Because iso/power failures, lost/broken devices, let alone the government doesn’t need to know every transaction, the inability to gift a displaced person $20, or money in a birthday card.
Wechat and Alipay do all that except the not keeping a record of transactions. There’s tons of food places where the entire payment system is just a printed QR code and they just tell you how much to pay so there’s nothing that can go down except the phone network and wifi.
You can also just give people money, which seems like it shouldn’t work with a credit card because it’s technically a cash advance. There’s been a dozen times where a store that requires everything go through an app so they can make you click through 3 menus advertising discounts if you buy more items wouldn’t work because I didn’t have a Chinese number or something, and the employee would put in the order, then I’d give their personal account the money.
Oh yeah, no in America or Europe, if everyone used an app to do basic functions like buying food, it would be exploited to make everything worse, no shot that it would be regulated in a way that favors the people rather than the banks.
It is not a matter to “want to hide”. It is more a matter to “need to know” access to my personal information. Why government want to know where and when I buy my stuffs? And most important, who will have acces to that? US recently saw that imbecile of Elon Musk being grant access to IRS data.
"want to hide” != Privacy. Maybe I want to donate anonymously. Maybe I want to leave $5 in a community pantry or pay a backyard mechanic. Maybe I want to pay a neighbor for picking up milk for me. Maybe in a world of always on surveillance, it’s a small act of resistance.
Why would it be a failure? I loved never having to carry anything but a phone in China.
Because iso/power failures, lost/broken devices, let alone the government doesn’t need to know every transaction, the inability to gift a displaced person $20, or money in a birthday card.
Wechat and Alipay do all that except the not keeping a record of transactions. There’s tons of food places where the entire payment system is just a printed QR code and they just tell you how much to pay so there’s nothing that can go down except the phone network and wifi.
You can also just give people money, which seems like it shouldn’t work with a credit card because it’s technically a cash advance. There’s been a dozen times where a store that requires everything go through an app so they can make you click through 3 menus advertising discounts if you buy more items wouldn’t work because I didn’t have a Chinese number or something, and the employee would put in the order, then I’d give their personal account the money.
I don’t have access to those. I’m in the Evil Empire.
Oh yeah, no in America or Europe, if everyone used an app to do basic functions like buying food, it would be exploited to make everything worse, no shot that it would be regulated in a way that favors the people rather than the banks.
There are still power and internet outages possible, climate disasters aren’t going to only hit those who deserve it.
As goverment can known your card transactions already if needed, then what transactions you want to hide?
The comparison was to cash, not credit cards. The government doesn’t know who I hand cash to.
It is not a matter to “want to hide”. It is more a matter to “need to know” access to my personal information. Why government want to know where and when I buy my stuffs? And most important, who will have acces to that? US recently saw that imbecile of Elon Musk being grant access to IRS data.
"want to hide” != Privacy. Maybe I want to donate anonymously. Maybe I want to leave $5 in a community pantry or pay a backyard mechanic. Maybe I want to pay a neighbor for picking up milk for me. Maybe in a world of always on surveillance, it’s a small act of resistance.