3 ms·
What a disastrously bad user experience. But I have to say, I feel sympathy for the guys who designed it. Just like the conventional wisdom tech entrepreneurs
by nlh 12y ago
What a disastrously bad user experience.
But I have to say, I feel sympathy for the guys who designed it. Just like the conventional wisdom tech entrepreneurs are taught -- "take a problem you encounter in your daily life, solve it, build the solution, and sell it" -- this seems like the same thing happening on the corporate side.
Mike Cook and the retailers have a problem -- they don't like paying 1.5-3% to the credit card companies. And I can't blame them -- there's a huge financial incentive to solve problems like that, and if you're the guy who saved WalMart 2% a year, well, you're getting a big bonus, massive internal recognition, and likely a nice promotion. So I commend this group of retailers for trying to solve a problem they have.
But - man, what a terrible solution. And they've made the huge (and common, and classic) mistake of thinking that by solving THEIR problem, they're also solving our problem. The thing is, we love our credit cards, and now we're loving ApplePay (which genuinely improves on the credit card experience), but there seems to be very little to love about CurrentC.
- x0x0 12y agoThere's nothing at all to love. At least with my credit cards when I have a dispute, the bank isn't wholly owned by the company with which I have a dispute. Under the CurrentC solution, these companies would have direct access to my bank account! Anyone who uses this is a fool. ps -- also, when this inevitably gets hacked, instead of sucking money out of your credit cards, your bank account empties. Awesome!
- monksy 12y agoWhy would I care about Apple Pay? I love my credit card. It rewards me for using it. Besides, if you ever lose or damage your phone, you're screwed.
- saryant 12y agoApple Pay doesn't interfere with rewards.
- nlh 12y agoI think you may be misunderstanding ApplePay -- it doesn't get in the way of your CC rewards - it's just a better UX for the classic CC experience. And, I think, Apple has specifically planned for cases where you damage or lose your phone and you're not screwed (or, rather, you're not any more screwed than you'd be with a damaged or lost phone, which stinks in either case!) You just put your phone into 'Lost' mode (remotely) and load your CC details onto your replacement phone. Much safer than losing your physical credit card since your number will never be exposed.
- kenrikm 12y agoApple Pay is just a wrapper on your credit cards - if you damage or lose your phone you still have those dinosaur plastic cards to fall back on.
- monksy 12y agoOh ok, well thats kinda convenient. I thought it was trying to go the way of a phone as credit card approach. Oh well, I'm not invested in the Apple landscape so I didn't care to learn anything about it.