On 8 May, 12:20, MIG wrote:
There seems to be a standard pattern to these exchanges.

Person A points out that certain people (eg those living in South
London or occasional visitors) are disadvantaged by rules which need
not be as they are and suggests a simple change to the rules.
[...]
Person A says for Godsake, I am just pointing out that the unfairness
is unnecessary and could be solved (repeating whatever the suggestion
was, eg normal priced extensions for paper travelcards).

Person B comes back and says "you are making a mountain out of a
molehill".

The thing about all this is not the scale of the molehill, just that
when there is a molehill, however small, for which there is a
solution, it is sheer bloody-mindedness that makes TfL and its
defenders refuse to contemplate addressing it.

In this case, Person A wasn't talking about something sensible and
straightforward like extension fares - they were suggesting that the
price differential between Oyster and paper tickets should be
abolished, despite the fact that paper tickets are substantially more
expensive for TfL to deal with.

Yes, auto-top-up should work on buses, prepay should be valid for all
rail travel within Greater London, etc, and no, the fact that these
don't work isn't the regular punter's fault.

But that doesn't alter the original point, which is that it saves us
all a lot of time and money if people use Oyster; therefore people who
don't use Oyster cost us all a lot of time and money; therefore it's
fair to charge them more for the privilege.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org