This is an excellent example of a concrete problem with a foreseeable solution that will have tangible real-world effects. I find your comments and the origina

This is an excellent example of a concrete problem with a foreseeable solution that will have tangible real-world effects. I find your comments and the original submission inspiring. I think that the reason why so many of these recognizable problems remain unsolved has to do with something of a snowball effect. The opportunity to do hard work that can be seen as purely technological innovation is often more appealing than retrofitting some technology to solve an existing problem. To use the example you gave, _forms_ of online payment exist, and are growing. Products like Paypal have been changing the way many companies think about accepting payment from their customers for years; immediate online payment has slowly been adopted by the U.S's largest banks. However, for most of their users, these technologies exist as innovations in luxury: they improve upon existing technologies in order to provide further ease-of-use. This is different, I think, than applying an existing technology to a problem: instead of _improving_ upon something, you are instead _applying_ something to a different set of circumstances. I think many people do not think of that as a hard problem: since the 'hard' technology already exists, applying it should be easy. I also think that for most ambitious people who have 'innovate' stamped at the top of their to-do list and have the freedom of choosing what they would like to work on, it then appears to be a choice between 'improve' and 'apply', and improve likely wins out for most. EDIT: I realize that I essentially re-make the 'iterate vs innovate' point the author makes in my above comment, but I am choosing to keep it there for the sake of coherence.