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The worst thing about this entire discourse is the root of the entire "just print this one guy his tickets on-demand" argument is that it assumes, at its base, that once you hit a certain age you immediately become a moron incapable of learning anything new or adjusting your day-to-day life at all.

And 80-year old person is just as smart as a 20-year old. He's perfectly capable of learning how to use a $50 smartphone to access his $5-200k/yr season tickets, he just doesn't want to. It sounds like he was told years and years ago they were moving this direction, and they've been printing him tickets as an exception, and they've decided to stop the exception. He's had 20 years to get a smart phone and learn how to use it. The fact that he now has to choose is a prison of his own making.

by jazzyjackson4 hours ago|

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I don't think the discourse is about just this one guy, it's about an entire class of people for whom swiping around a smartphone is a bewildering experience they managed to live their whole life so far without. If you're not adept at it, it makes you feel stupid, maybe you haven't had that experience but there's more to being a luddite than stubbornness.

If I can get along with the rest of my life on a flip phone, it seems pretty unreasonable to buy a device just to buy sports tickets.

by pc862 hours ago|

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> If I can get along with the rest of my life on a flip phone, it seems pretty unreasonable to buy a device just to buy sports tickets.

I would agree. It also seems unreasonable to expect the organization to make an exception to a completely legitimate anti-scalping measure for one person.

by Ucalegon5 hours ago|

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Do you know how many old people get scammed per year in the United States because they are using technology that they are trained on, but assume that they have to use the technology in order to function each year with minimal practical gain relative to the costs? Its around 12.5 billion dollars in 2024, up from 10 billion in 2023 [1]. Why is introducing someone to that risk worth it to watch a baseball game?

Asserting that individual 'get smart' doesn't actually solve for the actual harms and if it were just simple, we would not be seeing the upward trends in fraud that we are seeing within the elderly.

[1] https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/older-adults-ftc-frau...

edit: fixed the years

by woobar3 hours ago|

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The numbers you mention are total fraud losses. Most of fraud has nothing to do with phones, it is fraudulent money transfers and card charges.

by Ucalegon1 hours ago|

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Where is the initial point of engagement when it comes to most scams targeting the elderly? It is via phones, email, and messaging services.

by trollbridge4 hours ago|

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80 year old people do not have the same neuroplasticity as 20 year olds. It is not reasonable to expect them to quickly learn new things that are constantly changing.

In particular, it's very reasonable to be 80 and decide "I don't want to deal with learning how to use a smartphone and getting one".

by pc862 hours ago|

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> It is not reasonable to expect them to quickly learn new things that are constantly changing.

Of course it is. Maybe if we didn't normalize people refusing to learn things for no other reason than "I don't wanna" they'd have better neuroplasticity.

> it's very reasonable to be 80 and decide "I don't want to deal with learning how to use a smartphone and getting one".

I agree with you 100% on this but it doesn't logically follow from that that you get to make the Will Call clerk for the Dodgers print your ticket for every game even though you've been told for multiple years that season tickets are going paperless as an anti-scalping measure.

by daedrdev5 hours ago|

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Im going to be harsh, sorry.

In this case nobody is forcing them to buy a dodgers ticket. It’s a completely optional and absurdly expensive luxury good that is purely for leisure. They can simply not but a ticket if they don't want to accept conditions of sale.

by tracker15 hours ago|

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Yeah... I mean, who says I should have to put in wheelchair ramps for my ballpark that seats tens of thousands? I mean, so few people use/need them, I should just be able to refuse service to those people. Right?

/sarc

by pc862 hours ago|

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I don't want to blow your mind but choosing not to have a smartphone and being in a wheelchair are not remotely comparable.

by tracker12 hours ago|

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So, you want to force people to give money to specific, monopolistic, corporations? Why would I want a smart phone if I'm blind... how am I expected to use a smart phone when I am blind, exactly?

by Ucalegon5 hours ago|

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Because quality of life doesn't have a value in of itself. Especially for the elderly, they should be excluded from enjoying the end of their life simply because no wants to think of a solution to the problem that doesn't require them to introduce massive amounts of risk into their life which, also, negatively impacts their quality of life.