Mastodawn

Stan Schymanski Mar 15

Yet another day of screaming at digital enshitiffication:

1. My coworkers and I are in a car driving to FOSDEM.
2. We pull up to charge the car.
3. Charging station REQUIRES you to use an app, no option to just pay with a card.
4. We try to install the stupid app. We carry phones running:
- GrapheneOS
- GrapheneOS
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS, postmarketOS, iOS
5. Neither of our phones meet requirements to install the stupid app (Play Integrity API).
6. My iPhone can't install the app, because it's "Not available in your country".
7. We give up and drive to another charging station.

This is NOT how you introduce applications, "Circle K"

Sven Peter Jan 30

@elly i just don’t understand why these charging stations have to be different that gas stations 😕
They are a mess in .de as well

El Duvelle Jan 30

My experience too in UK 😭

Anders Gulden Olstad Jan 30

@sven @elly One of the reasons I still stick to diesel. Apparently there is a law change coming in Norway to enforce same payments alongside other fuels

@andersgo This law change is already here, and a result of EU regulations, so the same will apply to most of Europe.

And, you only need a couple of RFID cards to be covered on most all chargers in Europe.

So it isn't all too horrible...
@sven @elly

@andersgo @sven @elly not a good excuse for a diesel, lol, even less so in Norway of all places

David Monniaux Mar 15

@andersgo @sven @elly My experience in Norway with these apps has been quite meh. They require tons of personal information, you need to have several apps because not all work everywhere, and they impose a huge logical and (app works /\ data network /\ app servers etc.). Juste use a credit card like for gas!

Erwan 🚄Mar 15

@MonniauxD @andersgo @sven @elly

UE could and should mandate it.

@sven EU regulations require new charging stations to be set up to use creditcards. Every CircleK charger I have been at lately, accepts "tap & go" creditcard.

I don't expect this to be an issue many places for much longer...
@elly

@sven
There is an EU regulation, in force since last spring(?) requiring any new or renovated charger to accept credit cards. Big chargers must have a reader, small chargers a link to a payment page (which has hopefully not been modifies by scammers). But I've heard complaints that it's not really enforced in Germany? At least in Denmark it's gotten better.
@elly

tessarakt Jan 31

@niels @sven @elly When you encounter a violation in Germany, please file a complaint with Bundesnetzagentur.

@niels @sven @elly in germany there is a regulation (since 2023 or 2024 I think) that new chargers must accept regular bank cards. But a lot of older ones that are now not exclusive any more still don't. Existing chargers must be retrofited (with some exceptions) until 2027.

Kayla Eilhart (en)Jan 30

@elly Things like this are the reason why I stick to stock Pixel with as many things disabled as they allow me to disable. I'm at the stage of my life where I need to pick on what to allocate my limited resources for maintaining stubbornness, because otherwise I'd be just overwhelmed with everything. I'm not happy with it, tbh, but it lets me move forward in other areas.

Marcos Dione Jan 30

@kayla @elly I have instead an old second phone for that and more, and now the 2FA app from work is telling me it won't work in the future and I might get locked out of my work accounts.

Julian Groß Jan 30

@elly so no Matrix Meetup?

@elly in France, starting soon (don't know exactly), stations above a certain power will be required to accept card payment.

@elly that's actually an EU regulation above 50kw. Should already be in effect for any new installation. Otherwise they have until Jan 2027 to comply.

Marcos Dione Jan 31

@Aissen @elly TBF I had had more problems charging in the N different networks in the M different regions (in town) than on the few big networks (on the highways).

Primetime Jan 30

@elly the only 'solution' I've found so far, to deal with the play integrity api being a requirement, is to have google play installed in the grapheneOS private space along with the troublesome app. I just have a throwaway google account for this, created using a temporary phone number.

It's not optimal, but it keeps google out of your primary user account

But to be honest, when its about a car-charging app, I would also just go somewhere else

Mireya Strife Jan 30

@Primetime @elly you don't actually need a google account for this!

it is enough to create a separate user in GrapheneOS, install google services and all that in the user, then download your app from an alternative source that pulls from the play store (aurora store).

apps that need the play integrity api will work even without being logged in the play store or the phone at all. i use this for my bank's app, which unfortunately needs the google api.

Primetime Jan 30

@mstrife @elly That is usually the case yes, and what I normally do, but I have one app that somehow detects if you are not logged in to google play and then refuses to work.

@elly i will never forgive circle k for what they've done to holiday

Edith Mair 💙💛Jan 30

@elly
The reason why I don't own an electric car yet. I will CERTAINLY not install an app.

@edithmair1 @elly you can just use credit cards with new charging stations, and even older ones you can order nfc/rfid cards to activate them. literally don’t need any app.

@uint8_t @edithmair1 @elly you can… however, most of the ones I’ve come across need an app to get decent pricing (usually via a subscription to reduce the per kWh price)

Teemu Kalvas Jan 30

@elly I'm all for government intervention on the charging station clowns. Or better yet, make them clean their act "voluntarily" with the understanding that if they don't, then the politicians will have a go at it and no one will like that.

🍱 Sean ☕Jan 30

I have just a rooted phone, and the amount of work I have to put in to spoof Play Integrity is insane.

And the number of apps that require it are wild! All of my EV apps need to be configured to hide my phone's status, and a whole other bunch of apps that it really shouldn't matter in!

epicdemiologist Jan 30

@elly There's a gas station down the road from me that requires you to install an app to buy gas. Nope.

MrGrumpyMonkey Jan 31

@epicdemiologist @elly Not sure why this triggered something in my brain, but this is how the laundry company WASH functions at my apartment complex. Luckily for me, the current machines allow for quarters. I even tried installing the app, just to get bamboozled by the fact that I couldn't even use the service. Enshitification is everywhere...

epicdemiologist Jan 31

@mrgrumpymonkey @elly Glad you still have the quarters option! My town is gradually converting all the parking meters to app-only.

MrGrumpyMonkey Jan 31

@epicdemiologist @elly I'm not a fan of this over complication of products. I'm at at a point where I'm just ganna grab a flip phone when this current one dies. That'll throw a wrench into any conversation.

epicdemiologist Jan 31

@mrgrumpymonkey @elly Yes! After the most recent update, I can't set MY OWN PHOTO to wallpaper on MY OWN PHONE without giving Google access to all my photos! Fuck that.

MrGrumpyMonkey Jan 31

@epicdemiologist @elly This is what happened when the internet became a playground for businesses.

neobot_flag_trans

@[email protected] yet another reminder that google is killing android

Jago Nissi Jan 30

@elly in Finland Neste charging works well with a bank or credit card. K-Lataus works well with rfid tag and website. Some others have tags, used to offer website, but are moving to stupid fucking apps. ABC is the POS that *requires* an app.

Yann Droneaud Jan 30

@elly death to smartphone "app" !

@elly "5 foss enthusiasts walk into a charging station"
Jokes write themselves 😄
Apps shouldn't be required for anything. At all.

tessarakt Jan 31

@thibaut_plg @elly I'll post this in our company's charging chat. One of the people there is probably also at FOSDEM.

🐈‍⬛David Sommerseth Jan 31

@elly In Norway there are coming new legislations requiring charging stations to accept payment cards as a bare minimum. Apps and tags are allowed as well, but they are not considered required. I would expect EU to start doing something similar too.

Some of the stations will show a QR code where you enter payment card details to get started with the charging, which may require a sign up. But it works directly in a browser, without any apps installed. This approach is slower and quite tedious, though. I suspect this approach will disappear as charging stations gets updated with plain payment card support directly on the station itself.

Stanley Q Woodvine Jan 31

@elly Might this have anything to do with Google's plan to begin - in 2026 - verifying the identities of all Android app developers, to effectively ban sideloading? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-sideloading-of-unverified-android-apps-starting-next-year/

Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

Google says it's no different than checking IDs at the airport.

Ars Technica

@elly Good news: >=50 kW chargers in the EU will be required to have card readers.
Bad news: starting 2027 for chargers installed earlier.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02023R1804-20260108

MisterMaker Jan 31

@elly This is why I stopped using Lineage, I was using it when Google declared the war on Fingerprint spoofing.
Which felt like an unbeatable battle, and in the end I bought a new phone and didn't root it.

@elly so they are a reason why legislation now required ad-hoc payment methods, at least in Germany.

Koen 🇺🇦Jan 31

@elly it's time Europe mandates a payment system that works without us tech and is open source - a digital euro that works on anything as it's open source - no sale of anything without that payment possibility - F visa, MasterCard, US fascist tech

@elly my worst experience was with a charger that only had a anonymous web app, meaning if you reload the page the state is lost.

So yeah we pulled up to charge, plugged it in, had some troubles with the connector actually locking, and then once we got it started it told us 1,50€/kWh. We immediately panicked and tried to stop the charging. The webapp had lost its state. There was no estop. We tried calling them. The phone number wasn't registered. We had to use the emergency unlock from the car

@elly (sorry for weird way of writing, character limit go brr)

@commanderred @elly 14 years ago, Tesla introduced the Superchargers. You'd drive up to one, plug in, and it would always work and charge your car, no app nor RFID token needed. At first, they were free (and for some, they still are), later the charge would just get billed to the account associated with the car. The rest of the quick charging infrastructure is still a hot steaming mess even today, and Tesla is leaving the EV business to deal in AI slop like all other techbro companies… :-(