Good to see another "Let's slag off Southern" thread......
Yes it is inconvenient when you have to buy a permit to travel and pay at the other end. Yes it is inconvenient when you know there's gonna be a queue, so you must arrive a little bit earlier at the station to buy your ticket and catch your train in good time.
But don't blame Southern. Blame the ******** who vandalised the ticket machine.
And next time you buy a ticket from that machine, look around. There will be a cctv camera monitoring you and it. Southern actually are trying to stop this happening.