A Public Meeting Tried to Solve Crowding With QR Codes and Accidentally Created a New Crowd
The event promised streamlined participation and instead produced the sort of cooperative confusion that only appears when everyone is being modern at once.
The first problem with QR-code civic access is technical. The second is social. Once a room of residents discovers that participation now depends on battery life, browser tolerance, and tiny on-screen instructions, the meeting acquires a side plot.
People become temporary aides to strangers. Reading glasses are borrowed. Brightness settings are negotiated. A man with quiet confidence takes over one corner of the hall and begins explaining the difference between two near-identical links.
That improvised mutual aid is the nicest part of the story. It is also evidence that the official design handed ordinary friction back to the public and then congratulated itself for being efficient.
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