Rant alert. I’ve just had a bloody awful week wrestling with the sheer perversity and awkwardness of digital systems. I had several unavoidable tasks to do which can only be done online. (How do people cope who don’t have or can’t use computers?) At nearly every stage, systems threw up pointless obstacles, hoops to jump through and ridiculous ‘verification’ procedures which didn’t work literally half the time. I finally got everything done by today, but I feel totally drained. This sort of thing is getting worse all the time. Stuff that ought to be easy is being made ever more complicated and time-consuming, apparently for the sake of it. Is it just me, or do others find this sort of thing is getting worse?
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I’ll look out for it. My theory is that, like with so many ‘rider aids’ on bikes, people who design these added complexities do it just because they can, not because there’s any need.
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Unless you’re Royal Enfield. 
Does it come as an E-reader???
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Only if you can identify all the images with bicycles. (And the images are deliberately made too fuzzy to make out.)
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I like the one where you have to tyoe in the letters that Stevie Wonder drew…
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Did he type the first line of your post? 
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Done in a rush while working. Happens to me a lot because l’m left handed. Keypads are biased right to help all those spastics…
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hold it upside down! 
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It certainy takes the gloss off new Motorcycles . Sadly the high performance we all enjoy is linked directly to the electronic components . Manufacturers have no interest in simplicity for the end user much preferring you take your machine
to their "Authorised Dealer ".
For the past week I’ve been dealing with my own digital embuggerance. Last week my credit card company emailed giving me a months notice that they are shutting down their online banking site and they would really like me to use the phone app instead. For people like me that can’t or won’t make their phone the centre of their lives they did suggest signing up for an online account at their parent bank’s web site where I could still manage my credit card…
Bank’s website threw an error code signing up and said to ring this number. After getting through phone menus and security I was told I needed to ring credit card people not bank. So repeat phone process to get the system to put me through to a different human in Bangalore. After 40 minutes of trying with me to create an account we resort to the slow process of mail…
A week later I get passcode in the post and an electronic card reader gadget to get security codes, finally I can get this thing sorted… nope. Still get same error codes using these different security processes. Another phone call, answered by someone in the UK this time, results in them saying the error code means ‘account closed or blocked’ but there’s nothing in the system to say why this is true so they’ll ‘raise an incident’ and get back to me. 10 minutes later I get a return call to say this is a known issue for people like me that have a credit card but not a bank account. The sort of ‘know issue’ that’s only know to the IT people and not by support staff or people sending emails to customers asking them to do things that their system doesn’t allow. 
Apparently the problem is going to be fixed next week. As a fallback, I’ve switched to paper credit card statements, which they fortunately still support.
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Like just about everywhere else, our bank has closed all the local and nearby branches.
They do, however, have a representative available every Thursday in a small business unit located in an old church. What a dump, and when we went in to query the fraud team constantly turning down larger payments (flights, accommodation, car hire etc.), he told us it was an automatic system, nothing he could do, and would we like to change to this new card the bank is offering?
Would it be any better? No, we’d still be stuck with automatic intervention and infuriating automated telephone calls.
Bah, humbug. 
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The other day I made a rare, reluctant trip to Amazon on my browser to buy something. I handed over my usual login details but then Amazon wanted me to authorise a second time via the app on my iPad. I removed Amazon’s app from my devices a while back as their pervasive surveillance means they’ve lost my trust. As an alternative, they can send me a WhatsApp message, assuming I have that app. I don’t. It’s none of Meta’s business who I speak to, who my friends are, how often I message them, at what time etc etc. So that just leaves me with the option to call customer services, at which point I gave up and went elsewhere. I won’t be attempting to purchase from Amazon any more. I only wish I could exclude them from my search results.
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Exactly the sort of experience I was writing about, only you seem to have had it even worse if anything. There seems to be no end to corporate greed altering and creating systems to maximise their own profits without any regard to the actual customer who is forced to use it. And making it impossible to speak to a human for help. And when they do let you speak to a human, it’s usually some poor underpaid soul living in the lowest wage country they can find, with a difficult accent and no authority to fix anything.
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But on the positive side , we’ve all learnt new skills.
We are now Insurance brokers: Book our own insurances on line.
Bank tellers : Onliine banking .
Post office staff: Tax our vehicles on line .
Doctors receptionist: Triage E forms
Travel Agents: Flight and Hotel bookings
Etc, etc …
So just think how much free time you now all have thanks to computers ..!
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Must admit I often buy from Amazon, and now have Amazon Prime with their TV channel.
However, during the adverts a box now pops up with “add to basket”, in case you want to buy that floor cleaner/shampoo/shaver kit or whatever is being advertised!
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I bought a new TV a few months ago (aging eyes needed 40" not 32" screen). Of course you can’t buy normal TVs any more, only so called smart TVs. So what’s meant to be a Panasonic TV starts up with Amazon’s logos and the first thing it wants is for me to give Amazon permission to monitor everything I do, and then every time I turn it on for me to sign in or create an Amazon account before it will go any further, for which it will need internet access obviously.
Needless to say I’ve not done any of those things or given it internet access, I just needed it as a dumb monitor for a small PC running open source TV and media software of my choice. Fortunately I can do that as the TV let me select HDMI input as default so I don’t have to do anything when switching TV on. Other than wait 30 seconds for it to boot and to get irritated by Amazon’s animated logos and login prompt before it detects the HDMI signal.
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P.S. I also got a bit of a shock second time I used it when it started installing security updates to the remote control, thought somehow it had found some open WiFi network to get itself internet access, but I reckon TV just had updates installed in factory. Did make me realise remote control was Bluetooth or something, not ye olde infrared. Also noticed the microphone on the remote control, because of course you’ll want to talk to Alexa, and she’ll be listening out for your every word…
I needed a new pumped shower after our old Aqualisa ran out of puff.
So I consulted my plumber pal who suggested another Aqualisa as the pipework would be practically the same as it’s up in the roof space.
Ordered it and he came to install it .
Worked Ok for a week and then stopped working.
Phoned Aqualisa….. they said “ ah, it needs an online update “
WTF … I had to link my shower to their app and update it .Whaaaat …. It’s a shower !
2 days of fexking about: No Joy.
Ok sir we will book you an appointment to come and do that for you. But is your loft boarded ? No says I .
I then have to board my loft so that they can get to the pump to update it .
They turn up
Don’t need to go In the loft sir . We can do it from here …!
All done In half an hour so My shower is now connected to the World Wide Web …!
Waste of feckin time !
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