<story><title>Walmart Pay</title><url>http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2015/12/10/walmart-introduces-walmart-pay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>Also faster.&lt;p&gt;Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast.&lt;p&gt;That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus &amp;amp; recognize, done. Too long.&lt;p&gt;I tried Walmart&amp;#x27;s Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it.&lt;p&gt;Edit: actually there &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; been a &amp;quot;tap to pay&amp;quot; available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn&amp;#x27;t, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.</text></item><item><author>cballard</author><text>Apple Pay is just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with &lt;i&gt;better&lt;/i&gt; security - disposable credit card numbers to defeat merchant tracking and leaks.</text></item><item><author>oneJob</author><text>All these &amp;quot;Company&amp;quot;Pay systems are horrible for the consumer. Sure they may give a particular consumer a particular benefit at a particular point in time, but on balance they are the Facebook of currencies.&lt;p&gt;One of PayPal&amp;#x27;s initial strategies was to maximize transactions for which both the payer and payee were PayPal customers. This decreased PayPal&amp;#x27;s operating costs and reduced fraud by a large amount. Sounds like everyone wins, right?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s simply not what currency is. Currency is an transferable i.o.u. worth whatever the creditor says it&amp;#x27;s worth. The most pervasive currency is currently the greenback. Every additional party or layer between you and the U.S. government increases credit risk and transaction costs everytime you make a transaction outside the pay network your currency is held in.&lt;p&gt;Visa is so convenient because they try to be everywhere, because that&amp;#x27;s their business. Apple is not a payment network. Walmart is not a payment network. Walmart Pay is simple one part of Walmart&amp;#x27;s portfolio. Since it&amp;#x27;s not their core product, they will by necessity make compromises that negatively affect their Walmart Pay from time to time in order to benefit some other part of their business. Look to GE Capital for a case study of what can go wrong there.&lt;p&gt;Just as Facebook is a walled garden for communities, these pay networks are walled gardens for currencies. Some are actually really great, just as Facebook is actually a really great community site. But at the end of the day it&amp;#x27;s not your garden. With other options such as Visa or cash, I find it difficult to justify turning over yet another critical apect of my daily life to a profit driven corporation according to the limiting and onerous terms and conditions they set.&lt;p&gt;Phew. Now I can go back to watching Wes Craven&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Shocker&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skrowl</author><text>Apple blocks 3rd party apps from using NFC. It&amp;#x27;s literally only usable in Apple Pay. Walmart can&amp;#x27;t implement it in an iOS app even if they wanted to.</text></comment>
<story><title>Walmart Pay</title><url>http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2015/12/10/walmart-introduces-walmart-pay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>Also faster.&lt;p&gt;Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast.&lt;p&gt;That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus &amp;amp; recognize, done. Too long.&lt;p&gt;I tried Walmart&amp;#x27;s Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it.&lt;p&gt;Edit: actually there &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; been a &amp;quot;tap to pay&amp;quot; available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn&amp;#x27;t, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.</text></item><item><author>cballard</author><text>Apple Pay is just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with &lt;i&gt;better&lt;/i&gt; security - disposable credit card numbers to defeat merchant tracking and leaks.</text></item><item><author>oneJob</author><text>All these &amp;quot;Company&amp;quot;Pay systems are horrible for the consumer. Sure they may give a particular consumer a particular benefit at a particular point in time, but on balance they are the Facebook of currencies.&lt;p&gt;One of PayPal&amp;#x27;s initial strategies was to maximize transactions for which both the payer and payee were PayPal customers. This decreased PayPal&amp;#x27;s operating costs and reduced fraud by a large amount. Sounds like everyone wins, right?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s simply not what currency is. Currency is an transferable i.o.u. worth whatever the creditor says it&amp;#x27;s worth. The most pervasive currency is currently the greenback. Every additional party or layer between you and the U.S. government increases credit risk and transaction costs everytime you make a transaction outside the pay network your currency is held in.&lt;p&gt;Visa is so convenient because they try to be everywhere, because that&amp;#x27;s their business. Apple is not a payment network. Walmart is not a payment network. Walmart Pay is simple one part of Walmart&amp;#x27;s portfolio. Since it&amp;#x27;s not their core product, they will by necessity make compromises that negatively affect their Walmart Pay from time to time in order to benefit some other part of their business. Look to GE Capital for a case study of what can go wrong there.&lt;p&gt;Just as Facebook is a walled garden for communities, these pay networks are walled gardens for currencies. Some are actually really great, just as Facebook is actually a really great community site. But at the end of the day it&amp;#x27;s not your garden. With other options such as Visa or cash, I find it difficult to justify turning over yet another critical apect of my daily life to a profit driven corporation according to the limiting and onerous terms and conditions they set.&lt;p&gt;Phew. Now I can go back to watching Wes Craven&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Shocker&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oneJob</author><text>My AmEx card has had tap-to-pay functionality for years now. I keep it in my wallet where it is nearest the outside and can use without removing from my wallet. Easy. No buttons. No QR codes. And it&amp;#x27;s old tech. Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone.</text></comment>