Perhaps. But in this case, they've moved to something worse. Digital tickets have their benefits, but paper tickets are still superior because they don't tie you into big tech relationships and don't require supporting infrastructure to work.
Phones, on the other hand, can be charged. And if they're smashed, you can just log into your account on a friend's phone if you haven't replaced yours yet. If you can't even do that, you can go to the ticket window and they can look up your account information and verify your ticket.
It doesn't have any more information than the info you give it to buy the tickets in the first place.
I saw your other comment, and that was your fault for not having access to your own e-mail account. Asking you to sign in with a verification code isn't blocking your ticket with "no recourse".
Not to mention, you can usually just go to the ticket office and they can look up your ticket if your app isn't working. Obviously they don't advertise this because they don't have enough people to handle if everybody did that. But they're not trying to lock you out from your own ticket.
That's the point, though - we shouldn't need always-on, 24/7-access to email for everything always and forever. You're just victim-blaming at this point.
>Sorry but you've made that up. That's not a thing.
I have a very fun and exciting story about being locked out of my Google Wallet account for that very thing while on vacation. My primary Google account is still banned from performing any monetary transactions as a result, 10+ years later.
And what I said is "not a thing" is TicketMaster preventing you from entering an event because you've changed location and that you "have no recourse". You definitely have recourse, there are a number of ways, just like it seems like that person did.
So funny, HN is usually pro-security and pro-2FA.
This conversation isn't circular, you're the one who seems to be missing that this is just standard practice, and for good reason. People try to pull all kinds of scams with tickets. Requiring you merely to log in with 2FA is not problematic.
Perhaps somewhere deep in the terms of service that approximately zero customers have ever read, it says "Use of this ticket is contingent upon having immediate access to the email address associated with your account." Regardless, it seems unreasonable for them to expect that every user will have connectivity. If that is a requirement, they should state it more clearly.
Websites and apps commonly require you to log in again when you haven't used them for some time period anyways.
These days, yes, having connectivity and being able to verify a code is just standard practice. It's just security.
We're talking about an 81 year-old who has never had a smartphone before and you're starting the sentence with "if"? And that's just that app, not the phone itself or anything else that someone brand new to, and ignorant towards, this ecosystem is going to encounter and not know what to do with.
What about the other apps? What about the phone itself?
If you don't want other apps, don't install other apps.
Locations from flip phones have to be triangulated. Smartphones track more precise locations and a lot more than just location data.
This dude has previously paid hundreds of dollars per year because he wanted custom-printed tickets. He can pay a hundred for a cheapo Android to use exclusively for tickets and not give up any privacy at all, if he's more paranoid about tracking than the other 99+% of the population who uses smartphones just fine.
Many apps ask for permission to use your GPS position and other sensor data, even though they don't need it. Most non-technical people don't understand what that means and will just allow it.
What on earth are you talking about? I've installed hundreds of apps in my life and literally never seen that.
So, the app isn't necessary then?
Obviously they can only accommodate this for well under 1% of attendees. And you'd better have a good story as to what happened to your phone and have an ID.
> If you can't even do that, you can go to the ticket window and they can look up your account information and verify your ticket.
Queues and not long to catch a train, stations with no staff present... The latter has happened to be on the Tube and I had a problem exiting (with a conventional ticket!).