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KrzysisAverted t1_iw9st9i wrote

Reply to comment by aceofpayne in Just a word of advice (or a very brief rant) by 90sAltRockLover

With Metrocards, you can walk into most stations and purchase a card anonymously, with cash, and use it right away.

With OMNY you simply cannot do that. You can either pay with smartphone or credit card (easily tracked, any chance of anonymity is lost) or otherwise you have to go out of your way to find a Duane Reade or other retailer that happens to sell OMNY cards. There may not be one anywhere close to the station. Even if there is, it's definitely not as convenient as having a machine in the station itself.

If NYC cared about its citizens and didn't want to inch towards becoming a police state, it would realize that the "upgrade" (IMO, more of a downgrade) to OMNY removes this functionality--and removing functionality should not be a major side effect of any upgrade/update.

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TeamMisha t1_iwa8iqq wrote

Worry not friend. Take a look on the OMNY FAQ. The roll-out of OMNY includes physical cards which are currently available from retailers as you mention, however, as MetroCards are phased out they will bring online new machines which dispense OMNY cards. They will work the same whereby you can pay cash or credit card. It'd be illogical to remove MC machines, no one wants to "have" to go to CVS to buy their card and reload it manually at a cashier, it's just that they wanted to get physical OMNY cards into the public hands a bit sooner before the machines are ready.

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