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"A credit card built for the 21st century" is an oxymoron. It's like saying a car phone built for the 21st century. For the love of all that is holy and sacre

"A credit card built for the 21st century" is an oxymoron. It's like saying a car phone built for the 21st century. For the love of all that is holy and sacred, please eliminate the need to carry cards at all. Just let me pay with my phone. Put my drivers license, health insurance card, membership cards, gift cards, car keys, and payment methods into my phone. All of this already exists in some form or another, but Apple and Google have utterly failed to make it work in the real world outside of a few outliers like Starbucks. It's 2014: there is no reason I should have to carry keys and a wallet when I have a modern cell phone. Eliminate paper receipts while you're at it; email them or aggregate in some other way digitally. Save 10 million trees.

krapp 12y ago
There are reasons - separation of concerns, for one. Having a single point of failure for your identity, access to all of your accounts and finances, and the locks on your car doors and home is a bad idea. Making that somehow mandatory is even worse. Because you wouldn't be putting them on the phone, you would be putting them in the cloud, and the companies running the servers and building the apps that monetize your locking and unlocking and spending and self-identifying activities will not be putting security first because they never do. I don't want my legal identity and physical security to depend entirely on cloud-driven Android apps, a contract and a working battery, thank you.
jackmaney 12y ago
Dear gods, please eliminate any ability to pay with my phone! Cards are fragile enough. I don't want to lose access to all of my money if I accidentally drop my phone the wrong way. EDIT: Not to mention my ID and keys! I'm honestly not sure I could think of a worse idea.
- bicknergseng 12y ago
  For you, butterfingers. I've never accidentally destroyed a phone. I have left credit cards and wallets and IDs and keys at bars and hotels. I have had CC numbers used by scammers online, requiring I call my credit card company, figure out what expenses are fraudulent, cancel the card, and have them send another. Magnet strips die all the time. Then I am stuck without one for a week. New car keys are $500+. The DMV. Oh God, the DMV. A phone is not only trackable, but remote wipeable. Order a new one online and pick it up right then in a store or an Amazon same day box or something. All lost information restored in a few minutes via the internet.
  - jackmaney 12y ago
    I've never had a phone destroyed, but electronic devices are, in many ways, far more fragile than plastic cards. I would never want accessibility to absolutely everything tied to only one device, and I literally cannot imagine how anyone would consider this to be a good thing. "Oh crap, my phone fell into a puddle. Oh, well, guess I'll just buy a new one--oh, wait... Well, I could use a drink--oh, wait... Bah, let me just go home--oh, wait..." If you had your way, anyone who lost their phone would be effectively homeless (at least temporarily). Do you now understand how shit-flingingly insane your idea sounds?
    - bicknergseng 12y ago
      The way it is now, you lose your keys and you're effectively homeless. This is why people have spare keys under mats. This is why backups are a good idea. Have everything on your phone, but still keep a spare key if you lock yourself out, keep a spare method of identification, keep a spare method of payment. I don't see why we would sacrifice redundancy when we consolidate to make things more convenient. Does the world end when you lose your keys or wallet now? Then why would it things change if their form changes? Again, it is far, far more convenient for me to replace a phone than it is for me to replace the half dozen cards I carry in my wallet; not to mention the countless more I won't/can't fit in my wallet without looking totally crazy. Oh, and the existing spare key option is wildly insecure. I'd rather have a Lockitron-type device that will also accept a password or fingerprint or something. That'll drive some security experts nuts, but honestly it's far more easy and likely someone will smash in my window than hack my computerized lock or lift my fingerprints.
      - jackmaney 12y ago
        > Does the world end when you lose your keys or wallet now? No. > Then why would it things[sic] change if their form changes? Because the forms are consolidated into one: if you had your way, losing one's phone could mean losing keys, ID, wallet, etc. It's replacing metal fucking keys--the only thing allowing you into your home (without breaking in)--with fragile electronics. Oh, and what would happen if you had your way and someone lost their phone? "Oh well, lemme make a call and see if I can get a replaceme--oh, wait..." Replacing my ID, keys, and cards wouldn't be fun, but all of that would be a fucking pleasant walk in the park compared to replacing a phone containing all of those things. Again, I find myself literally unable to comprehend how anyone could possibly think that this is anything but a horrible idea.
- awongh 12y ago
  I think the point is that your phone is a proxy for the internet/cloud where your information is encrypted and stored, able to be reached from any other internet accessible device through the use of a key/password. (at least in theory/ideally) This isn't true of physical keys/ID/money/currency, where it's completely possible to physically lose all of them, permanently.
dpeck 12y ago
Its coming, but theres about 3 decades of PoS systems that need to be phased out, and even then there needs to be a clear winner (or maybe 2/3) in the space before you're going to see adoption at the walmart and mcdonalds of the world.
zanny 12y ago
Bitcoin called, it works already. Just gotta get the vendors to take it. It is really amazing to pay subway by scanning a QR code and pressing confirm.

krapp 12y ago

There are reasons - separation of concerns, for one. Having a single point of failure for your identity, access to all of your accounts and finances, and the locks on your car doors and home is a bad idea. Making that somehow mandatory is even worse. Because you wouldn't be putting them on the phone, you would be putting them in the cloud, and the companies running the servers and building the apps that monetize your locking and unlocking and spending and self-identifying activities will not be putting security first because they never do. I don't want my legal identity and physical security to depend entirely on cloud-driven Android apps, a contract and a working battery, thank you.

jackmaney 12y ago

Dear gods, please eliminate any ability to pay with my phone! Cards are fragile enough. I don't want to lose access to all of my money if I accidentally drop my phone the wrong way. EDIT: Not to mention my ID and keys! I'm honestly not sure I could think of a worse idea.

bicknergseng 12y ago
For you, butterfingers. I've never accidentally destroyed a phone. I have left credit cards and wallets and IDs and keys at bars and hotels. I have had CC numbers used by scammers online, requiring I call my credit card company, figure out what expenses are fraudulent, cancel the card, and have them send another. Magnet strips die all the time. Then I am stuck without one for a week. New car keys are $500+. The DMV. Oh God, the DMV. A phone is not only trackable, but remote wipeable. Order a new one online and pick it up right then in a store or an Amazon same day box or something. All lost information restored in a few minutes via the internet.
- jackmaney 12y ago
  I've never had a phone destroyed, but electronic devices are, in many ways, far more fragile than plastic cards. I would never want accessibility to absolutely everything tied to only one device, and I literally cannot imagine how anyone would consider this to be a good thing. "Oh crap, my phone fell into a puddle. Oh, well, guess I'll just buy a new one--oh, wait... Well, I could use a drink--oh, wait... Bah, let me just go home--oh, wait..." If you had your way, anyone who lost their phone would be effectively homeless (at least temporarily). Do you now understand how shit-flingingly insane your idea sounds?
  - bicknergseng 12y ago
    The way it is now, you lose your keys and you're effectively homeless. This is why people have spare keys under mats. This is why backups are a good idea. Have everything on your phone, but still keep a spare key if you lock yourself out, keep a spare method of identification, keep a spare method of payment. I don't see why we would sacrifice redundancy when we consolidate to make things more convenient. Does the world end when you lose your keys or wallet now? Then why would it things change if their form changes? Again, it is far, far more convenient for me to replace a phone than it is for me to replace the half dozen cards I carry in my wallet; not to mention the countless more I won't/can't fit in my wallet without looking totally crazy. Oh, and the existing spare key option is wildly insecure. I'd rather have a Lockitron-type device that will also accept a password or fingerprint or something. That'll drive some security experts nuts, but honestly it's far more easy and likely someone will smash in my window than hack my computerized lock or lift my fingerprints.
    - jackmaney 12y ago
      > Does the world end when you lose your keys or wallet now? No. > Then why would it things[sic] change if their form changes? Because the forms are consolidated into one: if you had your way, losing one's phone could mean losing keys, ID, wallet, etc. It's replacing metal fucking keys--the only thing allowing you into your home (without breaking in)--with fragile electronics. Oh, and what would happen if you had your way and someone lost their phone? "Oh well, lemme make a call and see if I can get a replaceme--oh, wait..." Replacing my ID, keys, and cards wouldn't be fun, but all of that would be a fucking pleasant walk in the park compared to replacing a phone containing all of those things. Again, I find myself literally unable to comprehend how anyone could possibly think that this is anything but a horrible idea.
awongh 12y ago
I think the point is that your phone is a proxy for the internet/cloud where your information is encrypted and stored, able to be reached from any other internet accessible device through the use of a key/password. (at least in theory/ideally) This isn't true of physical keys/ID/money/currency, where it's completely possible to physically lose all of them, permanently.

dpeck 12y ago

Its coming, but theres about 3 decades of PoS systems that need to be phased out, and even then there needs to be a clear winner (or maybe 2/3) in the space before you're going to see adoption at the walmart and mcdonalds of the world.

zanny 12y ago

Bitcoin called, it works already. Just gotta get the vendors to take it. It is really amazing to pay subway by scanning a QR code and pressing confirm.