - where the college is located.
And Google not having accessibility options as good as the iPhone sounds like someone needs to be suing Google under the ADA.
But do you really think blind people are not buying devices that actually work for them?
I always laugh when I see people standing on the side of the road staring first at their phone and then out into traffic as they wait for an uber to show up, and meanwhile at least five taxis have gone by that they could have hailed on the spot.
We were here for the US Tennis open.
Hope you enjoyed your time in the city!
That's cool - wish Uber would have that option worldwide.
>>If you choose to use much less convenient taxis instead of an Uber because of a refusal to use cellphones that’s on you
If you think my message is about refusal rather than physical impossibility of using a smartphone, that one is on you I'm afraid.
>>And Google not having accessibility options as good as the iPhone sounds like someone needs to be suing Google under the ADA.
I don't live in the US, I don't know what ADA is.
>>But do you really think blind people are not buying devices that actually work for them?
I know some blind people and they are all on government benefits and way too poor to afford an iPhone. They all have those "old people" mobiles with huge buttons and braille on them. A modern smartphone is both out of reach financially and as far as I understand it just doesn't work for someone who is completely blind.
I don't hear it (the harshness of responses like yours it would engender might have something to do with it), but I don't see anything wrong with the complaint. I can make HTTP requests from my laptop.
Uber's smartphone requirement is an unnecessary one.
Outside of questions of accessibility, having web-based access is also very useful for unexpected problems: I think people often have many ways of accessing the web, but usually only one smartphone. My partner recently needed to get to a train station when an OS bug suddenly stopped most apps from working on her phone; being able to use her laptop to call a car was extremely helpful.
Some people don't want smartphones. Some people can't get hold of them. They are both getting locked out of basic societal functions.
If those people who don’t “wan to use a cell phone, then they are free to suffer the consequences of their decisions. No need for society to bend to their whims.
On what criteria are those barriers raised? Those decisions are being outsourced by states -- which (democratic) societies elect to act in their best interests -- to monopolies that have none of those responsibilities. In fact, as your comments illustrate, market pressure and competition provide neat justifications to avoid those responsibilities. They lead to a race to the bottom, not the top.
If you can’t for some reason use a smart phone, then yes the college should offer assistance just like most colleges offer assistance for people with disabilities.
I agree that accessing government services, banking, using public transit, putting something in the mail, etc should not require a smartphone.
If you have the means for a smartphone but choose not to get one, then you’re choosing to live in a slightly anachronistic fashion. Nothing wrong with that, but you are presumably making an informed choice to live that way.
I think I should remind everyone that scooters are actually amusement rides, just like coffee-to-go (“Imagine yourself as part of those laughing young people wearing bright clothes!”). The city won't grind to a halt if they disappear. They are much more expensive than general transport, and that's the reason they spread like wildfire across the world: there is enough money in there to win officials' hearts (unlike slow and expensive city projects that never satisfy everyone). And, yes, enough money to pay IT teams and loud-mouthed evangelists, too.
Considering that Google is already incorporating Web Environment Integrity API into Chrome, soon we won't be on the internet either, and that's a much more pressing concern imho.
Living in one of the highest density areas on Earth, stuff like this blows my mind. Public washing machines are everywhere for those that don't have their own.
I guess the extreme lease costs driven by entirely artificial commercial RE prices put a full stop to it existing in the west.
There's something to be said for just waiting until you have three loads of laundry, lugging them all to the laundromat down the block, and washing them in parallel. Commercial dryers tend to be faster as well.
Obviously only works if your city has multiple scooter providers :)
A lot of banks don't even have web interface and those they still do require you to install and link smartphone app to be able to log in or to pay with card online.
While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
And of course, none of the banking apps will work without Google or Apple account, because if you try to run them on deGoogled Android they just refuse to work.
It will soon be impossible to be part of society without having Google or Apple account. Maybe it is already the case.
Which "classic" banks don't have online banking?
> While there might in theory be many second factors with different pros and cons, most bank only allow their own app and nothing else. The few stragglers that still allow text messages make it increasingly user hostile, e.g. rewrite 12 number code and enter special PIN, different from your normal PIN or just click a button in app!
I'm reasonably sure at least with most major Scandinavian banks you can use plain old OTP tokens.
On the other hand, I have no idea how that is enforced. So it is quite possible that liability stays on books indefinitely. Or worse - not recorded as liability in the first place..
Companies don't want never-expiring liabilities and they also want to make money from people not spending account balances.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/taco-bell-fined-for-violati...
I always need another app or another account, and those are often impossible to use without a local phone number and an internet connection.
There were also periods of time where I had no active phone number, or no smartphone. Sometimes it was just for a few hours because I ran out of battery. Sometimes it was for a few days because I dropped my phone in a lake.
In the later case I could no longer make bank transfers, and if I wasn't well-prepared I could not log into many websites.
1. That money will go through a thing called "escheatment" and end up with the California government on your behalf where it will be held for you.
2. I use the Lyft e-bikes and from recently onwards you can rent one for a friend. It doesn't apply your subscription benefits but I suppose that's life.
Check the TOS, children are, generally, not allowed to use the e-scooter rentals. Preventing this situation seems very deliberate.
For example, Lime-
https://help.li.me/hc/en-us/articles/115004915588-How-old-do...
You must be the legal age to enter into binding contracts. For most countries, this means you need to be 18 years or older to ride Lime scooters or e-bikes. In most countries, you can be 16 years or older for our non-electrical bikes. Before signing up for Lime, make sure to review the User Agreement for your country, which states age requirements
And specifically a non-rooted, locked bootloader, remotely attested version. Running your own code on your own device is suspicious behavior you know! This is already somewhat the case with banking apps, but luckily it's usually possible to hide root for now
And, yes, I get there are legitimate worries about malware and that does kind of solve them, but we've managed with desktop web banking (though not if Google's proposal succeeds). AFAIK most financial scams are executed by social engineering. 2FA (which is now mandated in the EU) is a more effective protection than locking down one endpoint
Barclay's was doing 2FA via an offline code generator (looks like a calculator) where you put in your card and entered a PIN since what feels like at least 10 years ago. I know most users would prefer mobile 2FA, but I wish they'd kept that as an option, whereas AFAIK they're phasing it out
In any case, de facto saying "you must pay dues to either Apple or Google to bank on the go" is quite bad for free competition
Loss of TAM by excluding rooted device: less than 1%
Ratio of problems per rooted device vs problems per non-rooted device: More than 100%
It's not YOUR fault that it's one of the most meaningful heuristics, but that also doesn't stop it from being a meaningful heuristic.
What problems would those be?
Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck).
I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.