Many apps ask for permission to use your GPS position and other sensor data, even though they don't need it. Most non-technical people don't understand what that means and will just allow it.
What on earth are you talking about? I've installed hundreds of apps in my life and literally never seen that.
I saw your other comment, and that was your fault for not having access to your own e-mail account. Asking you to sign in with a verification code isn't blocking your ticket with "no recourse".
Not to mention, you can usually just go to the ticket office and they can look up your ticket if your app isn't working. Obviously they don't advertise this because they don't have enough people to handle if everybody did that. But they're not trying to lock you out from your own ticket.
Perhaps somewhere deep in the terms of service that approximately zero customers have ever read, it says "Use of this ticket is contingent upon having immediate access to the email address associated with your account." Regardless, it seems unreasonable for them to expect that every user will have connectivity. If that is a requirement, they should state it more clearly.
That's the point, though - we shouldn't need always-on, 24/7-access to email for everything always and forever. You're just victim-blaming at this point.
>Sorry but you've made that up. That's not a thing.
I have a very fun and exciting story about being locked out of my Google Wallet account for that very thing while on vacation. My primary Google account is still banned from performing any monetary transactions as a result, 10+ years later.
We're talking about an 81 year-old who has never had a smartphone before and you're starting the sentence with "if"? And that's just that app, not the phone itself or anything else that someone brand new to, and ignorant towards, this ecosystem is going to encounter and not know what to do with.
What about the other apps? What about the phone itself?
If you don't want other apps, don't install other apps.
Locations from flip phones have to be triangulated. Smartphones track more precise locations and a lot more than just location data.
This dude has previously paid hundreds of dollars per year because he wanted custom-printed tickets. He can pay a hundred for a cheapo Android to use exclusively for tickets and not give up any privacy at all, if he's more paranoid about tracking than the other 99+% of the population who uses smartphones just fine.