myki, yourki, wanki?

See end of article for Ninja update (pre-posting update)

I have no idea about these silly little cards.

What is the benefit of using these cards to the person traveling on the public transport?

Do they stop the crazy drunk person trying to pick a fight with you, do the remove the graffiti from the trains, do they make the a/c run on the trains, do they make all the trains run on time?

I guess not, they why have they even been introduced at a cost of over $850M (with a further $500M running costs to come)?

In spite of all this, I though I’d try to register for one… here is my tale of woe.

I decided to register, so I went to www.myki.com.au and clicked on the giant button.

I then was asked if I wanted a “myki money”, “myki pass” or “no top up” type of pass. This confused me, so I asked for an explanation. By the way, there was no explanation of “no top up” so I assume this is a magic myki that lets you travel for free!

Click here to view that explanation for yourself, if it makes sense to you, please let me know.

I do understand the types of passes to an extent. You can get a money value pass (myki money) from which it deducts your travel costs, but if I opt for the “stored travel pass” (myki pass) option for which you select a pass duration in days anywhere from 28-365 days (akin to a monthly or yearly pass one would assume), how do I know what it’s going to charge me? Ah I hear you say, the charge bust be related to the zones. Quite possibly, but more on that soon.

As I currently travel to and from work daily via the train, I always buy monthly tickets as they are much cheaper.

Using my current example of Full-fare Zone 1+2.

15.9 x Daily Tickets = 3.4 x Weekly Tickets = 1 Monthly Ticket

From that you can see a very clear calculation that buying a monthly ticket is by far the cheapest option if you use the train to travel to and from work everyday. Keep that in mind for this next part of the journey.

I decided to go for a myki pass, as it sounded like a monthly ticket that I currently use.

I had to tell it how may days/weeks I wanted a pass for, so I decided 4 weeks, it was a nice number that fit into my head well.

No comes the confusing bit, I was then asked to “Choose myki pass zone”. I had to select a “Zone from” and a “Zone to” from the following list of options: Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3…. Zone 81. That’s right 81 zones! Flabbergasted I clicked on the link which helpfully asked “Which zone do I need“

You with me so far? Good. So the long, long list was loaded and I started looking for my local train station, which was not there.

In fact the list, if you haven’t already had a look, was all street addresses listed as either Zone 4 or Zone 5. I was rightly confused by now.

It then asked me “Did you know you can also add miki monkey?” to which I responded “No, but I’m guessing it is actually possible due to the box awaiting my numerical value below you Mr. question”.

I opted not to give any money to miki, as I figure they have enough.

Clicking next, I was then asked if I want Full far or Concession fare prices. Full fare unfortunately for me.

I then got asked a number of questions sure as personalisation (name printed on the card), PIN, Account Holder Details, Postal Address and Contact Details.

By this point I was very uneasy about the whole process so far and canceled the whole thing.

The two main sticking points were:

1. Why do we need this new system?

2. So far nothing had explained to me how the whole “myki pass” worked other that that it was a pass stored on my mkyi that was value for a number of days. No mention of cost or if it was cheaper that just using myki money. I would make the assumption that it is, much in the same way a monthly is cheaper that buying dailys everyday, but I was yet to be shown this.

I may not be that old, but I can see where the “change is bad mentality” comes from, although in my case it should probably be “change with no obvious benefit, that is confusing and seemingly a waste of money is pointless”

If anyone out there has had similar, or different experience please let me know.

Ninja-update:

I did find the fares on the main myki website, although doing a quick calculation based on 1 month=30.5 days, the cost for a monthy pass is $176.90 which is more than my current monthly pass cost of $169.

This then leads back to point 1. above, why do we need this new system, especially if it’s going to cost me more? WTF Kosky?

I pay for software!

This may be a really crazy idea to a lot of people out there, but, I pay for software.

The short reason is based on the fact that I wouldn’t walk into a pc games store, pick up the game I wanted and just walk out with it. It’s simple and how I was brought up.

Anyway on with the show…..

That’s right, I hand over money I have worked to earn in exchange for software that someone else worked to produce. (see how that works, money keeps going round and round and we all get the stuff we need)

I mainly buy computer games, things like World of Warcraft won’t work without payment so that’s a no brainer. There is a continual subscription element, no pay, no play. Simple.

Games that only require a single payment are another story. I could pay over $100 (AUD) for a game that I may end up not even liking. That’s a lot of money. I work full time, have a car and rent a house, $100 is still enough money to warrant a second thought before just forking it over. What is the solution?

Enter digital distribution such as Steam. Purchaing games on Steam means that I don’t get a disc, a booklet or something to wave around showing everyone how much $100 dollars buys you. What I get is the same game that I could have paid too much for, for much less.

For example take Counter Strike: Source, currently $19.99. It’s an old game, so lets look at something newer, Left 4 Dead is only $49.99. The same game at EB Games is $99.95.

whaaa? you gasp in your best Professor Farnsworth voice. ok, now pick your self up off the floor, people are looking at you.

Yup that’s right, $49.96 extra for a box, disc and manual. Granted you do get the security of “I’ve still got the disc so I can reinstall is my pc crashes”. To counter that Steam does this -> You pay once and you can download the game whenever you need to. Your pc crashes you just reload the Steam client and download it again. That’s only if you haven’t backed the game anyway.

And before you think, “Well why can’t I just download the same game on my friend’s pc, then we both have a copy?” Stop that! Your just not getting my point are you? Yarrrrrr, your being naughty. Steam has a client that you sign into each time you want to play a game, so it gets around your plank walking ways.

If you live in a country like Australia where, if download quota was tangible you’d lock it in a safe, it can chew through it like a bear chewing through jelly (OK thats a weird analogy to use, but you get the point) Even if you have some download limit of xxGB per month, split the cost of buying one Steam game vs. boxed game. Use that extra $50 and buy a few data blocks, more than enough to download multiple games. You still end out on top.

Steam is just one example, but the other that comes to mind is GoG and I’m sure others, let me know in the comments.

My very naive and simplistic view of the money-for-software world that eludes so many of you is thus:

If more people pay for software, the cheaper they can sell it.

It’s a crazy-simple idea, and it may never ever come to pass as free is obviously much cheaper that paying just a small amount for a game (legality aside). Take a look at the current state of the music industry for example, but thats a whole other blog.

I should finish this up, but just a little bit more.

The same idea can be applied to buying software other than games, although that sector has a way to go. Only a realtivley small gripe for the benefit of cheaper software mind you.

For example, if I purchase product A as a digital download, I can download it at the time of purchase. If I then need to download it again in a years time (afte a pc crash for instance), I can’t….. unless I bought the “download protection/longevity/extra $5 for nothing” service which then means the software vendor grants me the ability to be able to download Product A at a much later date. Of cousre to get around this, download Product A once, then back it up to a cd, ftp server and usb key and you should be fairly well covered.

OK this post has gone on for way longer that I thought, but I’m hoping some people out there read it and see the point I’m trying to make.

Few that over with. Hit me up with comments, ideas and questions….

BTW. I’m not affiliated nor do I work for Steam, I just like their chosen method of cheaper game distibution.