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Comment by foresto | Hacker News Reader

This story makes me sad and a little angry. The bits that stand out for me are:

- The requirement to have a smartphone and mobile data service.

- The requirement to run untrusted code (granting whatever "permissions" it demands) on her personal device.

I think it's important that necessities and other basic services (including parking) remain equally accessible to everyone, not locked away behind expensive, often burdensome, usually exploitative technology products. I don't know if legislation is the best way to keep our society from being pushed toward the latter, but if that's what it takes, I would support it.

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Technically there is no requirement for a mobile app or data. Through PayByPhone you can pay for parking using SMS, by calling (IVR), a web app or mobile apps. But as the author points out, it's hard for the user to know about all the options. That's why I'm personally not a fan of cities that allow more than one vendor. How to advertise all of them on sign posts and stickers (sometimes given different location IDs that you need to use with each vendor) without overwhelming the user?

Note: I work at PBP

I will one-up this one: the govt obviously enforces the payment and will send your home a ticket if you don'tpay the parking; why not instead, just send the parking fee? Coalesce them into a yearly licensing fee? Rhetorical questions.

I'll add another one, that is an issue when traveling:

- Having an app store account of the country you are visiting.

Some of this apps are geo restricted and can't be downloaded with foreign app store accounts. Sometimes they can't process foreign cards or foreign phone numbers.

While on holiday in the States for the first time recently I actually changed my Play Store country to be able to download some US specific parking app, not knowing that I apparently have to wait a full year before I can change my country again (I don't remember reading this during the process).

Explaining this to Google Play and Google One customer support led to nothing, they just told me to wait out the full year essentially. I'm just stuck with it for now.

Full Year?! Good to know, and perhaps at this point, a burner phone is the best choice for overseas travel.

Or a second Google account. Just have a USA account you can switch to. I'm heading to Canada next month and hiring a car so I should get on that now

Edit: Just tried and you can't do that, all accounts are in the same country and you even need a payment method for the new country!

Yeah! But I was also thinking of all the hassles with SIM/eSIM, and having a second phone just to travel seemed smoother.

I've had to do this before too. Having to create a fresh Google account when visiting another country using a domestic IP address. This because changing billing country in certain platforms means losing purchases or personaliation.

I've chosen a constrained name pool for my hosts and devices, and when I add new ones, I choose the same name but in a different language.

I can just see it now, I go on an international trip and make a trail of Google Accounts for myself, all named the same, but in the local language. Heehee, can't wait!

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