> 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.

> 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.

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.

> 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...

- https://old.reddit.com/r/electricdaisycarnival/search/?q=pho...

- 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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

> 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.

> 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.

Soooo money is worthless now? … because tech?

> 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.

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.

> 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?

> 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.