Re:It Takes 16 Clicks for a Student to Open a PowerPoint on ...
by tavavex on Saturday November 14, 2026 @08:26PM
(#50503046)
My municipal parking consists of normal parking meters. They accept CCs or cash and are placed on every block. They are rugged and I have yet to see a broken one - if the majority of your parking meters are broken, that's the fault of your city, not an inherent flaw of the tech, as proven by the aforementioned 50 years of people using parking meters just fine. Worst case scenario, if one is broken, you walk a little more to the next meter. If we assume 1% of parking meters are broken, it's still far less of a waste of time than fiddling around with an app 100% of the time.
> Now I pull up, park, get out, and walk off while clicking 'park' in the app.
Oh, you went to a different city or entered a private parking lot? Gotta install their preferred parking app. Just scan the QR code to go to a broken website, or better yet, be forced to waste your data, time and your phone's storage space to download their special app if they don't allow online payments. Now all you have to do is make an account, set up 2FA, enable geolocation so they can tell where you are, type in your plate number, potentially retype your payment information and deal with any errors that may pop up along the way. It's easy!
I agree with you with parking garages or tolls. The license plate system is definitely preferable.
But, street parking was not a quick or simple process for 50 years. I used to have to keep a stack of quarters with me in order to street park, which was a huge PITA. Then the meters moved to working with CCs, but they were broken much of the time. Then they put in random kiosks every couple blocks that you had to find and figure out, often having to go back and drop a slip in your car.
Now I pull up, park, get out, and walk off while clicking 'park' in the app. It literally can't be any simpler.