Shifting work from the people selling something (i.e. parking) to those buying it is not progress from the POV of the buyers. How a particular change impacts y

Shifting work from the people selling something (i.e. parking) to those buying it is not progress from the POV of the buyers. How a particular change impacts you will, of course, strongly color your perception of it. If you're someone who always has coinage readily available, forcing you to install an app and create an account on a device you may not have, or be familiar with, plus feeding said app an up-to-date payment method (accompanied by concerns of financial loss) and eating the cost of transaction fees is not going to be seen as progress. If you never use currency and having coinage on hand is an extra effort, and don't mind installing and using yet-another-app on your current smartphone, then doing away with coins seems much less hostile. And, of course, if you own/operate parking meters, reducing your own overhead is a win for you, as long as the meters keep getting used enough that your profits go up. Which ends up actually benefiting the public more, I don't know.