Five and a half years of NFC phone payments, still it’s a rarity
2012 Google Wallet with NFC was out and usable on the HTC EVO 4G LTE, ISIS, a badly named competitor was active as well. October 20, 2014. Apple released Apple pay. May 28/29 2015 Google Introduces what eventually becomes Google Pay. August 20, 2015 Samsung Releases Samsung Pay.
There are commercials left and right airing that show people paying with their phones. Really, it aired nonstop.
This ends up being a sort of survey at the end as a note. Your input will be appreciated.
Yet in 2018 it’s still a rarity to see anyone doing so. I get asked all the time if this is something new by cashiers who have been on the job for years and never witnessed a tap a phone to pay. I’ve paid where people have straight up told me it wouldn’t work (it did,) and I have never seen anyone other than me using a phone tap to pay.
So I sit here at midnight when I should be sleeping wondering what’s happened that adoption of tap to pay just hasn’t gone mainstream even though it’s supported nearly everywhere. Every time I watch someone digging through a purse while holding a cell phone part of me wants to scream “just set up the pay app already” but refrains.
The claim used to be that people were so patterned to swipe their card that it was not in the muscle memory, so to speak. This changed a couple of years back when every card got a chip and you had to stand there until it buzzed at you like you did something wrong, or played a portion of circus music. That should have been when it took off.
Even with the failures I encountered I persisted, most terminals seem to accept it, even if it’s nor particularly indicated well on them. I’d rather tap my phone than get out my wallet with the Pocketable$ Million$ falling out of it. I assume other people are in the same boat, but maybe I’m wrong.
So, honest question, why aren’t you using tap to pay? If you are why do you think others aren’t? Is Paul just existing in a vast wasteland of unused technology? Is his new nickname to be Mad aMex?
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