The trouble with this is that I, at least, am trying to live in a society. And society has both rights and responsibilities. Sometimes you are forced to do things, or don’t do things, contrary to your desires. Every freedom has two sides, you can’t ignore the fact that increasing some freedoms for one decreases other freedoms for others.
The shirt and shoes example is a great example in fact that illustrates the point. You don’t have unlimited freedom to not wear shoes, just like a business does not have unlimited freedom to impose whatever terms it likes, just because it put it in its ToS.
> You don’t have unlimited freedom to not wear shoes
Okay, I am gonna be 100% serious here: you absolutely should have such a freedom. Just as loitering or jaywalking being a crime is inherently totalitarian, what the hell.
In this case, unlimited means literally everywhere.
You do have the right to go barefoot in your own home. And in true public spaces.
But, a property owner can require shoes. Do I care if somebody is barefoot in the local grocer? No, not really. But, the proprietor might because they want to limit their liability (should something fall on your foot, a cart run it over, or a loose tack/nail somehow land in an aisle, etc).
Except that the analogy is that they already have, or can easily create, that list. If they couldn’t, their value proposition would be lame. “We know you’re looking for a specific license plate, here’s a million hours of footage from all over the city, have at looking through it all.”
Only for paying customers, which you aren't of course. If those customers paid public storage to inventory their stuff, then that inventory is their property. Surely it would be inappropriate to use their inventory data to find your naked photos. A violation of privacy even. (/s, kinda)
I was enumerating the likely defense, not that it's valid.
Well, I’m a billionaire, why would I vote against my own interests. I mean, yes, I’m currently a bit down on my luck (it’s embarrassing, to be honest), but I’m sure my net worth will move right up there with Elon’s very soon, and so it would be foolish for me to support taxes on the wealthy.
I’m not saying it would be revenue neutral, but a UBI would (or should) eliminate a bunch of various other entitlements. Even social security should be relatively non controversial to get rid of.
I’d be curious to hear your opinion on things like Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech then. I’m not defending the violence in this case, to be sure, but like, in general, I disagree that violence is always the irrational choice.
My point is violence can be rational but you should at least attempt to get away with it, so you can carry on afterwards.
It's hard to effect any sort of change from a prison cell, violent or otherwise, so it's irrational to deliberately get yourself locked up if your aim is to change things
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.
The law that he can invoke in a weaponized way is the ADA.
It’s vague enough about what a disability is, that something like “my hand tremor and farsightedness preclude using a touchscreen, I request a reasonable accommodation” is a valid request. If they deny admission and accommodation to somebody incapable of using a smartphone, there is a whole army of lawyers that will gladly take the case on contingency.
As you note, the app is not inherent to seeing a game, or preventing resale. There’s no reason an id and confirmation number can’t be used to get him in.
There is a special ring of hell reserved for people who abuse the ADA.
Such abuse is an insult to everyone who needs it, everyone who engages with it in good faith, everyone who spends gobs of money to make events and services accessible to those with genuine need.
I don’t rule the world but if I did abusers of protective rules would be summarily executed. (Don’t vote for me. I’ve got a short but significant list of similar policies. Scammers those guys would have targets on their heads, kidnap for ransom criminals those guys too)
The ADA was a rare "great" law, in that it is sweeping, applies broadly to many different forms of disability, and it provides companies very little leeway to weasel their way out of complying. It also provides us with a very, very good generic framework for consumer protections, should we ever get an administration who cared about consumer freedom over corporate interests. I'd love to see other (not disability related) ADA-like laws that compel companies to make other reasonable accommodations to be inclusive of reasonable consumers. All kinds of amazing "consumer bill of rights" regulation could be modeled after the ADA.
If his inability to access a ticket on a smartphone has anything to do with an illness, or physical/mental impairment - say, age related cognitive decline - it is exactly what the law is for. The tweet is vague but he says it is too difficult for him which sounds like a physical or mental issue. It doesn’t sound like he is asking for anything but to be able to use his tickets.
I’m actually not convinced that ADA “abuse” is a problem. I once had to do an urgent web redesign nbecause someone who was “abusing” the system with dozens of lawsuits. It’s actually dead easy to get out of an ADA lawsuit: you just provide a reasonable accommodation. In our case it forced the corporate decision makers to prioritize making the site accessible. We provided a temporary disability assistance hotline, and got the site compliant. The lawsuit was dropped, now EVERY disabled person is better served because one “abusive” litigant was trolling for settlements. It doesn’t really matter if the plaintiff actually had a disability that made it impossible to use the site, at the end of the day, it forced a change that needed to happen.
If this gentleman used the ADA inappropriately to get paper tickets, it would set up a process and precedent for other people who have disabilities that preclude smartphone use regardless of his own condition. Sounds like a win to me…
>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.
Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.
The only downsides are that sometimes it doesn't work if their shitty form verification insists that the plus character isn't valid in an email address. In those cases I tend to set up an actual mail alias (yourcompany@mydomain.com), but that's an annoying extra step - pluis aliasing is simple, requires no configuration, and works everywhere. But this is pretty rare. And if you're using it to sign in to things, you'll want a password manager so that you can remember what plus alias you used for each site.
Don't misunderstand me - I'm not defending the behaviour you're posting about - it's reprehensible and I wouldn't have bought tickets at all under such a system. What I'm offering is a way to make it more manageable for people who don't want to go without things that you can only buy under these user-hostile models.
>Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.
I don't use "plus aliases." I don't need to. I've owned my own domains for just about 30 years, so I just use <whoeveritis>@mydomain.com and then block any emails that start spamming or are just annoying.
Protip: Host your own emails so those greedy scumbags can't cut you off whenever they please, leaving you unable to access all the crap you authenticate through your "plus aliases"
Edit: N.B., I appreciate that you brought that up. Some folks may find that useful even if I don't. That said, I still say folks should host their own email if they have the resources (minimal) and inclination (less so).
So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.
Regular aliases are fine, but they're more difficult to set up. And don't work everywhere.
I do host my own email. But not everybody has the knowledge/inclination to do so. Which is fine if that's their choice. Plus aliases work for those people too.
>So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.
That's not what I said at all[2]. In fact, I said[0]:
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."
I also said[1]:
IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing
the app which was required to use the tickets.
[2] And yes, I know you're being a trollish jackass, but I have a little time to kill this morning, so lucky you. That's all the feeding you're gonna get. Now back under your bridge!
I'm being a trollish jackass?!? Fuck off. I posted a helpful tip - for you and for others - on how you can avoid the bullshit you were whinging about, and that you specifically claimed you couldn't block. You replied with condescending trolling pointing out how amazing you are and how you don't need my advice because you run your own email, as if that's some amazing achievement. What it does mean though is that, as I pointed out in my last message, you could have easily blocked the trash email you were whinging about once you had your ticket, making your whinging about it entirely redundant boo-hooing about nothing.
> I also said[1]: IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.
Uh-huh, sure, you pointed out, after I had posted and in a different thread that I haven't looked at since, that you theoretically agreed to receive spam according to a shitty set of T&Cs. I'm not sure how this is relevant to managing/blocking said spam? Or your assholish response to my attempt to help you?
Oh noes! They might cancel your subscription to their shitty app that you have explicitly stated you don't want! Maybe they'll call the police! I mean, you have your tickets and have been to the game already and have said that you don't plan on going to another one, and there's no way they could detect that you'd blocked their mail, so the net effect on you for violating their T&C is vanishingly unlikely to ever be anything other than zero, but sure, whatever, keep receiving that ridiculous volume of spam because you theoretically agreed to it, I guess?
>Surely there's an option to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Did you try? It's highly illegal not to have that.
IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.
No matter. I just corralled that spam in a folder and ignored them (which is how I knew how many -- >100 -- I received) for the couple of months I had the app installed.
Once I attended the game, I uninstalled the app and told my mail server to reject any emails (with a permanent/"User Unknown" rejection error) to that email address and deleted the folder.
I probably should have filed suit against MLB for coercive licensing of their app. Which would likely be finishing up around now, seven or so years and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees later, so the court can tell me that I have no legal recourse.
But I didn't. Mostly, I'm sure, because I don't have your keen legal mind. Why don't you try that and let me know how it works out for you. The actuarials say I should live another fifteen or twenty years, so I can wait. Do tell.
I think you are not remembering correctly. The app does not require you to receive marketing e-mails. It can't supersede law, and it does not in my experience.
Unsubscribing from marketing e-mails does actually work. It's vastly simpler than trying to filter, reject, etc. And this way you still get the actual important emails. Like when an event gets cancelled, or other important information.
You don't need to get all snarky. Just consider this a learning opportunity.
> I’m not sure how exactly this should be worded in law
No policy or law shall be enacted that directly or indirectly requires a use of a computing device where any other alternative at all is possible. Where offering other alternatives presents a cost, that cost (and only that cost, with no markup) may be passed on to the consumer.
That could still get prohibitively expensive. Take the example from this article, where there's only one person still using the paper ticket option...
I could see someone arguing you need a specially trained staff member or supervisor to verify your ID for anti-scalping, which they don't need to do for other e-tickets. Say only one person uses this option all season, they could be asked to pay for an entire employee's salary/benefits.
It's a bit hyperbolic, but supporting non-standard workflows is organizationally expensive with many non-quantifable costs.
> I could see someone arguing you need a specially trained staff member or supervisor to verify your ID for anti-scalping
They can argue that all they like, but they'll stop pretty quickly when I ask why they can't just print out the same barcode as the smartphone user would use, and have the same person scan that using the same equipment so that they can enjoy the same anti-scalping protections (i.e if that barcode has already been scanned, you don't let them in).
If the law had existed all along, it would not be a non-standard workflow.
And there is precedent on the pricing. For example, FAA is not allowed to charge any more for any service than it costs to deliver said service, which is why if i lose my pilot's license, a replacement is $3.
There's no way that costs the FAA $3. It is a wealthy service for wealthy people, so they can afford to absorb some costs. Your knowledge and wording indicates you are likely part of the demographic that knows how to threaten with lawyers.
One cause for the cost-recovery rule was the case Asiana Airlines v. FAA: The court ruled that the FAA’s enabling statute required fees to be "directly related" to the agency's actual costs. They held that the FAA couldn't look at the value of the service to the airline; they could only look at the receipts for what it cost the FAA to "flip the switches and manage the radar".
Well, 2 wrongs make one right, don't they?!
I wish we'd first fix women's rights and then extend their duties. What the OP does is just egoistically trying to make other groups also suffer.
I don't have intentions to justify an injustice. I'm saying why should we try to make it even harder for a disadvantaged group? It does not help a single German man if women also have to comply to this law.
Fixing women's rights on the other hand gives everybody the benefit of living in a society that is more fair. For me, that's a valuable goal.
It’s not a fact though. I support the draft for women. For me, that’s what feminism is. I’m sure you can point out some feminists that are only for drafting men, but that’s not what you stated, you stated a patent falsehood, dressed up as a “fact” so you could dunk on feminism.
I have no clue if this worked at all, but in college I made a site that had a checkbox that said “check this box if you’re human” and then hid it with bizarre CSS. If they checked the box, we errored out. I didn’t really do telemetry at all, so no clue if that worked at all, but yeah, I’ve had the same thought!
None of this is any surprise to people who had two brain cells to rub together. He showed massive corruption in his first term, and despite being impeached twice, got away with it scot free. Then got a huge mandate from the people to be a shitty person, so yeah, he’s corrupt. The majority of voting Americans don’t really seem to care.
The shirt and shoes example is a great example in fact that illustrates the point. You don’t have unlimited freedom to not wear shoes, just like a business does not have unlimited freedom to impose whatever terms it likes, just because it put it in its ToS.
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