[utybo]

Why have parking lots not kept their usual parking payment station things? In France, all paid parking I've seen has both options of an app or just using the parking meter payment thing (with the smartphone option usually being better because you can pay exactly by the minute instead of paying 1 whole hour)

[SenAnder]

Legally requiring businesses accept cash would solve much of this: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/austrian-leader-backs-f...

[throwawaaarrgh]

They want to push the cost onto the customer. If they don't have physical infrastructure it's a cost they don't have to maintain anymore. They know we will put up with the app bullshit because we have to park.

[bmitc]

This is a great observation. Corporations just keeping pushing costs, infrastructure, features, quality assurance, and even testing onto regular people and customers. We're everybody's little compute engine.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Self-checkout groceries: wow, what an insult that I should have to train myself as a cashier at every store I shop, and further insult that you can't employ deserving humans for it.

Interestingly, the move to place the POS in front of the customer rather than handing our cards to the cashier, is a valiant effort to make things more secure and efficient, I suppose, so I kind of approve of this change, although it sometimes gets crazy to figure out a new POS terminal for myself, and that's the most stress-filled point of shopping when the whole line and the cashier are all waiting for you to pay and checkout and GTFO ASAP.

[twodave]

If done right, self check-out is awesome. When I shop at BJs I arrange everything in my cart with its barcode visible as I shop. Then I go use one of the “10 item or less” checkouts that had a handheld scanner and count my items, then scan them all. Their kiosk supports contactless payments, and I can get through with a full load of groceries way faster than the “trained” cashier this way. And I don’t have to let someone else touch my stuff or put it on a conveyor that everyone else’s stuff has ridden on. Contrast this with the local Publix where there are tons of workers flying around but you end up held hostage by “friendly” aka overly-conversational cashiers half the time, and all your groceries hit the conveyor, the cashier’s hands (which also handle money) and the bagger’s hands (which also touch every cart left in the parking lot). When I shop at there I feel like I need to sanitize my groceries when I get home.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Tell me about it; quarantine and sanitizing groceries became a minor thing in the pandemic. And I still feel like quarantine and inspection is a good idea to prevent introducing pests, although I was shouted down the last time I suggested it.

[flangola7]

You still have to put it in the bagging area though. Every machine self checkout I have used waits until the expected weight is added before allowing the next item to be scanned.

[twodave]

Not at BJs. I can scan them in the cart without ever moving them.

[bmitc]

Grocery stores in general bother me. I'm not even that old, but since I sacked groceries as a teenager and was actually trained, like no one seems to do today, I actually prefer to sack my own groceries in the regular checkout line. Even extremely basic things like keeping raw meats or chemicals separated away from food is completely lost on 99% of sackers at grocery stores these days. In just 10 to 20 years, we have lost the ability to sack groceries properly. It just makes you wonder what else has fallen by the wayside in the capitalist and consumer race to both the top of profits and bottom of prices.

The self-checkouts are the greatest waste ever. They never work, but most stores have a single, actual checkout line these days. Things literally got worse, no matter how you slice it. The real checkout line is long, and the self-checkout is incapable of being useful for anything other than a couple of items. Even then, it just yells at you every step of the way.

[valleyer]

Yeah, I've seen more than a few public parking facilities that got rid of their existing payment terminals (which take credit card, and sometimes cash) in favor of smartphone-based payment.

I struggle to understand what would motivate it, from the perspective of the parking lot owner. I would presume the up-front cost of the old terminals was already paid off. And they certainly are more user-friendly.

Is it that the new smartphone payment providers are taking a smaller fee? That they are easier to switch between if the fees increase? Or what?

[Spooky23]

The cost for those freestanding systems are usually pretty outrageous.

It’s a market like hotel WiFi. Early on, fancy hotels signed long contracts for shitty WiFi. Remember when you’d pay $10 for some awful WiFi service at the Marriott? Those parking things are the same.

I consulted for an entity that was paying $7.50 for a $25 dip. There’s hundreds of competing smartphone apps… you can even buy a square reader in a trivial scenario and pay 3%. In the government space, stuff like EZPass at airport parking costs $2-5 per transaction!

[throwawaysleep]

People vandalize the terminals. People have to collect cash from them. Have to make sure nobody put a skimmer on them.

Physical infrastructure is to be avoided.

[supertrope]

This is like Apple Pay. Banks wanted to reap the benefit of technology without paying for the hardware. Better yet people are clamoring to pay $800 for the widgets. Like banks other businesses and even government agencies want to take advantage of BYOD. Better yet if the app replaces manual assistance.