Makes sense to try to remove any frictions from public transport - if not making it an enjoyable and desirable experience
You can also rent public bicycles and they're all e-bikes/pedelec and they're very cheap (but not free).
This completely gets rid of bullshit overhead like ticketing, ticket checking, payment processing, maintenance of payment terminals, manning of ticket counters, planning departments, billing and finance departments, third party payment fees etc etc etc
It will always be the worst part of my day and with more passengers and the regularly scheduled disasters that won't change any time soon.