And UK primary schools - catching up with the kids homework, messages from the teacher - requires an app and a smartphone!
It's so frustrating!
Mandating the need of smartphone apps to access critical services and basic life necessities like payments, parking, refueling, charging your car, public transport tickets, etc should be banned under accessibility laws.
All this only benefits the service provider, not the consumer, since if the service is broken in some way (LTE/internet issue, payment processor issue, backend/cloud outage, etc) or has terrible UX, then the externalities and negative effects of that are all on the customer to deal with. Because what else are you gonna do on the spot? Not charge your car? Leave it in the middle of the road? Not board the bus to get to work? The problem they caused becomes your problem to deal with even though you have the money to pay but no easy way to do it because of their crap.
Governments need to hold service prodivers accountable for the misery they cause and have them offer payment solutions and alternatives to smartphone apps for such critical services.
>The wheels of time wont be turned back.
They can be turned back by laws if the direction they've been turning by the unregulated free market lead us to a bad place that's discriminatory and causing misery to consumers, especially for critical services.
We've been able to park and refuel cars fast and efficient for decades with no issues before apps and smartphones. Not all progress is good progress. Sometimes progress is just for the sake of cutting corners to increase profits for businesses at the expense of consumers. I don't want an "Bezos-fication" or "Musk-fication" of essential services.
I also hate apps for everything & want us to be free & have a simple world & life - I love the terminal & its 55 years old.. yeah, we have much in common friend
Just because something is newer doesn't mean it's better. Obviously, the reverse is also true, but there is so much tech naiveté going around that this needs saying repeatedly. We'd have saved our society a lot of trouble if we'd first thought about draw-backs of new technology, before hooking everything in our lives up to it.
Cool, so I assume you'll be able to tell me which smartphone and doesn't require agreeing to a EULA?
I'm required to wear clothes in public (Indecent exposure laws) and I need to have at least a pen or pencil to sign documents and do tax returns demanded by law. But I have a vast array of options when it comes to clothes and stationery, and most importantly I'm not required to agree to a foreign company's EULA to use them, unlike smartphones.
In practice if they do not make it easy to pay then I just park without paying. The 1/10 times I actually get a fine works out to be cheaper than paying for parking up front.
That said, roadside parking is far more hit and miss for ticketing, but as a source of revenue, most councils take it fairly seriously here for the free money.
And if you don't pay hundreds of pounds for a smartphone, you are not allowed to park? Or if your battery is dead? Or if your religion prohibits the use of smartphones?
If true, I bet framing it that way to the public would help get people on board with some law reform.
No one should be depending on Google or Apple at a government or city or educational level in any way, including in the US.
You can usually also find which car parks have spaces with the apps, to save driving around. It is possible to go cash only still - but it is a pain.