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All these "Company"Pay systems are horrible for the consumer. Sure they may give a particular consumer a particular benefit at a particular point in time, but o

by oneJob 11y ago

All these "Company"Pay systems are horrible for the consumer. Sure they may give a particular consumer a particular benefit at a particular point in time, but on balance they are the Facebook of currencies. One of PayPal's initial strategies was to maximize transactions for which both the payer and payee were PayPal customers. This decreased PayPal's operating costs and reduced fraud by a large amount. Sounds like everyone wins, right? That's simply not what currency is. Currency is an transferable i.o.u. worth whatever the creditor says it's worth. The most pervasive currency is currently the greenback. Every additional party or layer between you and the U.S. government increases credit risk and transaction costs everytime you make a transaction outside the pay network your currency is held in. Visa is so convenient because they try to be everywhere, because that's their business. Apple is not a payment network. Walmart is not a payment network. Walmart Pay is simple one part of Walmart's portfolio. Since it's not their core product, they will by necessity make compromises that negatively affect their Walmart Pay from time to time in order to benefit some other part of their business. Look to GE Capital for a case study of what can go wrong there. Just as Facebook is a walled garden for communities, these pay networks are walled gardens for currencies. Some are actually really great, just as Facebook is actually a really great community site. But at the end of the day it's not your garden. With other options such as Visa or cash, I find it difficult to justify turning over yet another critical apect of my daily life to a profit driven corporation according to the limiting and onerous terms and conditions they set. Phew. Now I can go back to watching Wes Craven's "Shocker".

cballard 11y ago
Apple Pay is just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with better security - disposable credit card numbers to defeat merchant tracking and leaks.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Also faster. Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast. That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus & recognize, done. Too long. I tried Walmart's Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it. Edit: actually there has been a "tap to pay" available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn't, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.
  - oneJob 11y ago
    My AmEx card has had tap-to-pay functionality for years now. I keep it in my wallet where it is nearest the outside and can use without removing from my wallet. Easy. No buttons. No QR codes. And it's old tech. Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone.
    - jonknee 11y ago
      > Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone. Having it as part of your cell phone makes it much more secure (Apple Pay requires your fingerprint for it to work). Contactless cards can get skimmed: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-card-is-too-easy-says-which http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-car...
    - cballard 11y ago
      Your cell phone's data is protected by a fingerprint reader or arbitrary-length passcode, while your wallet's data is protected by the other person not having a knife.
      - cperciva 11y ago
        Your wallet is protected by the other person not having a knife. Your cell phone's data is protected by the other person not being willing to use their knife to cut off one of your fingers. ;-)
        cballard 11y ago
        Muggers are still stealing iOS devices, which people can just permanently brick via iCloud now, so I wouldn't expect that level of foresight!
        r00fus 11y ago
- oneJob 11y ago
  "Apple (AAPL, Tech30) gets just 15 cents for every $100 in Apple Pay transactions, according to Gillis."[1] In addition to the minor surcharge, there is the (opportunity) cost of Apple's hardware, the costs to vendors of supporting (yet) another platform, the consumer provides value to Apple in the form of consumer information, the consumer now has their fingerprint tied to payments, and then there is everything that goes along with the terms and conditions. Regarding the security, I'm not sure what the details are, but it seems that the attack surface is increased substantially. I'd personally prefer to have Visa, AmEx, etc reviewing and resolving fraud and other claims, seeing as how they've been doing it for decades and their bottom line depends on it, whereas Apple is relatively new to the game and Apple's bottom line does not depend on it. Apple Pay might be awesome. Idk. But it's not "just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with better security". [1]http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/26/technology/apple-pay/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/26/technology/apple-pay/
  - joebolte 11y ago
    You are very misinformed about Apple Pay, and the poster you are replying to is correct. CC networks pay the Apple Pay surcharge, not customers or vendors. To vendors, Apple Pay looks like a regular NFC transaction, except with a one-time card number, so there is no danger of the kind of hacks that happened to Target, Home Depot, and many other retailers. Apple has nothing at all to do with "reviewing and resolving fraud and other claims." The CC networks still do this.
    - oneJob 11y ago
      When I buy a burrito and then look at a receipt (as I always do after buying a burrito) I do not see the visa surcharge, or any others. I see tax but that's it. At the end of the day, the consumer pays, because there is no free lunch, there are no free burritos. I may have made an incorrect assumption regarding claims handling, though I'm not sure how that translates me to being "very misinformed". I wasn't speaking only from the vendor perspective (idk what it looks like to them) or the Apple Pay customer's perspective (I'm not one of their customers) but I highly doubt it's worth my time to research to confirm that adding Apple Pay into the mix does not somehow increase the attack surface or how it does not somehow increase the amount of my personal information that is with Apple.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Indeed, and *Pay / CurrentC / Venmo / Square Cash / Dwolla are all just nice frontends for ACH.
- mukmuk 11y ago
  I think this is a common misperception regarding Apple Pay - it actually does not use disposable credit card numbers. Apple Pay generates a Device Account Number (DAN) once when you add a card to your phone's wallet. Thereafter, the same DAN is reused on that device for all transactions with that card. So it actually does not do much to defeat merchant tracking, assuming you consistently use Apple Pay where it is available.
kanzure 11y ago
> That's simply not what currency is. Currency is an transferable i.o.u. worth whatever the creditor says it's worth. The most pervasive currency is currently the greenback. Every additional party or layer between you and the U.S. government increases credit risk and transaction costs everytime you make a transaction outside the pay network your currency is held in. The root problem with traditional currency is all the trust required to make it work. -- Not that justified trust is a bad thing, but trust makes systems brittle, opaque, and costly to operate. Trust failures result in systemic collapses, trust curation creates inequality and monopoly lock-in, and naturally arising trust choke-points can be abused to deny access to due process. Through the use of cryptographic proof and decentralized networks there is a way to minimize and replace these trust costs. (Just something that's been floating around in my head lately... Carry on.)
- oneJob 11y ago
  The cryptographic proof strictly verifies whether or not the currency is authentic or counterfeit. There is no implicit value in the proof. In fact, there is a cost to calculating the proof. The value is in the willingness of the person holding the i.o.u. to honor that i.o.u. A "perfect" cryptocurrency provides two of the three requirements of currency (a means of transferring value, and a unit of measurement of that value) but it does not (as no tangible or conceptual thing ever will) provide intrinsic value for the exchange. Value is subjective. Gold is useful today, not so much tomorrow. Gunpowder is useful to you, but not so much to me. Given that it has been debunked that currency arose out of trade and barter (i.e. currency with intrinsic value has replaced items with trade specific value so as to be more fungible), well, where is the value then? Trust is the value. You trust you can, once your currency is verified, exchange it for something you value from someone. If that person does not trust that the currency you are offering will be able to be tendered elsewhere,,, then no exchange, because the currency is of no value to them. What if everyone stops using U.S. dollar bills tomorrow? Does my bank account morph into some other value that I can use? Is it tied up in some vault of gold at the US Treasury? No. It becomes a worthless number on a register somewhere. But, the bartender at my local watering hole might vouch for me that I had that much or that I made that much money or that my credit was good. Trust = Credit Without trust there is only trade and barter. Without the ability to trust that the future will have value in it, I'm only going to go with what is right in front of me right now. And a proof, it's interesting (I loves me some math), but, most of the time, I'm not going to say it has some sort of intrinsic worth that I'd trade, say, you a burrito for it.
superuser2 11y ago
The problem with your argument is that "Company"Pay services are not gardens but conduits. You keep your money in the "garden" of your actual bank account and can extract it with whatever proprietary system you wish, because at the end of the day they're all just wrappers around the ACH network kept open by the federal government. There's no lock in when you can use all the proprietary systems at the same time with no negative effects. I have a debit card, credit card, Venmo, Square Cash, and a checkbook and I use them all concurrently as I please, because at the end of the day they all interface over ACH with my credit union.

by oneJob 11y ago

cballard 11y ago

Apple Pay is just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with better security - disposable credit card numbers to defeat merchant tracking and leaks.

ctdonath 11y ago
Also faster. Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast. That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus & recognize, done. Too long. I tried Walmart's Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it. Edit: actually there has been a "tap to pay" available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn't, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.
- oneJob 11y ago
  My AmEx card has had tap-to-pay functionality for years now. I keep it in my wallet where it is nearest the outside and can use without removing from my wallet. Easy. No buttons. No QR codes. And it's old tech. Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    > Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone. Having it as part of your cell phone makes it much more secure (Apple Pay requires your fingerprint for it to work). Contactless cards can get skimmed: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-card-is-too-easy-says-which http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-car...
  - cballard 11y ago
    Your cell phone's data is protected by a fingerprint reader or arbitrary-length passcode, while your wallet's data is protected by the other person not having a knife.
    - cperciva 11y ago
      Your wallet is protected by the other person not having a knife. Your cell phone's data is protected by the other person not being willing to use their knife to cut off one of your fingers. ;-)
      - cballard 11y ago
        Muggers are still stealing iOS devices, which people can just permanently brick via iCloud now, so I wouldn't expect that level of foresight!
        r00fus 11y ago
oneJob 11y ago
"Apple (AAPL, Tech30) gets just 15 cents for every $100 in Apple Pay transactions, according to Gillis."[1] In addition to the minor surcharge, there is the (opportunity) cost of Apple's hardware, the costs to vendors of supporting (yet) another platform, the consumer provides value to Apple in the form of consumer information, the consumer now has their fingerprint tied to payments, and then there is everything that goes along with the terms and conditions. Regarding the security, I'm not sure what the details are, but it seems that the attack surface is increased substantially. I'd personally prefer to have Visa, AmEx, etc reviewing and resolving fraud and other claims, seeing as how they've been doing it for decades and their bottom line depends on it, whereas Apple is relatively new to the game and Apple's bottom line does not depend on it. Apple Pay might be awesome. Idk. But it's not "just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with better security". [1]http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/26/technology/apple-pay/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/26/technology/apple-pay/
- joebolte 11y ago
  You are very misinformed about Apple Pay, and the poster you are replying to is correct. CC networks pay the Apple Pay surcharge, not customers or vendors. To vendors, Apple Pay looks like a regular NFC transaction, except with a one-time card number, so there is no danger of the kind of hacks that happened to Target, Home Depot, and many other retailers. Apple has nothing at all to do with "reviewing and resolving fraud and other claims." The CC networks still do this.
  - oneJob 11y ago
    When I buy a burrito and then look at a receipt (as I always do after buying a burrito) I do not see the visa surcharge, or any others. I see tax but that's it. At the end of the day, the consumer pays, because there is no free lunch, there are no free burritos. I may have made an incorrect assumption regarding claims handling, though I'm not sure how that translates me to being "very misinformed". I wasn't speaking only from the vendor perspective (idk what it looks like to them) or the Apple Pay customer's perspective (I'm not one of their customers) but I highly doubt it's worth my time to research to confirm that adding Apple Pay into the mix does not somehow increase the attack surface or how it does not somehow increase the amount of my personal information that is with Apple.
superuser2 11y ago
Indeed, and *Pay / CurrentC / Venmo / Square Cash / Dwolla are all just nice frontends for ACH.
mukmuk 11y ago
I think this is a common misperception regarding Apple Pay - it actually does not use disposable credit card numbers. Apple Pay generates a Device Account Number (DAN) once when you add a card to your phone's wallet. Thereafter, the same DAN is reused on that device for all transactions with that card. So it actually does not do much to defeat merchant tracking, assuming you consistently use Apple Pay where it is available.

kanzure 11y ago

> That's simply not what currency is. Currency is an transferable i.o.u. worth whatever the creditor says it's worth. The most pervasive currency is currently the greenback. Every additional party or layer between you and the U.S. government increases credit risk and transaction costs everytime you make a transaction outside the pay network your currency is held in. The root problem with traditional currency is all the trust required to make it work. -- Not that justified trust is a bad thing, but trust makes systems brittle, opaque, and costly to operate. Trust failures result in systemic collapses, trust curation creates inequality and monopoly lock-in, and naturally arising trust choke-points can be abused to deny access to due process. Through the use of cryptographic proof and decentralized networks there is a way to minimize and replace these trust costs. (Just something that's been floating around in my head lately... Carry on.)

oneJob 11y ago
The cryptographic proof strictly verifies whether or not the currency is authentic or counterfeit. There is no implicit value in the proof. In fact, there is a cost to calculating the proof. The value is in the willingness of the person holding the i.o.u. to honor that i.o.u. A "perfect" cryptocurrency provides two of the three requirements of currency (a means of transferring value, and a unit of measurement of that value) but it does not (as no tangible or conceptual thing ever will) provide intrinsic value for the exchange. Value is subjective. Gold is useful today, not so much tomorrow. Gunpowder is useful to you, but not so much to me. Given that it has been debunked that currency arose out of trade and barter (i.e. currency with intrinsic value has replaced items with trade specific value so as to be more fungible), well, where is the value then? Trust is the value. You trust you can, once your currency is verified, exchange it for something you value from someone. If that person does not trust that the currency you are offering will be able to be tendered elsewhere,,, then no exchange, because the currency is of no value to them. What if everyone stops using U.S. dollar bills tomorrow? Does my bank account morph into some other value that I can use? Is it tied up in some vault of gold at the US Treasury? No. It becomes a worthless number on a register somewhere. But, the bartender at my local watering hole might vouch for me that I had that much or that I made that much money or that my credit was good. Trust = Credit Without trust there is only trade and barter. Without the ability to trust that the future will have value in it, I'm only going to go with what is right in front of me right now. And a proof, it's interesting (I loves me some math), but, most of the time, I'm not going to say it has some sort of intrinsic worth that I'd trade, say, you a burrito for it.

superuser2 11y ago

The problem with your argument is that "Company"Pay services are not gardens but conduits. You keep your money in the "garden" of your actual bank account and can extract it with whatever proprietary system you wish, because at the end of the day they're all just wrappers around the ACH network kept open by the federal government. There's no lock in when you can use all the proprietary systems at the same time with no negative effects. I have a debit card, credit card, Venmo, Square Cash, and a checkbook and I use them all concurrently as I please, because at the end of the day they all interface over ACH with my credit union.