[shortcake27]

A tangential story from Melbourne - you’re required to replace your Myki every ~7 years because of its shitty implementation, and when you do, it disables auto topup. However, when you get a new card, you also can’t immediately enable auto topup - you have to wait some time until the card is transferred. So a friend of mine had this happen and wasn’t able to touch onto the tram the following morning because they had no balance. Trams don’t have Myki machines, and there was no machine at their stop. Topping up online can take up to 24h. Paper tickets were removed to push Myki. So there was no way for them to pay the fare, but they had to get to work. Of course, ticket inspectors rocked up and fined them. It is genuinely incredible that commuters are expected to either pay a fine or be late to work because of shortcomings in the Myki system.

[vaidhy]

You cannot take a cab or something else? This seems similar to the digital piracy issue. It is inconvenient, so I decided to do something illegal.

Otoh, I have seen Seattle bus drivers wave off the fare in some cases.

[ClumsyPilot]

I've never been to Melbourne, but when tube is down in London, the whole city grinds to a halt, you can't get home for hours and people die because ambulance can't get through