Given current technology the choices are to either hold something that a hundred other people held that day before you or to use your own phone with an app.
Applications do have choices when it comes to permissions. Just because it’s an app doesn’t mean it has to be intrusive.
That said, there’s no way a national chain would put out an app without collecting data.
Certainly this could be done with QR codes and a phone app?
It’s about oil and profits. They want us to need a car to go anywhere. More cars, more oil, more profits, RIGHT?
My desktop PC kicked the bucket after 10 years a few months back and I ended up using my Steam Deck as my primary computer for about a month. In that time I learned that Linux isn’t so bad.
If forced to either pay a subscription for Windows or switch to Linux the choice seems simple for me at this point.
They make more money by porting it to PC after a couple years rather than keeping it exclusive forever.