Rant blog

An app for everything!

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What's not to like?? Surely apps just make everything easier, right? Well, today I tried to park in order to go get a coffee. My first actual sitdown coffee in a coffee shop in quite a while. This was not that simple it turned out. In order to park I had to install an APP! yes, the local authorities have decided that paying using a couple of coins, getting a printed ticket, sticking it on my dashboard - all taking a couple of minutes at most - is FAR TOO EASY!

They used to use RingGo but have ditched that in favour of PayandGo. Because everything changes all the time. When I tried logging in to my local council account recently I was told I have to make a new account because they had changed which company was doing it - which is ridiculous. This is the same account one uses to obtain parking permits including visitors permits etc.

To return to the parking situation.. I was now faced with a board stuck on the parking meter telling me I had to download an app to use it. Which assumes I have a smartphone with me. Or ring this number and pay over the phone, which assumes I have a mobile phone with me, that it's charged, had credit etc. Or I can text a location number to a number and it will text back the location of the nearest PayPoint which I can walk to and buy a ticket to walk back and stick on the dashboard... There are no local shops so it's going to be a walk.

Before 'an-app-for-everything', all I needed was a couple of coins to put in the parking meter thingy and I'm good to go. So...if you don't have a working mobile phone with you there is no way to park right across this borough. Fantastic.
Add to this hassle the risk that adding more and more apps poses. Trusting random companies with your data. Companies get hacked and suffer data breaches all the time.

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