While your criticism of losing the ability to easily compare values across columns is valid, that ability is not relevant for many use cases. This use case --

While your criticism of losing the ability to easily compare values across columns is valid, that ability is not relevant for many use cases. This use case -- a list of monthly receipts -- is arguably one of those. Another option here would be to remove less important columns. "Payment #1" seems extraneous. "Period", assuming it is monthly in all cases, could be changed to an abbreviated month name (eg, "Feb"). Now you'd have 3 columns that probably still look okay. As a general solution for a many-columned table on a small device, I disagree that showing the full table and letting me pinch zoom is a good solution. It's a poor user experience, and I appreciate the designer taking the time to think about what my most important needs are and catering my small screen experience to them.