Comment by Gravityloss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gravityloss | Hacker News Reader

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Hmm, I guess I don't understand why people who don't park should pay for parking?

Sure, charging an entry fee might make sense if people were hanging out in say a cafe, without buying anything, it was really full and the rent was really high. I've heard that such places exist.

Over here, paying for parking has gotten really easy in the last five years, I think two apps, both work great: Easypark for streets and parking lots, and Moovit for malls. Moovit works automatically with license plate cameras in mall garages and charges you those minimal amounts. Moovit is a completely automatic thing, once you've installed the app, added your credit card and license plate, you never have to touch it again.

If people don't park, and this is more than a minority use case, there probably shouldn't even be parking, because it's probably a massive waste of space.

None of what you've written sounds convenient, it sounds like a massive pain in the arse. If I do have to pay, I'd rather just stick some cash in a machine on the way out, paying for the time I used then and there and making it impossible to be fined or get stuck messing about with an app when something inevitably goes down.

Cashless systems for physical places should honestly be illegal, it would fix a lot of this scammy nonsense.

Sure, you can of course also pay with cash, it's just more of a hassle for me, that's why I choose the automatic system. In a mall I go to, the first parking hour is free. This means it's less work for also people without the app.

The first hour free also means the pedestrian shoppers are most of the time subsidizing my parking. The mall is on top of a train station and multiple tram lines, so there are a lot of pedestrians. The mall is for the large part just restaurants. There is absolutely massive parking garage going multiple levels deep underground, and they are mostly empty.

I wish street parking was also more automated, maybe it would be good if you would get a notification "this will cost X per hour". Parking ticket because you forgot to tap your app is not fun.

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