Good point, but that is OK. The end user still gets the advantage (so does the TfL, but that doesn't concern the user).

I feel that so many tech companies consider their end-users to be little more than cattle herds (the real product is the company), and they simply don't think about stuff like this.

This kind of usability is a basic, fundamental mindset, that, in my opinion, seems to be severely lacking, in today's tech industry.

Arguably indeed. Depends what is considered the service in this case. I would argue that the service is “using the public transport “, and it is not “using machine for buying paper tickets”.