Modern digital world

dorian · Guru

Modern digital world

Whenarewethere · Guru

I needed to pay cash due to data breaches. Went to the RTA in North Sydney the other day to pay car registration. They don't take cash.

With increasing data breaches we will probably have to go back to cash.

Roy E · Senior Member

Interesting contributions from Dorian and Whenarewethere.
Years ago, I refused to have a mobile phone and now I feel kind of naked if I go out and have left mobile at home.
Get great internet most places we are camping and feel a bit lost if there is no internet at a camp site.
It seems easy to combine a lovely bush camp, good internet service and satellite TV.
I wonder how our parents and grandparents would see this.
Cheers,
Roy.

Whenarewethere · Guru

About 3 decades ago I had a conversation with my sister about how it's difficult for our parents with modern technology. We both agreed when we would be our parents age that we will probably find everything even more difficult & our children more difficult again.

Other half relies on me to work out all the mobile phone issues, they come frequently enough, & I barely cope. Years ago I did complex computer 3d work, networked computers. I just find it all getting more painful & wasting my life.

Can't stand all the standard remarks, it's all easy, well no, it is not!

I don't see why we should be basically forced to use a mobile phone. I often leave it at home. Also noticed during the sign in of Covid in shops just how many people signed in with the paper & pencil option.

Mike Harding · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
Can't stand all the standard remarks, it's all easy, well no, it is not!

It's all easy until it doesn't work and then it can be impossible for even experts to fix.

StewG · Senior Member

< It's all easy until it doesn't work and then it can be impossible for even experts to fix.>

How true!

I volunteer my services to help other people navigate their way in the digital world and the biggest hurdle is to cope with the constant changes to the way the internet is used. You have Microsoft, Google and other companies offering to do more and more for you with their "enhancements" and it all seems to me like solutions looking for a problem and a negation of the KISS principle. The companies' efforts to make things easy for you obscure what is really happening behind the scenes and lessens the users understanding. The nett effect is that everything becomes more complex and digitally challenged people don't know what to use and what to ignore, much less how to achieve what they are trying to do.

Now with the recent increase in data hacking, security is tightening up with many companies insisting on two-step-verification AKA multi-factor-authorisation where you can only login to a website with something you know (e.g. a password) and something that you have (e.g. a smartphone). This adds a level of security to the process at a cost to convenience (no free lunch). Lose your phone and you could spend an hour (or days) trying to prove that you are who you say you are. There are, of course other ways of gaining access, but you must plan ahead with the other ways (e.g. home phone, multiple email addresses, authenticator app, saved authenticating numbers, authenticator key, etc.)

dogbox · Guru

Mike Harding wrote:

Whenarewethere wrote:
Can't stand all the standard remarks, it's all easy, well no, it is not!
It's all easy until it doesn't work and then it can be impossible for even experts to fix.

that statement is so true , all good till it has a hic-cup

Are We Lost · Guru

Paying for parking yesterday, the ticket machines had different payment options. We had no coins so tried a credit card. First with Paywave, then inserting it, tried a different card. No error message but it just did not work. Then on maybe the 6th attempt "network error - try another machine". The same at the next machine. There was also an option to open an account and pay that way. But there was no website listed..... just a QR code to scan. So if you did not know how to do that you were out of luck.

We had a harbour cruise booked and had fortunately left plenty of time.

Cuppa · Guru

The internet is our lifeline in a remote area.

Earlier this year a very non-tech incident caused us to lose internet for almost two months. It takes just one white-tailed rat to decide that instead of gnawing holes in coconuts having a chew on the cable from sat dish to NBN modem was a good idea.

Without the internet we had no phone, no tv, no radio, no online banking, no ordering groceries to be delivered by plane from 800kms away, no ability to converse with family, or friends, or our real estate agent when there were weather related difficulties back home. No access to my medical specialists or pharmacies & no updates for my wife about her mother with dementia across the other side of the world.

When the IT system went down at the general store in town for a few days we weren't even able to access cash to pay for food, & if we'd needed it, fuel. Thankfully we had enough supplies to make do.

Essentially we were almost completely cut off from the outside world. WWW3 could have begun & we wouldn't have known a thing about it. We often wondered whether the war in Ukraine had ended yet.

To some this may sound almost idyllic, but it is really only idyllic when it is planned. When you have had the opportunity to arrange for bills to be paid for in your 'absence'. When no emergencies crop up.

We had one saving grace. Although we could not be contacted we could drive a few kms into the local community & pick up a 3g phone signal good enough to receive accumulated text messages & to make a call. No internet though - even with 4 bars of 3g in the middle of 'town', getting a single web page to load was a non starter.

As the 2 months wore on we did manage to find a couple of folk with a working satellite service we could visit to use their when really needed, restricted to limited urgent & essential stuff.

It really brought home how reliant we are on these services, & underlined how really cut off from the rest of the world most of the local population are.

There is so much that most folk take for granted without any understanding of the sort of limitations many up here live with.

Why do people's gardens look so untidy & uncared for? Don't they care? Have they got no self pride? Well how do you obtain garden tools or a lawn mower if the only shop doesn't sell them & you have no access to/or understanding of internet, or a credit card you can use online & you have neither a vehicle nor enough for fuel to make a multi day 1600km+ round trip to go to the nearest shop to buy that shovel or whipper snipper.

Useable internet for all, when it one day arrives up here will be a game changer carrying both risk & opportunity. This is the only community on Cape York which doesn't have 4G & this single factor makes it far more remote than any other.

Wannabe nomad · Senior Member

Bit like being married
Can't live with it can't live without it.

woofta and precious · Senior Member

Wannabe nomad wrote:
Bit like being married
Can't live with it can't live without it.

Good luck with that! smile

Whenarewethere · Guru

woofta and precious wrote:
Wannabe nomad wrote:
Bit like being married
Can't live with it can't live without it.
Good luck with that!

It's important to have alternatives if the first stops performing properly!

Mamil · Senior Member

Went out for a meal with the family the other night.

When we got to the restaurant I asked someone clearing up a table where I order. Was pointed to a QR code stuck on the wall and told I had to scan that, download an app, select my food options, transfer the payment electronically, and I'd receive an SMS when it was ready to collect from an unattended counter.

Well bu@@er that!

Got my tech savvy teenage daughter to sort out the food while I got a beer, thankfully the old fashioned way where I asked a person for a pint, he pulled it and handed it to me with a smile, and I paid him with some real money and a thankyou!

Incidentally the food was rubbish and overpriced, but what else would you expect when you're basically eating from a vending machine?

Bicyclecamper · Guru

What would you do if you don't use a phone Mamil, like me, plus I would never pay in advance for a sit down meal. I suppose I would have to leave then.

hufnpuf · Senior Member

Mamil wrote:

Got my tech savvy teenage daughter to sort out the food

So you complied with the outrageous demand? No way I'd do that....

There'll come a time when I can't do anything. Don't care. I'm not an automaton and I won't behave like one.

Whenarewethere · Guru

A couple of years ago a Woolworths store opened in Manly (Sydney). Then they changed to no cash at all. I stopped shopping there.

I have noticed this year Coles & Woolworths have reduced the number of cash self checkouts to 3 machines per store. Recently have noticed this has been reduced to 2 machines & often I have to queue.

There are a number of shops in Manly that don't accept cash.

Whenarewethere · Guru

When I buy a hamburger it is actually made from edible food.

Anyway, happen to walk past a Mc Donalds outlet & at the counter was a handful of screens where you type in your order & one person at the counter to hand over assembled parts.

Instead, for dinner tonight we had some offcuts! French bread, blue cheese, Jarlsberg, prosciutto, premium salmon, rocket, roasted red peppers, avocado, sour cherries, home made mango orange lime Grand Marnier ice-cream, hand ground coffee beans roasted within an acceptable time frame, with a bit of cream & Italian pistachio soft cookies.

Mike Harding · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
There are a number of shops in Manly that don't accept cash.

Is that legal? I had it in mind there is a legal requirement to accept cash for transactions although only within limits?

Derek Barnes · Senior Member

Whenarewethere wrote:
When I buy a hamburger it is actually made from edible food.

Anyway, happen to walk past a Mc Donalds outlet & at the counter was a handful of screens where you type in your order & one person at the counter to hand over assembled parts.

Instead, for dinner tonight we had some offcuts! French bread, blue cheese, Jarlsberg, prosciutto, premium salmon, rocket, roasted red peppers, avocado, sour cherries, home made mango orange lime Grand Marnier ice-cream, hand ground coffee beans roasted within an acceptable time frame, with a bit of cream & Italian pistachio soft cookies.

I cant decide which meal I dislike the most. I hate McDonalds hamburgers, but I also hate the flavour of blue cheese, prosciutto, rocket, smoked salmon, red peppers, sour cherries and coffee. I think I would prefer to go for a local pub meal of roast lamb and vegies and gravy.

Possum3 · Guru

Mike Harding wrote:
Is that legal? I had it in mind there is a legal requirement to accept cash for transactions although only within limits?

From Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). It appears that a provider of goods or services is at liberty to set the commercial terms upon which payment will take place before the 'contract' for supply of the goods or services is entered into. For example, some vending machines, parking meters and road toll collection points indicate by signs that they will not accept low denomination coins. Some road toll collection points indicate that they will not accept any cash at all. If a provider of goods or services specifies other means of payment prior to the contract, then there is usually no obligation for legal tender to be accepted as payment.

Guidance sheet, RBA

Can A Business Refuse Cash In Australia?: Is It Legal? (lawpath.com.au)

hufnpuf · Senior Member

I wonder whether businesses who refuse cash realize that if they change their minds, the customers won't know and won't be back? Even if I do know, I won't be back. If a shop tells me they don't want to sell, I take them at their word.

Mike Harding · Guru

Thanks for that Possum :)

I must have been thinking of then UK then I suspect: I recall that, from time-to-time, some person particularly disgruntled with the council would pay his rates with a wheelbarrow full of sixpences or similar.

Driving back from southern Europe along the Autoroute du Soleil in France we use to pay at the regular toll booths with French coins in order to get rid of all our coins before returning to the UK, it use to drive the booth operators crazy :)

DeBe · Guru

No cash can have serious consequences to a business when the internet fails. One Easter it failed for the entire Easter break with peak tourists. Pub could only accept customers with cash, also if you needed fuel. This was a small country coastal town that has a large influx of tourists at times.

Mike Harding · Guru

DeBe wrote:
No cash can have serious consequences to a business when the internet fails.

Spot on.

And for exactly this reason I carry $3k cash nicely tucked away in the 4WD.

Also valid and in credit cards can fail - it happened to me once with an ANZ debit card which had in excess of $10k in the account and ANZ could not explain why they declined a $30 transaction.

Are We Lost · Guru

Mike Harding wrote:
..... a wheelbarrow full of sixpences or similar. .....

Many years ago (in Australia) I used to work for a bank. We were told that there was a limit on the number of coins to be deemed legal tender. This was so a shopkeeper, taxidriver, etc could refuse payment in such an inconvenient manner. Of course the bank was obligated to accept them, but could charge a counting fee.

Searching just now to see if this rule is still valid I discovered that limit is surprisingly small. The Australian Currency Act is apparently still current although it does cover 1 and 2 cent coins. Even $10 notes for payments of more than $100 can be rejected.

Currency Act - most demoninations are limited to maximum 10 coins as legal tender

I found another link saying no such limit exists in USA and no doubt other countries.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Sunday 20th of November 2022 04:21:03 PM

mischief · Veteran Member

Went into Coles bought stuff, lined up at checkout...Power went down, 4 in line before me. .Total uproar,,,,Called out to teller, I have cash,, girl waved me through to fortunately open cash till. Gave her right money then walked out. Stood around for a few minutes watching the uproar.. Saw on news that night outage 35mins. Cash is King .

Are We Lost · Guru

How did they work out the price for the groceries? No price tags and no scanning device?

vanTas · Veteran Member

Cash still required for School Fairs, buskers, church collection plates, some amusement machines, garage sales, road-side honesty boxes.
Anywhere that the power supply goes out often, or ditto with the phone/internet, are also needing cash as back-up.

How do children learn to save if they can't see their savings building?

Mein · Senior Member

Apart from:-

"How do those of us who don't have ...... an Internet connection get by? ................. I confess that I would feel very isolated if I didn't have an Internet connection," Huh?

It's a misleading, misrepresented, misinformation 'news' report from Australia's so-called most trusted news service.

Isolated from society from 2017 to 2022 and the 'protagonist' is experiencing " ............ disruption in his digital development (that) has him struggling to reintegrate into society."

Give me a break!!!

What digital / online procedures and processes exist today that didn't exist 5 years ago???

Bicyclecamper · Guru

What I am worried about, not being able to pay bills on a mobile phone( don't have one,but), wouldn't know how to do it if I did have one, also internet banking. I made a new will last year, and had to organise a power of attorney, as I explained that I cannot manage my money properly, using technology today, and my solicitor, reminded me, that their is always someone out there ready to take away your rights, because they think you are mentally incompetent, possibly even label you as having onset of dementia, and wanting you to be placed in the hands of the Public Advocate Office or what ever they call it. So my daughter will become my POA, when and if it is needed. But this does worry me, as I have do gooders circling me now. I know how to bank and pay bills the old way, but I see the old way will be gone in a few short years.

-- Edited by Bicyclecamper on Friday 9th of December 2022 01:45:00 AM