There is no concept of “zone” with the Octopus card. Basically anybody who lives in HK has an Octopus card. Its use is very much entrenched. It’s more convenien

There is no concept of “zone” with the Octopus card. Basically anybody who lives in HK has an Octopus card. Its use is very much entrenched. It’s more convenient than any other “modern” payment method you can think of, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Visa payWave, etc. The only limitation is the daily automatic top-up limit. Which is to say that the desire for anonymity is the actual cause of the long queues, unless you think a lot of dark-haired and yellow-skinned foreigners who never had Octopus cards were flooding to the protest, which is unlikely.