4 ms·

Happened to me. Lost my phone. Bought a cheap Huawei for temporary usage and got a replacement SIM card same day, was up and running really fast. Eventually

• reaperducer 8y ago
  Lost my phone. Bought a cheap Huawei But the problem in a phone-only payment world is when you lose your phone, how do you buy the cheap temporary replacement? You literally have nothing to pay for it with.
  • PakG1 8y ago
    Well, first, it'd probably be a phone-primary payment world, not a phone-only payment world. The traditional bank infrastructure would probably still exist. But even if not, and it was truly a phone-only payment world, I can't believe that they wouldn't have some kind of backup process available. And even if no backup process were available, the first friend I could bump into or email could help me buy a cheap phone, and then I'd pay them back after I'm up and running again. I see no scenarios where my risk exposure is significant in a phone loss or breakage scenario.
    • reaperducer 8y ago
      Well, first, it'd probably be a phone-primary payment world, not a phone-only payment world That's just moving the goalposts. The whole point of the original post was that moving to a phone-only payment world is a bad thing, and that's what is happening in some places (China is only one). I see no scenarios where my risk exposure is significant in a phone loss or breakage scenario. Then I submit that you lack imagination. Here's a scenario: You're in a country you've never been before. You took an Uber to a restaurant recommended by the hotel concierge. Food was great. You pay with your phone, then leave. In the street as you try to text your wife a picture of the awesome food, a passerby bumps into you and your phone goes through a sewer grate. You now have no phone. You can't summon another Uber because you don't have access to the app. You can't call a cab because you can't pay for it. You can't take transit because your transit pass was on the phone. You can't walk back to the hotel, because your map is an app. You can't talk to the locals because your translation dictionary is an app. You're screwed.
      • taberiand 8y ago
        You hail the cab and ask them to take you to a phone store, then keep the meter running until you get a new phone. If you're that totally helpless in a foreign country without your phone, you probably should go with a friend or local.
        • refurb 8y ago
          How do you pay for a new phone?
        • gjs278 8y ago
          they will not do that for you
        • andrewvc 8y ago
          You're ignoring the question. It's not about ability, it's about failure mode. I like keys / phone / wallet because you can lose 2/3 of those things and still be fine in you home city. Lose your phone/wallet? Call a cab, go home, get a backup CC or cash. Lose your keys/phone? You can buy/borrow a phone / call a locksmith. Worst case you can book a hotel with your wallet. Etc. Phone only..... you lose it, what do you do? Keyless locks with codes do offer part of a solution here. Maybe the right answer in the future will just be to have two phones. Probably a fancy primary and a cheap backup.
        • reaperducer 8y ago
          You hail the cab and ask them As noted above, you don't speak the language and both your foreign translation app and dictionary are in your now gone phone. then keep the meter running until you get a new phone That was funny. Thanks for that one. If you're that totally helpless in a foreign country without your phone, you probably should go with a friend or local. It's not the person who is helpless. It's being forced to rely on a single point of failure (the phone) that makes people helpless. Also, there are literally millions solo travelers in the world. Telling someone they cannot travel unaccompanied makes no sense. The whole point of the map apps, the translation apps, the recommendation apps, etc... is to allow people to accomplish things without others.
  • taude 8y ago
    What happens if you lost your debit card in an older, cash only society?
    • reaperducer 8y ago
      What happens if you lost your debit card in an older, cash only society? If it's a cash-only society, then the debit card wouldn't be useful anyway. Only cash would be useful in a cash-only society.
  • taberiand 8y ago
    You can use the phone you're buying to pay for itself, just log into WeChat on it while in the shop.