Honestly, I fucking hate parking apps. You always gotta download a new one, you gotta create an account, verify it, type in your credit card by hand, search for the stall ID number, then the app errors out and tells you that they encountered an error.
So then I just uninstall the app and hope I don’t get a ticket for a 15 minute errand.
Back in the day, I loved stuffing a $5 bill in the parking meter cash box and then not having to worry about it for a few hours.
What is really stupid about this is that Canada has some of the highest mobile internet rates in the world. And they expect everyone who needs to pay to have internet all the time.
Edit: this is for app based parking in general, not parks Canada specifically.
The apps calculate how many people are at the lot and the best time for them to come around and give the most tickets when payments are expiring. This is huge revenue for private parking companies.
One of the modern mysteries I can’t quite get is people caring so much about paying stuff with cash. Are people out there paying for gas using cash as well? How many people have a car and don’t have a credit card or smartphone? So many questions…
One: Using a card means all transactions are tied to my financial history. For better or worse, I don’t want all my personal habits in a ledger somewhere.
Two: Fees. Merchants have to pay fees on credit transactions.
Three: Consolidating financial institutions between a handful of company’s. (Visa, MasterCard, Amex, etc)
Four: Complexity. At least one side of the transaction must setup a system to interact with banks or credit cards. Cash is as simple as counting and handing it over.
Five: Budgets. It’s been shown that people spend less when they use cash. When someone can see the money actually leave and what they have dwindles they are more responsible with their spending.
Six: Tax evasion. Sometimes, if the waiter/waitress is struggling tipping in cash means it’s easier for them not to report that income.
Seven: It makes it much harder to make financial transactions that aren’t “approved.” Whether or not you like it, some people want to be able to buy drugs or something else that isn’t legal. Or even worse, the whims of whatever payment processor they use. A private company shouldn’t get to say who can be a merchant and what they are allowed to sell.
Eight: Gifts. Cash is just a simple, nice gift that Zelle or Venmo can’t replace.
Nine: No chance of overdrafting and getting hit with bullshit fees.
I work in fintech, specifically in the payments industry for a company that has a huge vertical spread. And damn let me tell you, we (along with the big ones like MC, Visa, Amex) just skim the delicious foam off the top of everything… right into the pockets of the exec team who keep doing weekly stupid motivational videos from every corner of the world.
I think governments should start thinking about nationalizing the shit out of this instead of everyone paying these stupid nepomonkeys. I don’t care if I’d be out of a job, I can find something else.
I used to work for a company that converted coin-based parking meters to contactless card payment. And I completely agree.
Payment by card/app saves the companies a ton of money because they don’t have to handle cash — the guy going around is now just a fact checker and the automated systems handle the cash.
Previously, some cash was “lost” at each touch point (human handling the cash) in the chain; now this is replaced by higher fees, and a percentage going to fintech executives directly.
Countries, especially Canada can and will freeze bank accounts as a back channel way to control people that they disagree with. Cash avoids this demonstrated risk and must be preserved as a primary payment method to preserve freedom
How do you imagine elderly people that don’t really understand technology would cope with downloading an app or going to a web site to pay for parking.
How can you not have the empathy to think of people that might struggle with things. So many questions…
How do you imagine elderly people that don’t really understand technology would cope with downloading an app or going to a web site to pay for parking.
Using a card. If they’re able to drive, they’re probably able to carry a card and tap it. Maybe it’s a failure of my imagination but I can’t conceptualize someone being able to drive and park a car and yet this same person can’t use a card.
Edit just to clarify: the article mentions “a smart phone with a credit card to pay for parking” specifically, and I guess it’s my fault for going a bit off topic without a more explicit disclaimer. I don’t think a smart phone should be required for anything. I’m just curious about the anti-cashless movement in general, because a smartphone isn’t the only alternative to cash.
Ever had a moment where you needed to go buy groceries but couldn’t pay because the payment system is down nation wide?
Many people did many times and if you don’t have cash on you, well you can’t pay for shit.
A cashless society is not a good thing. And that is especially dumb since a merchant can’t refuse legal tender, but the federal government is refusing legal tender by doing this.
Ever had a moment where you needed to go buy groceries but couldn’t pay because the payment system is down nation wide?
Never. If it did happen, it’s almost certain that I wouldn’t have the cash on me to pay for it anyway 🤷♂️I’d rather not walk around with more than $100 in cash on me.
since a merchant can’t refuse legal tender
Where does that come from? AFAICT there’s no law that requires businesses to accept cash as a form of payment. Not in Canada, at least.
I happen to prefer not to always have my location tracked by a cell phone company or my transactions recorded by a credit card issuer. The ability to be anonymous is a vital component of freedom. Plus, you can still pay for things in cash if something has wiped out all local network connectivity. And yes, I have been known to pay for gas in cash—not always, but now and again (and an EV doesn’t need gas, anyway, so that question is increasingly irrelevant).
I do not require or expect other people to have the same priorities that I do.
Right… that’s about what I imagine someone fighting against cashless is like. You actually pay for gas in cash and you don’t have a smartphone with Internet.
Kind of ironic that you’re excited about EVs, though.
Kind of ironic that you’re excited about EVs, though.
“Excited” isn’t really the word. It’s more that I acknowledge the inevitable. Even if we ignore the damage done by burning it, the world supply of gasoline is finite, and the extraction and refining process is not only messy, polluting, and making many parts of the world beholden to countries with bad human rights records, but also has chokepoints—a relatively small number of large refineries—that are increasingly at risk as the climate gets worse. Better to get off it before we’re forced to do so one way or the other.
Fair enough. I am in fact looking forward to a future where e-bikes and other electric micro mobility bring the freedom that the oil & gas industries promised and failed to deliver.
An EV… So a car that’s tracking you? 😂
Also literally every car. Why the hell is my sexual activity in the privacy agreement KIA?
That man is beyond the hands-on-hips pose that other Ottawa based articles all use.
You would hope that federal agencies would be the last to abandon using actual currency.
The ability to monitor and trace all financial transactions is a feature to governments, not a bug.
I checked their site, you can’t buy parking using just the website, even a monthly one. But you sure can pay your parking tickets! (although even that requires a credit card it seems)
Is that legal?
Conversely, if you don’t have those things, is it legal to park without paying?
