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Anecdotal, but I've encountered a number of places where it's more or less required. - Restaurants: Menu is QR only. In one case, ordering food was QR only. -

by runjake 1mo ago

Anecdotal, but I've encountered a number of places where it's more or less required. - Restaurants: Menu is QR only. In one case, ordering food was QR only. - Queueing up at my local Costco optical department requires scanning a QR code. - Various other check-ins for various other government agencies and businesses. - Urgent care check-in paperwork requiring QR code. No paper, and typing the loooong URL in manually is horrific.

iamnothere 1mo ago
Have you tried saying “my phone is broken”? I doubt it’s as stringent as you think. I have never had an issue and I don’t carry a smartphone. Usually they just hand you a paper menu or a tablet depending on what you’re doing.
- runjake 1mo ago
  I didn't have my phone physically on me at the time. They did not have paper menus at all. They kind of rattled off a selection of items from memory. I ordered something.
- account42 1mo ago
  Often there technically are other options but this is still like saying you don't need to participate in society and can move to a cabin in the woods.
  - iamnothere 1mo ago
    What’s the problem? Are you saying that people who live in cabins are doing something wrong? I used to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It has its downsides, but there were plenty of positives as well.
    - huurtehoog 1mo ago
      You can't see a difference between will and constrain? Force-feeding for example is torture, despite how much one may like eating.
      - iamnothere 1mo ago
        Are you saying that you’re forced to use a smartphone? Because I don’t use one. It does make some things harder, but I don’t know what people are expecting. A law to ban smartphones? There’s not enough people who want that. I do think we need rules that require businesses to accept cash, and to have alternative flows that don’t require smartphones for ordinary transactions (like buying food) or financial management. I also think we need to break up the duopoly and ensure that FOSS based devices can gain a foothold. Unless more people go without smartphones, voluntarily, the friction in daily life is only going to increase for those of us who don’t use them. That means accepting a little bit of inconvenience from time to time, but you make up for it in other ways.
        huurtehoog 1mo ago
        No, I'm saying that going to live in a cabin in the woods if you want to is great, not so much if you do it for running out of options. Not a hard concept to grasp. Whether smartphones are optional or not depends on a lot of factors.
        iamnothere 29d ago
        I guess I don’t see what this adds to the conversation. What position exactly are you taking here? What should be done based on what you just said? I can’t tell if you’re making a real argument or if it’s an empty complaint about the status quo.
autoexec 1mo ago
I've seen restaurants that required a QR code to get a menu. I simply walked out. Lots of other places to eat exist with more reasonable practices. Forcing people to scan a QR code to see a price is a great way to use the data from their device to serve them a different price than the last person who scanned that code was asked to pay. Anyone else who wants you to scan a QR code as part of a check in process can be told you don't have a phone or that it doesn't work. It's their job to figure that out.
account42 1mo ago
> Restaurants: Menu is QR only. In one case, ordering food was QR only. Or worse, a physical menu but they want to pay you with your mobile wallet using a QR code. Even if there are alternatives presented when you complain, that still turns you into an outcast.

by runjake 1mo ago

iamnothere 1mo ago

Have you tried saying “my phone is broken”? I doubt it’s as stringent as you think. I have never had an issue and I don’t carry a smartphone. Usually they just hand you a paper menu or a tablet depending on what you’re doing.

runjake 1mo ago
I didn't have my phone physically on me at the time. They did not have paper menus at all. They kind of rattled off a selection of items from memory. I ordered something.
account42 1mo ago
Often there technically are other options but this is still like saying you don't need to participate in society and can move to a cabin in the woods.
- iamnothere 1mo ago
  What’s the problem? Are you saying that people who live in cabins are doing something wrong? I used to live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It has its downsides, but there were plenty of positives as well.
  - huurtehoog 1mo ago
    You can't see a difference between will and constrain? Force-feeding for example is torture, despite how much one may like eating.
    - iamnothere 1mo ago
      Are you saying that you’re forced to use a smartphone? Because I don’t use one. It does make some things harder, but I don’t know what people are expecting. A law to ban smartphones? There’s not enough people who want that. I do think we need rules that require businesses to accept cash, and to have alternative flows that don’t require smartphones for ordinary transactions (like buying food) or financial management. I also think we need to break up the duopoly and ensure that FOSS based devices can gain a foothold. Unless more people go without smartphones, voluntarily, the friction in daily life is only going to increase for those of us who don’t use them. That means accepting a little bit of inconvenience from time to time, but you make up for it in other ways.
      - huurtehoog 1mo ago
        No, I'm saying that going to live in a cabin in the woods if you want to is great, not so much if you do it for running out of options. Not a hard concept to grasp. Whether smartphones are optional or not depends on a lot of factors.
        iamnothere 29d ago
        I guess I don’t see what this adds to the conversation. What position exactly are you taking here? What should be done based on what you just said? I can’t tell if you’re making a real argument or if it’s an empty complaint about the status quo.

autoexec 1mo ago

I've seen restaurants that required a QR code to get a menu. I simply walked out. Lots of other places to eat exist with more reasonable practices. Forcing people to scan a QR code to see a price is a great way to use the data from their device to serve them a different price than the last person who scanned that code was asked to pay. Anyone else who wants you to scan a QR code as part of a check in process can be told you don't have a phone or that it doesn't work. It's their job to figure that out.

account42 1mo ago

> Restaurants: Menu is QR only. In one case, ordering food was QR only. Or worse, a physical menu but they want to pay you with your mobile wallet using a QR code. Even if there are alternatives presented when you complain, that still turns you into an outcast.