Hacker News Reader

Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

Sounds good, and you probably have the best intentions, but right now, that would just make you standard no. 15.

It's quite possible that the third sign on OP's parking lot would have led them to a perfectly user-friendly app with a pleasant and simple payment flow. But with so many apps to choose from and each lot only supporting a random subset of them, it'd be basically luck if you get to use the "good" app, even if there exists one.

View on HN

You can also imagine a world where you have a single phone number saved. You text it "I'm at XYZ parking lot in ABC city, how do I pay?" and it gives you the easiest possible option.

Definitely standard no. 15, but there's room for something better to win out here right?

One obstacle to this is mentioned on the OP: People might not actually know the street address of the parking lot they are standing in, so you'd have to use some other means of identification, like a lot number or geolocation - however, then you're back to requiring an app...

Not necessarily. "I want to pay for parking" -> "Click this link" -> quick automatic web based geolocation and redirect back to the SMS thread -> done.

Good point actually. But if you already got the user onto a webpage, why not complete the flow there?

Mainly because the message thread is implicitly authenticated, so no additional web login required -- and we want to allow for conversational payments, where you can ask as many questions as you need before committing to pay.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com