Fair enough, I misunderstood how you imagined barcodes to be implemented, and yes, that invalidates my specific arguments. I do, however, not agree that it's a

Fair enough, I misunderstood how you imagined barcodes to be implemented, and yes, that invalidates my specific arguments. I do, however, not agree that it's a superior solution to Oyster cards. First, the Oyster card was introduced in 2003 when even fewer cellphones would have been capable of displaying these barcodes - even then, the Oyster card was immediately available to everybody. That is a major feature - and it's not a small thing that even today all cellphones can't effortlessly do this. Fast mass adoption is a feature. Also, no matter how easy the implementation, buying a barcode-ticket on your phone and then scanning it is more complicated than simply touching a card. If you have to run to catch a train, you don't want to have to stop and fiddle with your phone, for however short time, to get it to show the relevant barcode. But that's dwelling over tiny details. My post was a counter-point to your claim that the Oyster card has grave and obvious flaws and was deployed in favour of an obviously better solution. I argue that, even considering that the Oyster card system have problems, those have not been exploited, while enabling the benefits of a pay-as-you-go system. And just to be clear: I fully expect the Oyster system to be replaced by a system based on NFC once that is viable. That just wasn't in 2003, and it isn't today.