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My understanding of QR code’s is that they just are a machine readable string and that string is usually a URL. The phone then is responsible for parsing the st

My understanding of QR code’s is that they just are a machine readable string and that string is usually a URL. The phone then is responsible for parsing the string and doing something (like launching a browser/url or other installed app). So users are not paying by QR code, users are paying via a web app and Using the QR code to input the url for that app/item/quantity etc. Is my understanding incorrect?

strikelaserclaw 7y ago
You are right, a QR code can encode information about a bunch of transactions in an image, which is much easier for a person to use than do so manually through screens.
jakub_g 7y ago
Correct. My (wild guess) understanding is that QR codes took off in China because of widespread usage of WeChat, which is a do-all mobile app, including payments etc. If your QR code requires user to create an account in your webservice or install your native app to do anything useful, it does not bring much value, unless everyone around has your native app. Whereas if you integrate via a an app widely used by all people in the country (i.e. the QR code is a URL which opens the widely used app with certain parameters), you're more likely to have people use it. Classical chicken-and-egg problem and a situation where monopolies do better than a fragmented market.
- godot 7y ago
  That's one use case; the other use case that's less talked about is when you use an app where you need to log in on more than 1 device. WhatsApp and WhatsApp Web's QR login is a good example. One of my side projects, http://karaoke.house/ http://karaoke.house/ does something similar as well.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
Standard QR codes can encode numeric, alphanumeric, kanji and binary data. Alphanumeric is the simplest, well supported and most widely used encoding mode. QR code size increases with the amount of data they contain. The larger versions take up lots of space and can be awkward to use. URLs are popular since they're usually small.

strikelaserclaw 7y ago

You are right, a QR code can encode information about a bunch of transactions in an image, which is much easier for a person to use than do so manually through screens.

jakub_g 7y ago

Correct. My (wild guess) understanding is that QR codes took off in China because of widespread usage of WeChat, which is a do-all mobile app, including payments etc. If your QR code requires user to create an account in your webservice or install your native app to do anything useful, it does not bring much value, unless everyone around has your native app. Whereas if you integrate via a an app widely used by all people in the country (i.e. the QR code is a URL which opens the widely used app with certain parameters), you're more likely to have people use it. Classical chicken-and-egg problem and a situation where monopolies do better than a fragmented market.

godot 7y ago
That's one use case; the other use case that's less talked about is when you use an app where you need to log in on more than 1 device. WhatsApp and WhatsApp Web's QR login is a good example. One of my side projects, http://karaoke.house/ http://karaoke.house/ does something similar as well.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

Standard QR codes can encode numeric, alphanumeric, kanji and binary data. Alphanumeric is the simplest, well supported and most widely used encoding mode. QR code size increases with the amount of data they contain. The larger versions take up lots of space and can be awkward to use. URLs are popular since they're usually small.