Paying on apps/online is the way to go in cities now a days. I use the Parking spot hero app when I'm in unfamiliar cities, it usually gives a pretty good layout of places to park (cheap spots too). But one time it featured a lot near Beale Street in Memphis that was cheap af but mad desolate. It looked like it was for some municipal building parking lot that probably is busy during the day, but this was at night. I wasn't leaving my car in that spot, so I drove around a bit and found a meter that someone had already put some time into and used that instead. That was the only time that app might've led me astray.I remember a couple years back I was by Steinway Street in Astoria and went to about 7 different meters to get a ticket and they were all broken. Now I use the app to pay for the tickets so there’s no reason to use the meters in 2024.
To be fair, that's true about a lot of cities now since most of them are going to apps.Even they parking meters is dusty