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From 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 w

From 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.
- graemep 7mo ago
  Paper also does not run out of battery or smash if you drop it.
  - Detrytus 7mo ago
    Well, depends where you drop it, paper is very fragile medium. Ever dropped an important paper into a puddle, or spilled a coffee on it?
  - crazygringo 7mo ago
    It does, however, easily get lost or left behind. Phones, on the other hand, can be charged. And if they're smashed, you can just log into your account on a friend's phone if you haven't replaced yours yet. If you can't even do that, you can go to the ticket window and they can look up your account information and verify your ticket.
    - jjulius 7mo ago
      Paper doesn't spy on you.
      - crazygringo 7mo ago
        If you don't give the app any permissions, it doesn't spy on you either. It doesn't have any more information than the info you give it to buy the tickets in the first place.
        SoftTalker 7mo ago
        It does when the ticket app demands Location access "to protect your security"
        crazygringo 7mo ago
        You can set location to only while you're using the app. And when you open it to scan the ticket, they already know where you are. You're at the entrance to the stadium where they scan your tickets.
        tomwheeler 7mo ago
        And that's when you find out the app considers this usage pattern as a signal of fraud, so then you can't get into the event and have no recourse. Their app, their rules, your loss.
        7mo ago
tacticalturtle 7mo ago
I don’t think this policy would pass muster under the ADA though. The guy might not be sufficiently disabled to qualify - but for example if you have a blind person without a smartphone, you can’t tell them they’re out of luck - because you can clearly reasonably accommodate them without causing “undue financial hardship” by giving them tickets at will-call.
- robin_reala 7mo ago
  I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a blind person / person with low vision without a smartphone these days: they’re a near-essential window into services that aren’t accessible though plain paper.
  - kube-system 7mo ago
    If they're 81yo, you definitely will.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 7mo ago
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- tmp10423288442 7mo ago
  > “undue financial hardship” If they have already moved away from paper tickets for everyone else, now there is financial hardship, not to mention the loss to the team's economic position from scalping. Also smartphones have supported usage by the blind for years, particularly on iOS.
  - tacticalturtle 7mo ago
    In the linked video they explicitly print him a paper ticket that he purchased separately.
- tracker1 7mo ago
moondance 7mo ago
Have you had the pleasure of coaching a technologically illiterate grandparent through the process of learning how to use a smartphone? It’s a never-ending job and disheartening for all parties involved. Modern mobile UX is not designed with accessibility for the elderly in mind, and it is constantly changing in a way that demands constant re-learning. Not to mention the disabilities and neurological conditions often involved.
- mrweasel 7mo ago
  I'm in my 40s, there is a shit ton of modern UX I struggle with. Basically anything gesture based for example, but really a lot of apps are just shit and have no sensible UX design behind them, so you need to try to click everything and hope you don't mess something up. To me it's easy to see how someone over 70 might simply refuse to use an app. Especially if it doesn't support scaling the UI to well.
  - moondance 7mo ago
    I don’t think people understand the scale of the issue. Each decade that goes by we welcome a new class of elderly, and each decade that goes by, we continue to write off those elderly users. The failure of the well-intentioned but insufficient currents solutions is well underlined by this case. Sure, you could get this guy an android phone with a custom launcher, or an iPhone on Assistive Access, and he might be able to place a call. But good luck setting him up on Ticketmaster, or the Dodgers website, or wherever they expect him to go to redeem and utilize his tickets.
  - doubled112 7mo ago
    The first time I used iOS I noticed a lot of things it considers "normal" are completely undiscoverable unless you know. Swipe down from the top. No, the other top. Click share, now click "find in page". Wait, that doesn't share at all?
    - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
      "Share" is one of the worst inventions of all. What it does in phones is random across apps and platforms, and usually has nothing to do with what the word "share" means in any other context.
mrweasel 7mo ago
There's an amusement park we like to go to. We get season passes, which normally means renewing the small plastic card we got the first year. They've switched to app only this year, with the option of getting a card, if for some reason you cannot or will not use the app. I believe there's a small fee for issuing the card. I believe their reasoning is much the same. They have some types of tickets, which can technically be handed over to others and abused. Think weekend ticket, where you hand the tickets to someone else for them to use on Sunday, or tickets that can be converted to season passes, if you do it the same day. Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. There are other methods. Especially if you're only issuing paper tickets as an alternative, e.g. yes we will sell you a paper version, but understand that it is absolutely non-transferable and non-refundable. Some people might not want to bring a phone to these types of events and venues, which I can completely understand, neither do I, but I can live with it. The thing that bugs me is the lack of an alternative, which isn't really that expensive and which most won't even use. Because to some, the app really don't provide value and in those cases they solely exists for the benefit of one company. If you're paying the price of season passes to pretty much anything these days, I think you're entitled to some small level of personalized service and customization.
- crazygringo 7mo ago
  > Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. That's not desirable either. You often can't make it to all the games, so they want you to be able to give some tickets to friends, etc. They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. So you really do need data to tell the difference -- are a third of the tickets mostly going to the same 5 other friends (OK, desirable), or are 95% of the tickets going to a different random person each time (scalping)?
  - nwallin 7mo ago
    The last time I had a season pass to something, they printed me the equivalent of an employee id badge with my face and name printed on it. The badge was the ticket. How do you resell an individual ticket?
MarsIronPI 7mo ago
> 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. As long as the technologies you move to are equally freedom- and privacy-respecting. If I have to use a non-free spyware app to buy your tickets I'm not buying. Now, if you let me pay for and download a PKPASS that I can use on my fully-libre GrapheneOS smartphone then sure.
tomwheeler 7mo ago
> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone. Maybe he has dexterity issues that make using a smartphone difficult. Maybe he doesn't want to install their invasive app. Maybe he finds that paper tickets are easier to manage. Maybe he recognizes that the vendor made this change to benefit themselves at the expense of the fans, as it allows them greater control of the resale market. I own a smartphone but prefer paper tickets. Luckily I can (and do) still get them at my team's stadium, although I have to pick them up in person.
- LadyCailin 7mo ago
  I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law, but I really wish they would pass a law requiring supporting people without smartphone apps. Obviously there would be some exceptions where justified, even for things other than “the app is the whole point” and those need to be thought through, but in this case and plenty of others, there’s just no reason they can’t accommodate non app users. “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification.
  - EvanAnderson 7mo ago
    > “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification. For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer.
    - nobody9999 7mo ago
      >For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". >Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer. The last (and likely the last) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as well) from the team's "partners." What's more, not only was there no option for a paper ticket, if I left my seat during the game to get food/drink, I was required to have my smartphone and present my "ticket" via their app to security personnel when I returned to my seat. Every time. As I said, even though I was (and am) a life-long fan, I will never go back to the stadium to see a game. It was far too invasive and inconvenient. Edit: I'd add that I couldn't even block emails (which I routinely do at the server for other emails) from those "partners" because there were emails that were required to obtain my tickets. That isn't me not wanting to "learn" something, that's me not wanting to receive multiple spam emails every day from the same source.
9rx 7mo ago
> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Right, but he is wanting to choose the season pass over the smartphone. If he buys a smartphone then he won't have the money for a season pass anymore. It turns out you only get to spend x units of currency once.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
  A cheap undubsidized Android phone is $40 on Amazon
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - 9rx 7mo ago
    Amazon also only sells digitally. So now he has to buy a smartphone in order to get a smartphone from Amazon in order to get tickets? The guy doesn't even want one smartphone let alone two.
    - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
      Okay or Walmart are you now suggesting that the world should never move on from anything analog?
      - 9rx 7mo ago
        I am suggesting that if you have enough money to buy a ticket, but then take some portion of that amount away to buy a smartphone, you will no longer have enough to buy said ticket.
        raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        So someone has enough money to buy a season ticket and $40 extra is going to kill them?
lokar 7mo ago
IMO, the right thing to do is grandfather in any existing season ticket holders, if they ask. Have them go to a specific entrance where someone can check an ID and mark them off a list. Simple job for an intern or whatever.
- harvey9 7mo ago
  I agree. He's one of some tiny number of people that all the staff will know on sight. Even printing a ticket for him is just a formality really.
  - lokar 7mo ago
    He should have something to show staff inside, just in case
layer8 7mo ago
> you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. It’s hard to argue that having to manage a smartphone and its ever-changing apps and UI flows for purchasing and handling tickets, is simpler than buying a paper ticket with paper money. Is it really better?
- comprev 7mo ago
  It's better for the company not the customer
  - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
    This. It's just another form of hidden inflation at play. Smartphones, appification, and self-service is usually a downgrade from immediately preceding solutions for everyone except young folks who are money-poor and time-rich, so think nothing of wasting the latter. But this state flips for most around the time they start their career, or at the latest when they start families.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
hypeatei 7mo ago
I agree, this is a good way to stop scalping and reduce costs by not having to print physical tickets. It's interesting to see the negative sentiment here given other threads about scalping overwhelmingly suggest we need government regulation to stop it. Well, here's a private solution to that problem but apparently that's also bad and requires threats of government action via the ADA... incredible.
- jjulius 7mo ago
  Nothing's perfect. Some ideas to fight against things we don't like will come up, and then we'll see the collateral and go, "Oh, maybe that's actually not the best way to do it". That's okay! That's the way life goes! It's not "incredible" or hypocritical or whatever else you're trying to imply. What you're seeing is merely folk working through things. Are we supposed to always jump at the first "solution", consequences be damned?
shevy-java 7mo ago
> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. This misses the point. The question is: why would a smartphone be required, to watch a local game?
- 9rx 7mo ago
  It is not required to watch a game. At least not unless you are not using it as some kind of vision aid — although even then there are likely reasonable alternatives. It is required to satisfy the desires of a vendor wanting to sell something. They make a smartphone a part of satisfying their desires because it makes their life a whole lot simpler. Same reason they won't give you season tickets in exchange for 12,000 bushels of wheat. They could, but why would they? If you don't want to play ball, so to speak, they are happy to sell their product to someone else who will.
- crazygringo 7mo ago
  > The question is: why would a smartphone be required, to watch a local game? It's not. You can still buy physical tickets in person to watch a local game. This is a requirement specifically for a season pass. If you don't want a season pass, you can still buy individual tickets.
isatty 7mo ago
It does seem pretty unreasonable to me. He’s an 81yo life long dodgers fan. You make exceptions like you’ve always done. It’s what makes human, and sets us apart from computers. Someone at the soulless corporation fucked up, and there will be no consequences, even though there should be.
- suzzer99 7mo ago
  They could have done this for like 5 game minutes of what they pay Ohtani (~$500). But it fits with the general trend of MLB being openly hostile to their fans for a while now.
  - 1-more 7mo ago
    what they one day will pay Ohtani. Eh, they're not not paying him this year too, never mind.
mschuster91 7mo ago
> 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. The problem is, in the end it leads to a society where you NEED a smartphone to enjoy basic human existence - and yes, access to cultural and sports events is a fundamental part of being a human. That in turn almost always means: your smartphone must be either Apple or a blessed Google device. And that in turn means: no rooting (because most apps employ anti-root SDKs these days), no cheap AOSP phones, no AOSP forks like Graphene OS. And that is, frankly, dystopian when your existence as a human being depends on one of two far too rich American mega corporations. Oh and it needs to be a recent model too, because app developers just love to go the easy route and only support recent devices on recent OS versions. And that's before we get into account bans (which particularly Google is infamous for), international sanctions like the one against the ICC justices, or pervasive 24/7 surveillance by advertising SDKs or operating systems themselves.
- jjulius 7mo ago
  I genuinely don't think people making the, "Get a smartphone or be left behind," arguments really understand the magnitude of the assertion.
Lammy 7mo ago
> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. I don't agree that it's better. Why should I have to worry about my ticket running out of battery power or being such a high-value pickpocket target once I'm already in the venue? The latter is a huge issue at music festivals for example: - https://old.reddit.com/r/OutsideLands/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/OutsideLands/search/?q=phone+stolen... - https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=pho... - https://old.reddit.com/r/coachella/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/coachella/search/?q=phone+stolen&in... Can't just leave it at home if you need it to get in to the thing.
- the_snooze 7mo ago
  I'm not a fan of the "something better" phrasing myself. It's very much anti-systems-thinking. Engineers should be honest that everything is a tradeoff. For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets, you impose additional failure modes, dependency chains, and accessibility issues that simply weren't a problem with paper ticketing. The "phone-ification" of everything will probably bite us in the behind in the future, just like the buildout of out car-centric environments does now.
  - MiddleEndian 7mo ago
    >For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets Even as a person who does have a smartphone, I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. It's only a positive trade-off for venues or whoever. If they texted or emailed me a QR code, that would be a positive tradeoff (and a texted QR code would probably work for this guy's flip phone too)
    - tomwheeler 7mo ago
      > I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. Case in point: I traveled from St. Louis to Houston for a concert a few years ago. Before I left home to catch my flight, I installed the Ticketmaster app on a phone and verified that I could bring up the tickets. When I tried it again in my hotel an hour before the conference, it no longer worked because the fraud detection in their app was apparently confused as to why I was now in Houston. Fixing this took 45 minutes on hold to get a support agent and a frantic call to my wife so she could check the disused email address I used to sign up for Ticketmaster 20 years earlier and get the verification code they sent. There are a lot of reasons to dislike digital tickets, but this is one of them. I used to go to dozens of concerts every year. Now it's such a hassle that I don't bother unless it's small venue that doesn't play these games.
wizardforhire 7mo ago
Soooo money is worthless now? … because tech?
billfor 7mo ago
How old are you? Some day you are going to get old and you won’t like that train of thinking.
dmitrygr 7mo ago
This is probably the most heartless thing I have read all day. I worry about the future of the world if this is the norm
slackfan 7mo ago
Having to own anything beyond the money to buy something to buy something, is, in fact, unreasonable.
avanwyk 7mo ago
This is a strong disagree from me. What this is implying is that the customer now has to buy into two ecosystems: the expensive, Dodgers, tickets, and stadium world; and the far more perilous, casino in your pocket, attention sucking, hell, that's smartphones. Countless articles are being written on the effect of smartphones on the elderly (and teens). But you know what? Fuck'em. Because progress. Another comment suggested grandfathering in customers like this. Sure, that's one idea. But generally, don't punish the masses because of the crimes of the few. I'm certain VIPs don't scan their phones when they come to the game. This man is nothing short of a VIP.
- zorobo 7mo ago
  Iga Swiatek (the tennis player) was denied entry in the player area for her own match. Situation was quickly resolved. I doubt VIPs go through the same entrance, lines and checks as regular folks. Yes that older dude should have been treated as VIP.
  - nobody9999 7mo ago
    >Iga Swiatek (the tennis player) was denied entry in the player area for her own match. Situation was quickly resolved. >I doubt VIPs go through the same entrance, lines and checks as regular folks. For those of you unfamiliar with professional women's tennis, Swiatek is currently ranked #4 in the world and to date has spent 125 weeks as the #1 women's tennis player in the world. It doesn't get much more VIP than that.
monksy 7mo ago
Many stadiums make it near impossible to buy paper tickets. Even then they start arguing with you to prevent you from doing that. > 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. If you have money for a tea or coffee, you have money to send to me. Just because someone may have the means to buy something doesn't mean they they should be excluded from participating in cultural events for not purchasing and maintaining that particular thing. (Citizens often times over subsidize the stadiums in which the team is based in) I think it's the golden state warriors that forces you to give them your biometrics to enter the stadium.
ryandrake 7mo ago
> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. This logic justifies buying any other unrelated product as a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets. Does this mean that the Dodgers should be able to make "owning a car" also a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets? After all, if you can afford season tickets, you should be able to afford a car payment. Maybe they should only let people in who own rolexes because, hey, a season ticket holder should be able to afford a nice watch, too. I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition. There's probably an example that's not immediately coming to mind, but I don't think it was common or justified.
- 9rx 7mo ago
  > I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition. Then you must not have been around pre-smartphone? Those of us who were will remember having to buy either banknotes or checks. Later, some would accept a certain type of card that you could buy. If you weren't willing to buy any of those things there was little chance of a deal taking place. Showing up with your goat to offer in exchange would get you laughed out of the room, even though there was an even earlier time where bringing a goat would have been considered quite reasonable. Realistically, the most desperate vendors will still accept your goat as payment if that is what's on the table, but, as I am sure you can imagine, it isn't worth the effort for those who have the luxury of choice. Where technology makes a seller's life simpler, they will demand it. Why wouldn't they?
  - jjav 7mo ago
    None of this is comparable lock-in. You could buy checks from hundreds of different vendors and none had any lock-in on you. You could use a different vendor each time if you wanted. By certain type of card I assume credit cards, which can also be had from thousands of different banks. Also, credit cards are free to get and checks cost a few pennies. Not remotely comparable to being forced to buy a phone to get to a game.
NoMoreNicksLeft 7mo ago
>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. I've gone entire years at work where no one ever mentions baseball or MLB. It is a dead sport. The NBA? Sure. NFL? It's practically an official US holiday. So if they want to chase off an octogenarian fan who will buy their season tickets because they demand he get a smart phone that he doesn't want to learn to use and wouldn't use anyway... why not? They've signed their own death certificate with that. This is firmly in "Please drink a verification can" territory, and I have no idea why anyone would be apologizing for them.
paulnpace 7mo ago
> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. No, this has not changed for the entire time physical tickets haxe existed. What has changed is the level of greed practiced by that industry.
jjav 7mo ago
> 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. It is completely unreasonable, but for a different reason. This is not technology A (paper ticket) vs tecnhology B (phone). It is about open vs. proprietary. Paper is paper, it does not forcefully tie the user to anything. A phone is a requirement to be forced to do business with one of only two megacorporations, for something completely unrelated. He wants to buy a game ticket, not a phone. Imagine you want to buy a sandwich but are told you must first buy an earring, completely unrelated and not something you want.
whyenot 7mo ago
So what you are saying is, it's ok to exclude the Amish, and others who chose not to use a cell phone for religious (or other) reasons, from buying a season ticket. That sounds like discrimination on the basis of religion ;)
1shooner 7mo ago
There is nothing reasonable about the app's privacy policy.
paganel 7mo ago
> because virtually everyone's moved to something better. How is this better?
kube-system 7mo ago
> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. He's 81 and that's your first thought? This dude was in his twenties before long distance telephone calling via phone numbers was commonplace. That was the new technology he learned as a young adult man.
everforward 7mo ago
> 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. This doesn't track to me. I can send someone else my QR code to use without actually transferring the tickets to them unless they're checking ID, and if they're checking ID then it doesn't matter whether the tickets are paper or digital. I can't really see a way that digital tickets prevent something paper ones don't. > 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. That happens way less often than you'd think. I can still ride a horse on the road, I can still heat/cook with wood, I can still call customer support on a landline, I can still use email over landline. There are tons of things that were superseded decades ago that we still support. It's certainly their choice to make (unless someone can make an ADA complaint or some kind of age discrimination case) but it seems like a shitty thing to do. If he can't use a computer or cellphone, they're clearly willing to _sell_ him tickets non-digitally like at a ticketing counter. Throw a cheap printer behind that counter and have the employee print them off. With the amount this guy is spending for tickets he'd probably buy the printer for them.
- crazygringo 6mo ago
  > I can send someone else my QR code to use without actually transferring the tickets to them unless they're checking ID No you can't. They constantly change to match the current time, precisely to prevent what you're suggesting. > There are tons of things that were superseded decades ago that we still support. And tons of things were don't. You're obviously cherry-picking things.
jeroenhd 7mo ago
They can have a paper process still. It's a bit harder, but you can have someone go up to the counter, show some form of ID, sell a season pass with the name on it, and have them show some form of ID when they're not using a smartphone ticket. Not a difficult process, blocks scalping, and is unwelcoming enough that it'll probably only attract the people who can't or don't want to use smart phones. They already had a ticketing flow they invested money into altering it. They could've put in the absolute minimal effort to keep some kind of flow for non-smartphone users.
smitty1e 7mo ago
We can also rule out cash in the name of better tracking, that none may buy or sell without the mark of the Beast.
thescriptkiddie 7mo ago
you can very easily prevent scalping by checking IDs at the door. they don't want to prevent scalping because it makes them more money
fsflover 7mo ago
> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. What if I do own a smartphone, but it runs neither Android nor iOS, it runs GNU/Linux? Do you consider that a previous technology, too? I'm pretty sure they provide no app for me.
potsandpans 7mo ago
> There's a legit justification. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it feels like every day I look at hackernews, there's another articulate response patiently explaining why it's ok for companies to sell you things you don't own, and dictate how to use the things you think you own. I just fundamentally don't accept it, and find it exhausting to engage in the constant overton window shifting.
anotherevan 7mo ago
My mum's dementia has recently worsened to the point that she cannot figure out how to use the phone to ring people. She just finds it confusing and has caused her a great deal of distress. I ended up installing Big Launcher[1] as an alternative android launcher and configured it so it has buttons to ring three people. That's it. Even then, then confirmation yes/no dialogue when she presses "End Call" gave her a lot of anxiety initially. I recently had to setup access to a local streaming service on my step-dad's TV recently. The amount of hoops necessary, including installing their stupid app on a phone, and entering passwords for several different accounts, several times, was absolutely ridiculous. Being technologically adept I found it an absolute PITA. It was a complete non-starter for him. My point is that your, "If he can afford a season pass, he can afford a smartphone," comment comes across almost as callow as the attitude of the Dodger Stadium management towards the very real issues of getting old in a world that is moving faster and faster technologically. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.android.launcher.demo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...
bsder 7mo ago
> 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. Better? In what way? And for whom? Certainly not for this man. What happens when the Google or Apple system hiccups and locks you out? Now what? What happens when your battery dies? What happens when you drop your phone and bust it? What happens if someone hijacks your number? etc. And, I don't for one second believe this is anti-scalping. They can identify scalpers from a million miles away at this point. If they wanted to shut them down, they'd be gone tomorrow. This is about tracking and upselling. These people are "whales" and they want to badger them to spend more money.
etc-hosts 7mo ago
Any non-thick headed comms org would have jumped at the chance to convert this into promoting how the team has gone above and beyond to take care of one of their most loyal long term fans and turn this into a feel good story suitable for People and Yahoo Sports. instead they just cut the guy off.
tedmiston 6mo ago
> From 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 a common clause in season-ticket memberships, but it doesn't actually work all that well. for instance, resale on the ticket marketplace is tracked and counts, but in general transfers alone are not penalized. so people do transactions outside of the official platforms, sell / trade in fb groups, etc.
m463 6mo ago
> Honestly, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me. this is a slippery slope. For every "must use a phone" there is also a dysfunctional "turn the tables on our customers" which some businesses will take to creepy snooping levels, or even drive "personalized" pricing or other nonsense.

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.

graemep 7mo ago
Paper also does not run out of battery or smash if you drop it.
- Detrytus 7mo ago
  Well, depends where you drop it, paper is very fragile medium. Ever dropped an important paper into a puddle, or spilled a coffee on it?
- crazygringo 7mo ago
  It does, however, easily get lost or left behind. Phones, on the other hand, can be charged. And if they're smashed, you can just log into your account on a friend's phone if you haven't replaced yours yet. If you can't even do that, you can go to the ticket window and they can look up your account information and verify your ticket.
  - jjulius 7mo ago
    Paper doesn't spy on you.
    - crazygringo 7mo ago
      If you don't give the app any permissions, it doesn't spy on you either. It doesn't have any more information than the info you give it to buy the tickets in the first place.
      - SoftTalker 7mo ago
        It does when the ticket app demands Location access "to protect your security"
        crazygringo 7mo ago
        You can set location to only while you're using the app. And when you open it to scan the ticket, they already know where you are. You're at the entrance to the stadium where they scan your tickets.
        tomwheeler 7mo ago
        And that's when you find out the app considers this usage pattern as a signal of fraud, so then you can't get into the event and have no recourse. Their app, their rules, your loss.
        7mo ago

tacticalturtle 7mo ago

I don’t think this policy would pass muster under the ADA though. The guy might not be sufficiently disabled to qualify - but for example if you have a blind person without a smartphone, you can’t tell them they’re out of luck - because you can clearly reasonably accommodate them without causing “undue financial hardship” by giving them tickets at will-call.

robin_reala 7mo ago
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a blind person / person with low vision without a smartphone these days: they’re a near-essential window into services that aren’t accessible though plain paper.
- kube-system 7mo ago
  If they're 81yo, you definitely will.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
deleted 7mo ago
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tmp10423288442 7mo ago
> “undue financial hardship” If they have already moved away from paper tickets for everyone else, now there is financial hardship, not to mention the loss to the team's economic position from scalping. Also smartphones have supported usage by the blind for years, particularly on iOS.
- tacticalturtle 7mo ago
  In the linked video they explicitly print him a paper ticket that he purchased separately.
tracker1 7mo ago

moondance 7mo ago

Have you had the pleasure of coaching a technologically illiterate grandparent through the process of learning how to use a smartphone? It’s a never-ending job and disheartening for all parties involved. Modern mobile UX is not designed with accessibility for the elderly in mind, and it is constantly changing in a way that demands constant re-learning. Not to mention the disabilities and neurological conditions often involved.

mrweasel 7mo ago
I'm in my 40s, there is a shit ton of modern UX I struggle with. Basically anything gesture based for example, but really a lot of apps are just shit and have no sensible UX design behind them, so you need to try to click everything and hope you don't mess something up. To me it's easy to see how someone over 70 might simply refuse to use an app. Especially if it doesn't support scaling the UI to well.
- moondance 7mo ago
  I don’t think people understand the scale of the issue. Each decade that goes by we welcome a new class of elderly, and each decade that goes by, we continue to write off those elderly users. The failure of the well-intentioned but insufficient currents solutions is well underlined by this case. Sure, you could get this guy an android phone with a custom launcher, or an iPhone on Assistive Access, and he might be able to place a call. But good luck setting him up on Ticketmaster, or the Dodgers website, or wherever they expect him to go to redeem and utilize his tickets.
- doubled112 7mo ago
  The first time I used iOS I noticed a lot of things it considers "normal" are completely undiscoverable unless you know. Swipe down from the top. No, the other top. Click share, now click "find in page". Wait, that doesn't share at all?
  - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
    "Share" is one of the worst inventions of all. What it does in phones is random across apps and platforms, and usually has nothing to do with what the word "share" means in any other context.

mrweasel 7mo ago

There's an amusement park we like to go to. We get season passes, which normally means renewing the small plastic card we got the first year. They've switched to app only this year, with the option of getting a card, if for some reason you cannot or will not use the app. I believe there's a small fee for issuing the card. I believe their reasoning is much the same. They have some types of tickets, which can technically be handed over to others and abused. Think weekend ticket, where you hand the tickets to someone else for them to use on Sunday, or tickets that can be converted to season passes, if you do it the same day. Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. There are other methods. Especially if you're only issuing paper tickets as an alternative, e.g. yes we will sell you a paper version, but understand that it is absolutely non-transferable and non-refundable. Some people might not want to bring a phone to these types of events and venues, which I can completely understand, neither do I, but I can live with it. The thing that bugs me is the lack of an alternative, which isn't really that expensive and which most won't even use. Because to some, the app really don't provide value and in those cases they solely exists for the benefit of one company. If you're paying the price of season passes to pretty much anything these days, I think you're entitled to some small level of personalized service and customization.

crazygringo 7mo ago
> Blaming scalping doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, because there was always the option of making the tickets and season passes non-transferable. That's not desirable either. You often can't make it to all the games, so they want you to be able to give some tickets to friends, etc. They're trying to prevent people who purchase the season pass to almost exclusively resell tickets to individual games. So you really do need data to tell the difference -- are a third of the tickets mostly going to the same 5 other friends (OK, desirable), or are 95% of the tickets going to a different random person each time (scalping)?
- nwallin 7mo ago
  The last time I had a season pass to something, they printed me the equivalent of an employee id badge with my face and name printed on it. The badge was the ticket. How do you resell an individual ticket?

MarsIronPI 7mo ago

> 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. As long as the technologies you move to are equally freedom- and privacy-respecting. If I have to use a non-free spyware app to buy your tickets I'm not buying. Now, if you let me pay for and download a PKPASS that I can use on my fully-libre GrapheneOS smartphone then sure.

tomwheeler 7mo ago

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe he does not want the negative consequences that come along with having a smartphone. Maybe he has dexterity issues that make using a smartphone difficult. Maybe he doesn't want to install their invasive app. Maybe he finds that paper tickets are easier to manage. Maybe he recognizes that the vendor made this change to benefit themselves at the expense of the fans, as it allows them greater control of the resale market. I own a smartphone but prefer paper tickets. Luckily I can (and do) still get them at my team's stadium, although I have to pick them up in person.

LadyCailin 7mo ago
I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law, but I really wish they would pass a law requiring supporting people without smartphone apps. Obviously there would be some exceptions where justified, even for things other than “the app is the whole point” and those need to be thought through, but in this case and plenty of others, there’s just no reason they can’t accommodate non app users. “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification.
- EvanAnderson 7mo ago
  > “It costs more to support non app users” is not a sufficient justification. For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer.
  - nobody9999 7mo ago
    >For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost". >Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer. The last (and likely the last) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as well) from the team's "partners." What's more, not only was there no option for a paper ticket, if I left my seat during the game to get food/drink, I was required to have my smartphone and present my "ticket" via their app to security personnel when I returned to my seat. Every time. As I said, even though I was (and am) a life-long fan, I will never go back to the stadium to see a game. It was far too invasive and inconvenient. Edit: I'd add that I couldn't even block emails (which I routinely do at the server for other emails) from those "partners" because there were emails that were required to obtain my tickets. That isn't me not wanting to "learn" something, that's me not wanting to receive multiple spam emails every day from the same source.

9rx 7mo ago

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. Right, but he is wanting to choose the season pass over the smartphone. If he buys a smartphone then he won't have the money for a season pass anymore. It turns out you only get to spend x units of currency once.

raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
A cheap undubsidized Android phone is $40 on Amazon
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- 9rx 7mo ago
  Amazon also only sells digitally. So now he has to buy a smartphone in order to get a smartphone from Amazon in order to get tickets? The guy doesn't even want one smartphone let alone two.
  - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
    Okay or Walmart are you now suggesting that the world should never move on from anything analog?
    - 9rx 7mo ago
      I am suggesting that if you have enough money to buy a ticket, but then take some portion of that amount away to buy a smartphone, you will no longer have enough to buy said ticket.
      - raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
        So someone has enough money to buy a season ticket and $40 extra is going to kill them?

lokar 7mo ago

IMO, the right thing to do is grandfather in any existing season ticket holders, if they ask. Have them go to a specific entrance where someone can check an ID and mark them off a list. Simple job for an intern or whatever.

harvey9 7mo ago
I agree. He's one of some tiny number of people that all the staff will know on sight. Even printing a ticket for him is just a formality really.
- lokar 7mo ago
  He should have something to show staff inside, just in case

layer8 7mo ago

> you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. It’s hard to argue that having to manage a smartphone and its ever-changing apps and UI flows for purchasing and handling tickets, is simpler than buying a paper ticket with paper money. Is it really better?

comprev 7mo ago
It's better for the company not the customer
- TeMPOraL 7mo ago
  This. It's just another form of hidden inflation at play. Smartphones, appification, and self-service is usually a downgrade from immediately preceding solutions for everyone except young folks who are money-poor and time-rich, so think nothing of wasting the latter. But this state flips for most around the time they start their career, or at the latest when they start families.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

hypeatei 7mo ago

I agree, this is a good way to stop scalping and reduce costs by not having to print physical tickets. It's interesting to see the negative sentiment here given other threads about scalping overwhelmingly suggest we need government regulation to stop it. Well, here's a private solution to that problem but apparently that's also bad and requires threats of government action via the ADA... incredible.

jjulius 7mo ago
Nothing's perfect. Some ideas to fight against things we don't like will come up, and then we'll see the collateral and go, "Oh, maybe that's actually not the best way to do it". That's okay! That's the way life goes! It's not "incredible" or hypocritical or whatever else you're trying to imply. What you're seeing is merely folk working through things. Are we supposed to always jump at the first "solution", consequences be damned?

shevy-java 7mo ago

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. This misses the point. The question is: why would a smartphone be required, to watch a local game?

9rx 7mo ago
It is not required to watch a game. At least not unless you are not using it as some kind of vision aid — although even then there are likely reasonable alternatives. It is required to satisfy the desires of a vendor wanting to sell something. They make a smartphone a part of satisfying their desires because it makes their life a whole lot simpler. Same reason they won't give you season tickets in exchange for 12,000 bushels of wheat. They could, but why would they? If you don't want to play ball, so to speak, they are happy to sell their product to someone else who will.
crazygringo 7mo ago
> The question is: why would a smartphone be required, to watch a local game? It's not. You can still buy physical tickets in person to watch a local game. This is a requirement specifically for a season pass. If you don't want a season pass, you can still buy individual tickets.

isatty 7mo ago

It does seem pretty unreasonable to me. He’s an 81yo life long dodgers fan. You make exceptions like you’ve always done. It’s what makes human, and sets us apart from computers. Someone at the soulless corporation fucked up, and there will be no consequences, even though there should be.

suzzer99 7mo ago
They could have done this for like 5 game minutes of what they pay Ohtani (~$500). But it fits with the general trend of MLB being openly hostile to their fans for a while now.
- 1-more 7mo ago
  what they one day will pay Ohtani. Eh, they're not not paying him this year too, never mind.

mschuster91 7mo ago

> 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. The problem is, in the end it leads to a society where you NEED a smartphone to enjoy basic human existence - and yes, access to cultural and sports events is a fundamental part of being a human. That in turn almost always means: your smartphone must be either Apple or a blessed Google device. And that in turn means: no rooting (because most apps employ anti-root SDKs these days), no cheap AOSP phones, no AOSP forks like Graphene OS. And that is, frankly, dystopian when your existence as a human being depends on one of two far too rich American mega corporations. Oh and it needs to be a recent model too, because app developers just love to go the easy route and only support recent devices on recent OS versions. And that's before we get into account bans (which particularly Google is infamous for), international sanctions like the one against the ICC justices, or pervasive 24/7 surveillance by advertising SDKs or operating systems themselves.

jjulius 7mo ago
I genuinely don't think people making the, "Get a smartphone or be left behind," arguments really understand the magnitude of the assertion.

Lammy 7mo ago

> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. I don't agree that it's better. Why should I have to worry about my ticket running out of battery power or being such a high-value pickpocket target once I'm already in the venue? The latter is a huge issue at music festivals for example: - https://old.reddit.com/r/OutsideLands/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/OutsideLands/search/?q=phone+stolen... - https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=pho... - https://old.reddit.com/r/coachella/search/?q=phone+stolen&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&sort=new https://old.reddit.com/r/coachella/search/?q=phone+stolen&in... Can't just leave it at home if you need it to get in to the thing.

the_snooze 7mo ago
I'm not a fan of the "something better" phrasing myself. It's very much anti-systems-thinking. Engineers should be honest that everything is a tradeoff. For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets, you impose additional failure modes, dependency chains, and accessibility issues that simply weren't a problem with paper ticketing. The "phone-ification" of everything will probably bite us in the behind in the future, just like the buildout of out car-centric environments does now.
- MiddleEndian 7mo ago
  >For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets Even as a person who does have a smartphone, I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. It's only a positive trade-off for venues or whoever. If they texted or emailed me a QR code, that would be a positive tradeoff (and a texted QR code would probably work for this guy's flip phone too)
  - tomwheeler 7mo ago
    > I feel like phone tickets are anti-convenience because they rely on terrible apps like TicketMaster. Case in point: I traveled from St. Louis to Houston for a concert a few years ago. Before I left home to catch my flight, I installed the Ticketmaster app on a phone and verified that I could bring up the tickets. When I tried it again in my hotel an hour before the conference, it no longer worked because the fraud detection in their app was apparently confused as to why I was now in Houston. Fixing this took 45 minutes on hold to get a support agent and a frantic call to my wife so she could check the disused email address I used to sign up for Ticketmaster 20 years earlier and get the verification code they sent. There are a lot of reasons to dislike digital tickets, but this is one of them. I used to go to dozens of concerts every year. Now it's such a hassle that I don't bother unless it's small venue that doesn't play these games.

wizardforhire 7mo ago

Soooo money is worthless now? … because tech?

billfor 7mo ago

How old are you? Some day you are going to get old and you won’t like that train of thinking.

dmitrygr 7mo ago

This is probably the most heartless thing I have read all day. I worry about the future of the world if this is the norm

slackfan 7mo ago

Having to own anything beyond the money to buy something to buy something, is, in fact, unreasonable.

avanwyk 7mo ago

This is a strong disagree from me. What this is implying is that the customer now has to buy into two ecosystems: the expensive, Dodgers, tickets, and stadium world; and the far more perilous, casino in your pocket, attention sucking, hell, that's smartphones. Countless articles are being written on the effect of smartphones on the elderly (and teens). But you know what? Fuck'em. Because progress. Another comment suggested grandfathering in customers like this. Sure, that's one idea. But generally, don't punish the masses because of the crimes of the few. I'm certain VIPs don't scan their phones when they come to the game. This man is nothing short of a VIP.

zorobo 7mo ago
Iga Swiatek (the tennis player) was denied entry in the player area for her own match. Situation was quickly resolved. I doubt VIPs go through the same entrance, lines and checks as regular folks. Yes that older dude should have been treated as VIP.
- nobody9999 7mo ago
  >Iga Swiatek (the tennis player) was denied entry in the player area for her own match. Situation was quickly resolved. >I doubt VIPs go through the same entrance, lines and checks as regular folks. For those of you unfamiliar with professional women's tennis, Swiatek is currently ranked #4 in the world and to date has spent 125 weeks as the #1 women's tennis player in the world. It doesn't get much more VIP than that.

monksy 7mo ago

Many stadiums make it near impossible to buy paper tickets. Even then they start arguing with you to prevent you from doing that. > 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. If you have money for a tea or coffee, you have money to send to me. Just because someone may have the means to buy something doesn't mean they they should be excluded from participating in cultural events for not purchasing and maintaining that particular thing. (Citizens often times over subsidize the stadiums in which the team is based in) I think it's the golden state warriors that forces you to give them your biometrics to enter the stadium.

ryandrake 7mo ago

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. This logic justifies buying any other unrelated product as a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets. Does this mean that the Dodgers should be able to make "owning a car" also a condition of being allowed to buy baseball tickets? After all, if you can afford season tickets, you should be able to afford a car payment. Maybe they should only let people in who own rolexes because, hey, a season ticket holder should be able to afford a nice watch, too. I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition. There's probably an example that's not immediately coming to mind, but I don't think it was common or justified.

9rx 7mo ago
> I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition. Then you must not have been around pre-smartphone? Those of us who were will remember having to buy either banknotes or checks. Later, some would accept a certain type of card that you could buy. If you weren't willing to buy any of those things there was little chance of a deal taking place. Showing up with your goat to offer in exchange would get you laughed out of the room, even though there was an even earlier time where bringing a goat would have been considered quite reasonable. Realistically, the most desperate vendors will still accept your goat as payment if that is what's on the table, but, as I am sure you can imagine, it isn't worth the effort for those who have the luxury of choice. Where technology makes a seller's life simpler, they will demand it. Why wouldn't they?
- jjav 7mo ago
  None of this is comparable lock-in. You could buy checks from hundreds of different vendors and none had any lock-in on you. You could use a different vendor each time if you wanted. By certain type of card I assume credit cards, which can also be had from thousands of different banks. Also, credit cards are free to get and checks cost a few pennies. Not remotely comparable to being forced to buy a phone to get to a game.

NoMoreNicksLeft 7mo ago

>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. I've gone entire years at work where no one ever mentions baseball or MLB. It is a dead sport. The NBA? Sure. NFL? It's practically an official US holiday. So if they want to chase off an octogenarian fan who will buy their season tickets because they demand he get a smart phone that he doesn't want to learn to use and wouldn't use anyway... why not? They've signed their own death certificate with that. This is firmly in "Please drink a verification can" territory, and I have no idea why anyone would be apologizing for them.

paulnpace 7mo ago

> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. No, this has not changed for the entire time physical tickets haxe existed. What has changed is the level of greed practiced by that industry.

jjav 7mo ago

> 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. It is completely unreasonable, but for a different reason. This is not technology A (paper ticket) vs tecnhology B (phone). It is about open vs. proprietary. Paper is paper, it does not forcefully tie the user to anything. A phone is a requirement to be forced to do business with one of only two megacorporations, for something completely unrelated. He wants to buy a game ticket, not a phone. Imagine you want to buy a sandwich but are told you must first buy an earring, completely unrelated and not something you want.

whyenot 7mo ago

So what you are saying is, it's ok to exclude the Amish, and others who chose not to use a cell phone for religious (or other) reasons, from buying a season ticket. That sounds like discrimination on the basis of religion ;)

1shooner 7mo ago

There is nothing reasonable about the app's privacy policy.

paganel 7mo ago

> because virtually everyone's moved to something better. How is this better?

kube-system 7mo ago

> If this guy has the money for a season pass (!) he has the money for a smartphone. He's 81 and that's your first thought? This dude was in his twenties before long distance telephone calling via phone numbers was commonplace. That was the new technology he learned as a young adult man.

everforward 7mo ago

> 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. This doesn't track to me. I can send someone else my QR code to use without actually transferring the tickets to them unless they're checking ID, and if they're checking ID then it doesn't matter whether the tickets are paper or digital. I can't really see a way that digital tickets prevent something paper ones don't. > 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. That happens way less often than you'd think. I can still ride a horse on the road, I can still heat/cook with wood, I can still call customer support on a landline, I can still use email over landline. There are tons of things that were superseded decades ago that we still support. It's certainly their choice to make (unless someone can make an ADA complaint or some kind of age discrimination case) but it seems like a shitty thing to do. If he can't use a computer or cellphone, they're clearly willing to _sell_ him tickets non-digitally like at a ticketing counter. Throw a cheap printer behind that counter and have the employee print them off. With the amount this guy is spending for tickets he'd probably buy the printer for them.

crazygringo 6mo ago
> I can send someone else my QR code to use without actually transferring the tickets to them unless they're checking ID No you can't. They constantly change to match the current time, precisely to prevent what you're suggesting. > There are tons of things that were superseded decades ago that we still support. And tons of things were don't. You're obviously cherry-picking things.

jeroenhd 7mo ago

They can have a paper process still. It's a bit harder, but you can have someone go up to the counter, show some form of ID, sell a season pass with the name on it, and have them show some form of ID when they're not using a smartphone ticket. Not a difficult process, blocks scalping, and is unwelcoming enough that it'll probably only attract the people who can't or don't want to use smart phones. They already had a ticketing flow they invested money into altering it. They could've put in the absolute minimal effort to keep some kind of flow for non-smartphone users.

smitty1e 7mo ago

We can also rule out cash in the name of better tracking, that none may buy or sell without the mark of the Beast.

thescriptkiddie 7mo ago

you can very easily prevent scalping by checking IDs at the door. they don't want to prevent scalping because it makes them more money

fsflover 7mo ago

> At some point, you have to cut off previous technologies because virtually everyone's moved to something better. What if I do own a smartphone, but it runs neither Android nor iOS, it runs GNU/Linux? Do you consider that a previous technology, too? I'm pretty sure they provide no app for me.

potsandpans 7mo ago

> There's a legit justification. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it feels like every day I look at hackernews, there's another articulate response patiently explaining why it's ok for companies to sell you things you don't own, and dictate how to use the things you think you own. I just fundamentally don't accept it, and find it exhausting to engage in the constant overton window shifting.

anotherevan 7mo ago

My mum's dementia has recently worsened to the point that she cannot figure out how to use the phone to ring people. She just finds it confusing and has caused her a great deal of distress. I ended up installing Big Launcher[1] as an alternative android launcher and configured it so it has buttons to ring three people. That's it. Even then, then confirmation yes/no dialogue when she presses "End Call" gave her a lot of anxiety initially. I recently had to setup access to a local streaming service on my step-dad's TV recently. The amount of hoops necessary, including installing their stupid app on a phone, and entering passwords for several different accounts, several times, was absolutely ridiculous. Being technologically adept I found it an absolute PITA. It was a complete non-starter for him. My point is that your, "If he can afford a season pass, he can afford a smartphone," comment comes across almost as callow as the attitude of the Dodger Stadium management towards the very real issues of getting old in a world that is moving faster and faster technologically. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.android.launcher.demo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...

bsder 7mo ago

> 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. Better? In what way? And for whom? Certainly not for this man. What happens when the Google or Apple system hiccups and locks you out? Now what? What happens when your battery dies? What happens when you drop your phone and bust it? What happens if someone hijacks your number? etc. And, I don't for one second believe this is anti-scalping. They can identify scalpers from a million miles away at this point. If they wanted to shut them down, they'd be gone tomorrow. This is about tracking and upselling. These people are "whales" and they want to badger them to spend more money.

etc-hosts 7mo ago

Any non-thick headed comms org would have jumped at the chance to convert this into promoting how the team has gone above and beyond to take care of one of their most loyal long term fans and turn this into a feel good story suitable for People and Yahoo Sports. instead they just cut the guy off.

tedmiston 6mo ago

> From 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 a common clause in season-ticket memberships, but it doesn't actually work all that well. for instance, resale on the ticket marketplace is tracked and counts, but in general transfers alone are not penalized. so people do transactions outside of the official platforms, sell / trade in fb groups, etc.

m463 6mo ago

> Honestly, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me. this is a slippery slope. For every "must use a phone" there is also a dysfunctional "turn the tables on our customers" which some businesses will take to creepy snooping levels, or even drive "personalized" pricing or other nonsense.