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Reasons Not to Use FLIXbus

Here are reasons to reject FLIXbus, as well as its subsidiary, Greyhound.

Requires Internet Purchase Using Nonfree Software

Demands an ID Card

Greyhound Too

Acceptable Alternatives

Satire


Requires Internet Purchase Using Nonfree Software

FLIXbus does not sell tickets for cash. It allows purchase only over the internet. As a consequence, purchase of a ticket requires the customer to run nonfree software, which is an injustice to that customer.

That nonfree payment software is nonfree JavaScript code. If you refuse to run that (for instance, by enabling LibreJS), you'll see that you should not buy that ticket.

Demands an ID Card

FLIXbus demands to see the ID card of every passenger. Systematic identification of domestic travelers is a dangerous injustice; it is the soil from which repression grows.

It used to be that in the US we could travel and do most activities without proof of identity. This increase in mass surveillance (and others) must be reversed.

Greyhound Too

Even worse, FLIXbus has purchased Greyhound. Greyhound will still accept cash, but that doesn't give passengers any privacy because it demands to look at their ID cards.

Acceptable Alternatives

There are other bus lines in parts of the US which you can still ride, paying cash for your ticket and without showing ID. They ask for "your name" but you don't have to prove it is the name that the state knows you by.

Satire

People say that the company's name is actually FUXbus, but it took to writing the U strangely.


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