“It is a question of having access to all the services of the State without having a computer, smartphone or tablet.”
As the world becomes steadily digitised, it is getting harder and harder to do even the simplest of tasks offline, while surveillance, control and censorship of the online world is growing. Access to essential services is increasingly restricted to a specific platform or app that is often linked to Big Tech platforms and services.
At the same time, many of those same apps and tech platforms are undergoing a process of rapid “enshittification” (or as we call it round these parts, crapification) — so much so that Macquarie Dictionary has crowned the Cory Doctorow-coined term as its word of the year. Here’s how the Australian dictionary defines enshittification:
“The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
App-Controlled Lockers and Car Park Meters
Just yesterday, my wife and I tried to rent a luggage locker at a Mexico City bus station for a couple of hours to avoid having to lug our luggage around with us before catching our connecting journey, only to find that doing so required downloading an app and sharing our personal data and bank details with the app company — all to pay one dollar fifty in storage fees. Needless to say, we declined.
In Germany, the logistics giant DHL has introduced new, “lean” parcel lockers where customers can only collect parcels if they use the company’s “Post & DHL App” on their smartphones. As the European Digital Rights network (EDRi) reports, anyone who is unable to receive a parcel at home may be redirected to one of these lockers: “in this case, the only way to receive parcels without the app is to request a second delivery to the original address – an option that is time-limited and well-hidden on DHL’s website.”
Another example I’ve noticed during my recent visits to the UK is parking. For decades motorists using a car park in my home town had fed coins into a meter and got a ticket. Then, about ten years ago, a new meter was introduced offering a card alternative to cash, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Some years later a parking app was included. Yet more choice! Then a new meter was unveiled – payment by card or app only. Within a year, the meter had disappeared altogether. In its place stood a sign instructing customers to pay by app only.
The assumption was clear: every driver wishing to park their car has a smartphone and knows how to download and operate apps, and is quite happy to share their personal data and bank account information with an obscure, probably foreign-based app company.
To cap things off, the mobile coverage was poor and the price of parking had gone up to include an extra fee for the app company. Worse still, in many parts of the UK enterprising fraudsters have begun placing QR code stickers on top of the parking apps’ QR codes, directing unsuspecting carpark users to fake websites designed to extract their bank card or account details. Victims of these scams end up losing far more than the price of a couple of hours’ parking. The ultimate insult: many get fined for not buying a parking ticket.
So, what had begun as a process of broadening customer choice had ended up narrowing it to the point at which the only way for customers to pay for their parking was with a smartphone. And instead of costs going down, they were going up, so that the app company – a new 21st century middleman – could turn a tidy profit. Rather than being quicker and more convenient, this new system is making life more difficult for many customers, and is even making some easy prey for fraudsters. As the Sheffield Star reports, customers are not happy:
Anne Middleton, of High Green, said: “I’m not to keen on that idea actually. I quite like to put my cash in. I’m not good with the apps, I always get it wrong.”
She said she had used apps and had one or two on her phone. But she added: “Generally they go wrong, so we end up not bothering or we find one that takes cash.”
Briony Salter, from Wincobank, agreed parking companies only allowing apps was unacceptable. She said: “I wish they would do parking meters – it’s easier if people have got change.
“Not everyone has a smart phone so I think it’s a very new generation thing. There are a lot of older people who may not be very handy with a phone. Maybe just going back to old payment systems is a lot easier than it is currently.”
Sara and Ian Hobson, from Woodhouse, both felt app-only was unacceptable.
Ian said: “Most people don’t know how to do it with an app. You have to download the app, then you have to pay. It’s easier just to get some coins out and put them in.”
“Digital Coercion”
Unfortunately, governments, banks and businesses in many countries are doing everything they can to drive out the use of cash for basic services like public transport and parking, and replace them with purely digital payment means. They are also making it increasingly difficult to interact with government and receive state benefits without using smartphone apps. Ukraine’s “Diia” digital ID and governance platform, launched in February 2020, offers a perfect template, according to USAID, the European Union and the United Nations Development Program.
“Digital coercion” — a term I learnt from the German financial journalist and digital rights activist, Norbert Häring — is on the rise just about everywhere. As Häring reported in September, this should hardly come as a surprise given that one of the main organisations pushing for the rapid rollout of digital public infrastructure (digital ID, digital health passes, instant payment systems, central bank digital currency…) is the corporate-controlled, WEF-partnered United Nations…
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Nick Corbishley 