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81yo Dodgers fan can no longer get tickets because he doesn't have a smartphone
- recursive 7mo agoCan't read the twit because I don't have an account.
- cwillu 7mo agoThat's strange, because it opens and plays fine without an account for me.
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoThey sometimes give a more firm account wall and sometimes let you slide a few tweets. It isn’t deterministic.
- throwaway27448 7mo agoI don't think I've ever seen this firm account wall for single tweets outside of those marked as sensitive.
- masfuerte 7mo agoInconsistent paywalls are a product now. The Times (the original) has shoe-horned in some kind of AI paywall [1] which claims to maximise conversions by varying how much you get to see and for how long. It pissed me off because I was logged-in to my subscription but it was blocking me anyway. [1]: https://www.zuora.com/products/zephr/ https://www.zuora.com/products/zephr/
- nxtbl 7mo agoSame here, not logged in to X and works just fine with Firefox.
- Someone1234 7mo agoDo you have uBlock Origin by any chance?
- Ucalegon 7mo agohttps://xcancel.com/Suzierizzo1/status/2040864617467924865 https://xcancel.com/Suzierizzo1/status/2040864617467924865 There you go!
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoOriginal reporting source: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/dodgers-fan-printed-tickets-digital/3871192/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/dodgers-fan-printed...
- trollbridge 7mo agoUp next: "Sorry, you need to have an active X account in order to redeem your season passes."
- threethirtytwo 7mo ago[flagged]
- 1bpp 7mo ago..because we very recently decided to make it that way
- bigstrat2003 7mo agoThe point is it doesn't have to be life. We can make things so that you don't need a smartphone, but we choose not to. That's a choice, not some immutable reality of the universe.
- xvector 7mo agoWe can, but why should we?
- justonceokay 7mo agoIf your imagination is that anemic then the process is compete.
- whoamii 7mo agoRight? This is no country for old men.
- HotGarbage 7mo agoWhy should we be beholden to the two mega-corporations who control the smartphone market?
- cindyllm 7mo ago[dead]
- xvector 7mo agoYou can certainly get a smartphone from another company and run AOSP. But the problem isn't that this guy didn't want to use a smartphone, it's that he literally has never bothered to learn. Why should society cater to those that literally don't care to learn the essentials?
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoStuff like this should always have an analog failsafe like a printable ticket. I can’t be the only one who has a phone actually die out and about. Especially as this device gets a little old, battery drops maybe 1% every 2 min of screen on use. Even worse in crowded cell service situations like baseball games.
- freeqaz 7mo agoAlso a good fallback if your phone screen cracked 2 hours before. But I can imagine part of the challenge they are facing here are scalpers. TicketMaster app 'rotates' the actual ticket every 30 seconds. Can't rotate paper. I'd think that having a 2nd factor like presenting ID that matches the ticket would be sufficient there though.
- loloquwowndueo 7mo agoYou don’t need the app itself to get the rotating tickets, the algorithm is pretty dumb and was reverse engineered back in 2024. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906148 You probably still need a device of some kind though.
- andrewla 7mo agoTicket counterfeiting is the core problem that they are trying to prevent. If there's a fallback method then that fallback method can be abused to forge tickets. EDIT: I know complaining about downvotes is a downvotable offense itself, but I'm genuinely curious as to what is objectionable about this comment.
- red_admiral 7mo agoChina's solution: your passport is your ticket. Not great for privacy, but persumably you also want to check that people banned from a stadium for their behaviour don't get in anyway.
- adamsb6 7mo ago
- ggoo 7mo agoI wish people would stop posting twitter links, they're a coin toss if they're even viewable
- engineer_22 7mo agoThis one is viewable
- Aachen 7mo agoPosted 9 minutes before your comment... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662987
- engineer_22 7mo agoIf I can read the wall street journal without paying for it, you can see a tweet without a login....
- Analemma_ 7mo agoThere are various extensions you can get to automatically redirect Twitter links to xcancel or something, very much recommended. I don't like that these get submitted either, but unfortunately people do post worthwhile stuff there and only there, and I don't want to just categorically forbid those posts.
- mixtureoftakes 7mo agoI like these being submitted. Twitter still does have quite a lot of unique content that either appears there first or isnt accessible anywhere else at all, unlike paid article websites, previews without logging in actually work for the most part, and xcancel as you said is a thing. Which extension are you using for redirects?
- polski-g 7mo agoWell he has no responsibilities. His entire calendar is free, for the past two decades. They came out 17 years ago. He can go get one and learn how to use it.
- pavel_lishin 7mo agoKind of you to volunteer his time.
- nslsm 7mo agoI have absolutely no sympathy for people who choose not to get with the times. We all took our time to learn how to use a smartphone. He could have too but chose not to. Probably refused to learn to use tap to pay, ATMs, etc as well. You chose to opt out of society. You are no longer part of it. (I’m not happy that you need an app to buy tickets, but that’s a different thing — he didn’t choose not to own a smartphone out of principle)
- trollbridge 7mo agoDoes "get with the times" include giving up all of the privacy issues that go along with buying a stock phone?
- nslsm 7mo agoRead the last paragraph of my message.
- Barrin92 7mo ago>We all took our time to learn how to use a smartphone Were you 65 years old when smartphones came around? My grandparents had 8 years of formal education, they never figured out how to use computers when they were alive, not because they didn't want to but because it was too complicated. In a society where human dignity and respect matter you don't ignore people who can't keep up, you don't treat the elderly like obsolete machines you discard, a lesson you ironically probably learned from how you treat your phone.
- kmoser 7mo agoI noticed the barcodes on the reporter's printed tickets in that video. I hope a nefarious actor doesn't freeze-frame it and reprint them.
- mlinhares 7mo agoI'm sure someone somewhere though this was expected friction and wouldn't be a problem.
- jayd16 7mo agoIf you think this is bad you should see the absolute cluster that is Intuit Dome's system.
- elevation 7mo agoWe need to extend the ADA to protect people who are not technologically-abled.
- Molitor5901 7mo agoThis is a really good point. I'm surprised the box office cannot print it for him for a fee at Will Call, which might be the solution here.
- pc86 7mo agoNo, it's not. If you are physically incapable of operating a piece of technology, the ADA covers reasonable accommodations for that. If you are simply unwilling to learn how to use a piece of technology, it doesn't and shouldn't cover that. Being a luddite is not a protected class.
- jjtheblunt 7mo agoI agree with your assertion, but it made me think of a question. Are Amish and Mennonites religiously protected luddites?
- pc86 7mo agoFor sure, but I don't know how much of their luddite-ness (ludditude?) is simply a byproduct of their faith or vice versa :)
- snarf21 7mo agoMost Amish under 30 have secret cell phones. It would only be the oldest generations without them. There are even lots of wink & nod arrangements where they may even have electricity in some outbuilding but they unplug it when elder comes to visit. It also depends on the Order as some are more strict than others. They generally aren't allowed to have electricity in "the house" but batteries and other workarounds exist. They aren't as isolated these days as they used to be. If you go to Costco, you see them with 3 carts loaded 3 feet high of all the same crap everyone else is buying. A lot of times, they don't even transport it back via buggy but call the "Amish taxi service" which is people who drive them around town in large passenger vans. Even from a work source perspective, a lot have moved on from farm work and work in construction, roofing and other trades. If you go to a gas station in the morning, you'll see work trucks roll up and only Amish rollout to go buy soda and lunches or whatever. [Source: I live in Lancaster and have for many years.]
- bradley13 7mo agoParking in my town can now only be paid via smartphone. Yes, almost everyone has one, but: there are still people who do not.
- gnerd00 7mo agodon't you understand that this means a data trail to your location and government ID ? connecting to your ability to pay a legal fine? You are consenting to that ?
- Sayrus 7mo agoAnd your car, license and insurance are not such a connection?
- ryandrake 7mo agoI love it how they can't think of any other way to pay for parking than via smartphone, but if you just park there without paying, they'll offer you many ways to pay the fine.
- AshamedCaptain 7mo agoFor how long until paying the fine requires a smartphone? And then for how long until you go to jail for not having a smartphone ?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- alistairSH 7mo agoThey can think of other payment flows, they don't want them because an app gets them data they can resell or abuse. I was (pleasantly?) surprised when my office parking lot implemented paid parking because it's doable via SMS and webpage (not an installed app). [thankfully my employer is picking up the tab, so I didn't have to do anything beyond providing my license plate numbers]
- afarah1 7mo agoIn Brazil you already can't access some government services without a smartphone, such as paying for municipal parking in various cities. So if you own a car but not a smartphone, you get a fine. Sadly the least of the country's problems.
- harrisoned 7mo agoThere should be more noise about this here, but to whoever you talk about that issue they don't seem to grasp the situation, or simply don't care, and call you crazy/paranoid. I have been told you also need the GOV app for certain things related to companies.
- ChrisArchitect 7mo agoAlternate link or source instead of rando Twitter user: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/news/local/why-longtime-dodger-fan-is-upset-about-team-going-full-digital/3871218/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/news/local/why-longtime-... https://www.instagram.com/arozier/reel/DWsHAvDjxeL/ https://www.instagram.com/arozier/reel/DWsHAvDjxeL/
- crazygringo 7mo agoFrom my quick research online, it seems they've gone digital-only for season tickets because they don't want people just reselling them to turn a profit. They want actual season-long fans, so now if you transfer too many games they can track it and ban you. This is essentially anti-scalping. There's a legit justification. You can still buy paper tickets at the stadium for a single game. But not for season passes anymore. Apparently they've been making exceptions for him in years past where he was able to pay hundreds of dollars to have them custom printed for him. And this year they've decided to no longer provide that exception. Honestly, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me. At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. You also can't buy tickets any more by snail mail with an enclosed check. If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. It seems like he just likes the nostalgia of paper tickets. But that's not a reason to add a separate ticketing flow just for him any more, like they had been up till now. https://www.aol.com/articles/81-old-lifelong-dodgers-fan-012606057.html https://www.aol.com/articles/81-old-lifelong-dodgers-fan-012... https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1s5fkni/la_dodgers_tell_82yearold_50year_season_ticket/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1s5fkni/la_dodgers...
- bigstrat2003 7mo ago> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. 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.
- mzajc 7mo agoFor reference, this is the application: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.bamnetworks.mobile.android.ballpark/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.bamnetw... 8 trackers, 49 permissions. Whatever reason they gave for requiring the application, evidently they couldn't resist selling out their users in the end. Disgusting.
- MandieD 7mo agoMy 75-year-old, retired construction worker dad’s fingers are nearly useless on capacitive screens; half a century of handling cement apparently has that effect. His deep East Texas accent was still only semi comprehensible to Siri the last time I had him try with my phone. He recently missed several notifications from his truck’s dealership that the part they ordered was in and ready for installation, because they sent text messages that he didn’t read, instead of ever calling and leaving a message when no one responded to the texts. I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences. He’s fine flying as long as one of us can buy the ticket for him and he just needs his ID at the airport; I dread the day airlines start requiring their stupid apps.
- loire280 7mo agoThis happens to everyone's fingers to some extent because the fingertips dry out as you age. It's a huge source of frustration for elderly folks since it adds to the confusion around using touch interfaces. My family members have had some success moistening their fingers with a wet paper towel periodically as they use their devices, though of course that is impractical on the go.
- throwaway270925 7mo agoDo iphones not have "increase touch sensitivity" as a setting? Thats all I had to do for my dad for him to be able to easily use it again, on a samsung though. There are also phones with buttons again, the unihertz titan 2 elite looks good btw. Or Clicks addon keyboards.
- ffsm8 7mo agoyou can buy finger sleves on eg Amazon and any other shop. They're super cheap and work well / entirely resolves that issue He probably doesn't want it, because he probably just doesn't want to interface with the phone ... Which is fine, I'm just pointing out that the quoted issue has an easy solution.
- tedmiston 7mo ago> I’m terrified that there’s going to be a doctor’s office sometime that does the same, with more serious consequences. they can send scheduling info, appt reminders, etc via SMS but (1) they must allow opt out, and (2) they cannot send medical info this way — that's where HIPAA requires encrypted "patient portal" messaging because SMS can be intercepted or accessed by others.
- sdeframond 7mo agoMy late mom couldn't receive the verification SMS from her bank. After investigation, it appeared it was actually an MMS that required a smartphone. She could still go to her bank counter but service there degraded considerably for everyday things, and she was always told to do things online. In the end the bank rep was kind enough to give her an old smartphone. But, for her, it sucked because it was much more complicated, had to be charged constantly and so on... As a technologist, it is eye opening to do the tech support of loved ones...
- fffernan 7mo agoCan't imagine Boston or New York doing this. In Boston the'd end up giving the fan lifetime Dunkin Donuts or something on TV and just let him walk into the park since all of the ushers probably know him already. Dodgers are really missing the point here.
- shevy-java 7mo agoIt's like having a chip implanted. That is, the addiction to requiring a smartphone. Next step is to re-use the body parts, just as in Soylent Green.
- jedberg 7mo agoThe Dodgers could have so easily turned this into a huge win. After 50 years they could have just awarded him a paper lifetime pass. Scan this and get in for any game! It would have been so easy. Or if they really wanted him to go digital, just buy him a smart phone and install the app for him!
- tosti 7mo agoNo smartphone. A cheap wifi-only Android tablet without a lock screen and their stupid app on the home screen.
- jimt1234 7mo agoMy concern here is not that a simple transaction like purchasing a ticket to a baseball game requires a smartphone, but that the purchase now binds the customer to a personal and irreversible relationship to multiple entities (MLB, the Dodgers, the ticket agency, etc.) that (1) is not necessary, and (2) adds no benefit to the customer.
- krackers 7mo agoI'm sure those all those entities would also _never_ sell customer data in order to make an extra buck.
- mixmastamyk 7mo agoThe last big concert I went to was like checking into an international flight. I said “no more,” have only been to a couple small ones since and paid cash at the door.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- queenkjuul 7mo agoPeople like to say "vote with your wallet, your privacy is your problem" with regard to smartphones, but like going to a baseball game has for a couple years now required you to have an Android or iOS device, same with many concerts and shows. It's simply not reasonable to have to give up baseball and concerts to avoid your phone spying on you. And when accessing your bank or your local sports teams or your favorite band is tied up on your choice of phone, voting with your wallet becomes impossible -- I'm to give up patronizing my favorite artist because the venues use digital tickets? It obviously changes the balance of the equation such that nobody would ever choose their privacy over access to the world, and the vendors know this.
- eudamoniac 7mo ago> It's simply not reasonable > voting with your wallet becomes impossible > nobody would ever choose their privacy Drawing the line at skipping music concerts is a choice, which to you is impossible, but to others is trivial... There have always been these lines. It gets slightly harder every year to choose privacy because of people with your mindset about their specific thing they aren't willing to give up, but this ticketing change is just another brick in the wall, not anything substantially different. People who thought it was simply unreasonable and impossible to vote with their wallet about <every previous thing> have created the environment where this ticketing change happens. And your comment here goes on to create the environment where something even more important is smartphonified later.
- queenkjuul 6mo agoLet's say I've been voting with my wallet for fifteen years and using dumb phones, and also going to baseball games. Now, baseball games require a smartphone. My life has demonstrably gotten worse because of how other people voted with their wallets. I had no agency and no influence over any of this decision making -- i voted with my wallet, and i lost the election. So now i give up my favorite pastimes I've happily enjoyed without a smartphone since i was a baby, or i sacrifice my privacy. And maybe if it were just baseball, it'd be easy, but it's not and you know this. It's venues of all shapes and sizes. It's activities of all stripes. The only agency left to me is to give up my privacy or give up access to the world. Voting with my wallet achieved nothing and gave me no agency.
- Triphibian 7mo agoI daily drive a Light Phone III, haven't had a smartphone in years and would rather never use one again. Our local concert venue requires an app for tickets, so I have just given up on the idea of going to major concerts or seeing our local hockey team play.
- Esophagus4 7mo agoI was looking at the light phone 2 a while ago but don’t remember why I decided not to. Maybe they were out of stock. I’ll check it out again… I would love to divorce my smartphone and only use it at certain times. I’ve been using the Brick and Screen Time more often now.
- Triphibian 7mo agoThe Light III is a great improvement over the II. If you are trying to use your phone less the II will encourage that just because the epaper is pretty janky and annoying. I gave my Light II to my son, which I hope gives him a generally negative first impression of phones.
- kleiba 7mo agoMy wife and I had an appointment last week to apply for a line of credit. We talked it all through with the clerk and decided to go for it, so he started the whole process on his computer. His jaw dropped half-way through when he asked for my wife's and my phone number, and I had to tell him that I don't own a smart phone. Turns out you must have a smart phone because the system sends you some kind of code to verify your identity. Let that sink in: I am sitting in front of the clerk, but in order to identify me, he needs me to give him some phone number. The only way we could finalize the application is by me asking my mother whether I could use her phone number briefly to get this over with. She forwared the code to my wife's phone. That worked in the end -- but so much for "identifying me".
- booleandilemma 7mo agoIf the dystopia did not exist man would create it.
- throwawaypath 7mo ago>Turns out you must have a smart phone Any phone that can receive SMS, not a smartphone. You could purchase a burner flip phone for this purpose.
- EvanAnderson 7mo agoI don't think the assumption that SMS is enough is valid anymore. My wife's elderly aunt has a flip phone that can receive SMS but not MMS. We just went thru an "identity verification" procedure with a major bank last week that sends MMS, not SMS, and could not reach her flip phone. The whole ordeal was a huge pain in the ass and if my wife and I weren't there to help her it would have been completely impenetrable to her.
- throwawaypath 7mo ago>My wife's elderly aunt has a flip phone that can receive SMS but not MMS. Doubt it, model number? >We just went thru an "identity verification" procedure with a major bank last week that sends MMS, not SMS, and could not reach her flip phone. Double doubt it, verification services do not use MMS. It would be against NIST standards and not a single verification software sends MMSs. I work in this space. MMS is being deprecated across the globe, multiple telcos have already entirely disabled MMS at the network level. You're likely confusing getting a verification number in the banking app, not SMS/MMS.
- TheMagicHorsey 7mo agoThis reminds me of a story my grandfather told me about how they needed to have a bunch of infrastructure and employees devoted to telegraph based notifications in 1970s India, because some bureaucrats refused to move everything over to telephone, and didn't want to be inconvenienced by having to use new technology.
- nunez 7mo ago...and I took this one personally. I was in LA for the week recently and went to see a Dodgers/Angels exhibition game at Dodger Stadium. $27 for the nosebleeds at the best stadium to sit high up at; easiest $27 ever spent! Except it wasn't that easy. Though the tickets were purchased through mlb.com, I ran into trouble logging in once I got to the stadium. Couldn't for the life of me get a verification code. Doing the walk of shame to concessions crossed my mind, but this wouldn't have helped none since there was already a couple at the window who were getting help from the person working the booth...on how to get the tickets through the app. Fortunately I got the verification code and was able to get my tickets shortly thereafter. Queue my frustration when I ran into the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING when I went to see a show in Chicago some time later. Only way to enter was by downloading some ridiculous-ass app to get my tickets. Couldn't even get them by email. Couldn't even get them by website! I wasn't expecting to yell at clouds this close to my 40s, but I really guess it do be like that.
- opentokix 7mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- 8bitsrule 7mo agoAny business that won't accept cash payments is too dumb to patronize.
- cat-turner 7mo agoA business fails when it ostracizes their customers.
- inzlab 7mo agoOh boy. Wheres that grandson when you need it.
- mmmlinux 7mo agoBro is 81. Computers have been ubiquitous for at least 20 years now. hes had plenty of time to learn how to use one. I get the feeling hes the kind of guy that just retired instead of having to learn how to use the new fangled thing they sat in front of him.
- observationist 7mo agoAh, so screw the Amish, too. And anyone who doesn't want 24/7 tracking or to be permanently connected and available. Those people suck and shouldn't be able to enjoy baseball. The audacity of the guy, depriving all those scammers the opportunity to dupe him into gift card scams.
- intensifier 7mo agoMany elderly Indians lost access to their bank accounts for months to years after biometric ID (Aadhar) was made mandatory. Their fingerprints were required to KYC which became impossible for many people because of their fingers no longer giving consistent or any print after working in labor their whole life.
- MetroWind 7mo agoI don't know. My grandpa is 96. He uses a smart phone just fine. He even uses LLMs through the web chat UI. He also uses Photoshop to edit photos. My grandma when she was alive was also using a smart phone.
- jimt1234 6mo agohttps://dnyuz.com/2026/04/18/dodgers-season-ticket-holder-given-paper-tickets-after-his-story-went-viral/ https://dnyuz.com/2026/04/18/dodgers-season-ticket-holder-gi...