To use your example though, as many transit agencies like this dark pattern: BART fare isn't a flat per-ride fee, it's based on distance. You could have a Caltrain-esque system where you put in your destination to get an exact ticket from the machine, but it's confusing to tourists and would make lines even worse I bet.

I assume you ended up with $3.80 on a card after paying $20 and using it twice? I would love to see them end this dark pattern and offer a "Downtown SF-SFO ticket" from SFO at least, maybe one at Powell too for people that lose their tickets, so no need to get a refund. Before Clipper cards were a thing, I used to lose the $3.80 (now $2.70) BART tickets so often that I got into a habit of just giving it to someone on my way into the airport.

SFMTA did away with their "10 ride booklet" to just tell people to add cash that you can use anywhere, I wonder how that works out. Then again the amounts you get at the ticket machine are sane (single ride, $5, 10, 20, 40, 50, monthly pass, etc.) and you pay extra for reloadable cards on top of that, instead of doing this $9+extra fee thing, so...

>America really does love make things needlessly complicated, doesn't it.

I'd say it's just another manipulation tactic companies use to squeeze every cent they can out of their customers - real world dark patterns.

To be fair, handling refunds has a real cost that may not be considered in the cost of the ticket. Also since most of these are government agencies, the lost fares are probably counted as part of the money they need to collect.

Thus fixing the issues could require higher fares to compensate.

The needless complexity is just a bonus, the point is to make sure the balance of cash always flows away from the consumer.