💾 Archived View for station.martinrue.com › hanzbrix › 57057c4b9881420e8e0eed681eace706 captured on 2024-12-17 at 14:56:10. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I find myself sounding like the movie stereotype, old man who says "why can't it just be the way they used to?"
I don't feel I'm wrong though, the movies were wrong, it's not an old fool saying that.
Too many things are what seems to be deliberately stupid, to the point where it is obstructive or destructive. Like our travel cards, you need to scan every change and when you get off, 10€ is reserved, even if you travel for 4€. Auto refill will charge a minimum of 15€...
A gem today though was at the post office, they had a tablet to type in your package, which alerted the staff in the back. So simple, yet so much more effective for everyone.
1 week ago · 👍 darkghost
@lucifer_jehovah_smith But the idiocy of the whole shopping thing... If I put in the wrong information... what I am buying won't go to me, will it now? It's beyond idiotic. 😂
Change whores need to be shot in the butt cheeks with salt buckshot, just saying. Change for the sake of change is idiotic in itself, there should be a goal to it.
Like our aforementioned Government ID was changed a few years back to be more "secure". It ticks some EU boxes, but is actually less secure now and made in Italy instead of by our own government... Which means the government of Italy has all our data as well, with not a single citizen here bring asked. · 1 week ago
On the one hand, you have enshitification for monetary gain, though the answer to who is gaining and how they're gaining isn't obvious. Then you have what I call the changewhores, people who love change for the sake of change. Lennart Poettering from the Linux world is one-such. "Plus having to use a government ID for online purchases... Just seems beyond moronic to me" That's just a plain old power grab. We've been descending into a "show your papers citizen" world for a while. · 1 week ago
@lucifer_jehovah_smith I get enshittification for monetary gain, but I feel that currently it is just enshittification, for the sake of enshittification. Nobody gains anything from me logging in twice with an overly complex government online id, to check my phone balance. Hell nobody gains from that government online ID being a complex mess.
Plus having to use a government ID for online purchases... Just seems beyond moronic to me. 😂 · 1 week ago
The reason it's a movie trope is that at one time, most people needed to be around thirtyish to have enough datapoints to properly judge enshittification. E.G., at near-thirty I remembered how comfortable and fun flying was in 1995 and could compare it to the way it had jumped the shark in 2008. Enshittification is in full-bore accelerando mode and it's even obvious to the kiddies. I would not be surprised to hear a twelve-year-old say "back in my day". · 1 week ago
@darkghost That sounds very dumb, our scanners are compatible, but you need a government registered travel card, that you can't easily fill up without a payment plan. Sweden got it sorted. 😂
I agree, they are not just greedy with permissions and accounts, but also space. Please do explain to me how the fuck Netflix is an 80MB app? 😂 It streams videos, which the phone is perfectly capable of doing.
No problem, Mullvad is the best, I only discovered it a month ago, again, Sweden got shit sorted. 😂 · 1 week ago
@hanzbriz Thank you for telling me about Mullvad. It escaped my attention until now. · 1 week ago
I'm definitely not wanting any more apps. I would change my mind if apps weren't so greedy with their tracking. But a restaurant app has no business knowing where I am, even if it is in one of their restaurants.
Our light rail hasn't discovered surge pricing at least. The light rail paper tickets here sound like they work like Sweden's system. You can refill them! The problem is you can't then take that paper ticket and ride the bus with it. 🤦 Or take the suburban rail. 🤦 The reason is so silly: the scanners are incompatible! 🤦🤦🤦 · 1 week ago
@darkghost It would seem Sweden got rid of the JoJo card in 2019, so it's been a while since I was there. 😂
But they actually replaced it with a phone app and ability to just use your credit card... Which is just even fucking smarter. 😂 · 1 week ago
@darkghost Yeah I also recently had a run in with the self checkout, where they accidentally deleted the produce database, so you couldn't check out produce yourself, for weeks... I just gave up using it entirely.
We have paper tickets here, but there are 1-2 machines for entire stations, like a 4 metro intersect or airport and they are 35-50% more expensive (surge pricing). Tthe machines DO break a lot and isn't fixed for weeks.
I don't get why we can't have stuff like Sweden, their GoCard, you buy anonymously, fill up at a machine, then scan and go. It just charges a line price, like a bus is usually 7-12SEK. · 1 week ago
@darkghost Out of all of these, the hand scanner actually sounds like a decent compromise and could/should be done with a smartphone. I wouldn't mind doing the work IF, it didn't require loyalty registration and a bunch of other bullshit.
But app's that require you to register an account, is also a particular pet peeve of mine, you can mine my data just fine, without having to get me to register an account ffs. Not to mention a lot of the accounts require way too much useless garbage information fillout, double typing of passwords and email and just 🤮
I recently got Mullvad and their account system, is the single smartest thing I have ever tried. · 1 week ago
All of this assumes the machines are functioning. The belt and scale systems are down a lot. The "take a scanner with you" system would sometimes get to the payment screen and choose this moment to have a problem. Then you have to rescan everything on a scaled self checkout system.
I've definitely been to light rail stops where the ticketing machine was broken. You can load more than one trip on a single use ticket and smart people do this. But that savvy comes with frequent travel. And frequent travelers just have the travel card.
This is all just so much more complicated and error prone than "take your basket to a clerk" or "get rail tokens from an attendant." · 1 week ago
One grocery chain allows you to pick up a scanner so you can scan your groceries as you shop. At the end of your trip, you scan one final barcode and pay. Like at the airport, random people are selected for an audit. During an audit a clerk comes over, scans some items, and they had better match what you scanned. This is all tracked through a loyalty card, meaning your spending habits are being tracked, analyzed, and probably sold. This one might be the least waste of time, but I'm still doing all the work AND being tracked.
Our travel cards are the same. You must have a minimum balance. But you can usually purchase a single use, one way ticket. · 1 week ago
We are scaled too. It is an improvement over this 2D belt profiler that used to be used. You scan your item and it goes down a belt. If it is dimensionally unexpected, the belt runs in reverse and your bill is credited. You have to rescan the item and try rotating it a different way. It was error prone and the belt moved at such a speed that something like a box of cereal could tip over at the critical moment of checking its dimensions. The items collected at the end of the belt piled up and eventually the system would lock until you bag some items. I loathed this system.
They can fit 3 scaled systems in the floor space of one of these belt systems. · 1 week ago
What makes this extra frustrating is that I know Japan has a system where it just scans your basket, you pay and you leave. 😂 · 1 week ago
@darkghost Don't get me started on our self checkout. 😂
Don't know if other self checkouts have this "feature", but ours is scaled, so you can only scan one item at a time. If the scale gets anything wrong, it locks the system and requests a cashier, same applies for age restricted items. 😫 · 1 week ago
Here we have self checkouts at an increasing number of stores. I enjoyed these when I was single and childless since I could check out fast. They were a choice then. Lots of places are only self checkout now. What a hassle when I do the shopping for the family. I should be getting a discount for doing work for the store. What's next, are they going to make me restock the shelves? · 1 week ago
Mind you, the travel cards used to be cardboard rectangles you could stamp, which would grant you unlimited travel for 1,5h, in x zones the card was valid for.
You still paid ahead, sure and more than 15€, sure. If you wanted to take a friend, you just stamped an extra time, need to go further, extra stamp, easy.
No taking the reserved fee cos you forgot to scan out, no complicated special scan machine if you have to take a friend (some cards aren't even allowed friends).
This "technology" is a step backwards, made by morons, the only possible goal it serves is data mining, which just makes it more moronic. · 1 week ago