Wow, what a clusterfuck: 404media.co/a-total-meltdown-b… (article by @jasonkoebler)
Thinking about it, their conclusion that “the app-ification of everything can lead to some pretty absurd scenarios” isn’t necessarily correct. It isn’t the app-ification – it’s delegating control to some server on the internet which is expected to have 100% availability. It’s the same issue with you losing access to your local e-books or games because a vendor went out of business. Same thing is increasingly happening to hardware which seemingly has little reason to rely on internet services.
I can think of several possible solutions which don’t rely on internet connectivity at all or only require a connection at the time of the reservation (unproblematic: without connectivity no reservation confirmation). These would deposit a token on user’s device which can be verified locally, without relying on the vendor’s server.
While this wouldn’t be hard to implement, it would require the vendor to consider their centralization a potential weakness. This isn’t aligned with their incentives however, as centralizing the system makes it easier to control everything and collect every last piece of data.
‘A Total Meltdown’: Black Friday Zipcar Outage Strands Customers in Random Places
"Went to buy a quick drink to the store and all of the sudden the car is locked. I’ve been waiting over 4 hours in the cold."Jason Koebler (404 Media)
E. g. how I don't like C errors in comparison with, say, Rust...
Hubert Figuière
in reply to Wladimir Palant • • •