Elon is always obsessed with WeChat’s model. (For those who don’t know about WeChat, it is basically the name of the ‘Everything app’.)
Everything in one single point is pretty convenient but has led to a bunch of risks…
Leave a risk that you know in the comment.
I can’t talk about google, but I do recall at launch that increased provacy was a widely touted feature of apple pay. If you’re using a credit card, all of your purchases are tracked, and your credit card provider is able to mine and sell all of that data.
In addition, the merchant can do the same if you use a credit card. With apple pay, your phone anonymizes the number by only sending the merchant an authorization. In addition, apple does not store your transaction info.
If I recall correctly, one of the reasons walmart originally failed to implement apple pay at their terminals was their loss of the ability to track customer purchases. They tried implementing some janky thing with qr codes.
Increased privacy in language of these corporations means “the only people who can access all of your data is us, our 50000 partner companies and every their partner company, and half of the governments on this planet that are currently touted as friendly. But nobody else, trust us bro”.
I know banks are shit, but well I have 4 bank cards from 4 banks from 4 countries, and for now, that shit isn’t pooled yet.
Plus I can still use cash, and even leave my phone at home if I wanna buy… Something… Without it being tracked.
The problem of merchants tracking or stealing your card data is mainly in certain countries using banking systems that are 30 years out of date.
Besides, people keep flocking to using all the store chains’ apps and reward cards and whatnot, using their real names and data, so enhanced privacy in that regard is moot if people don’t care in the first place.
I also don’t recall any talks about giving banks nonstop access to all our IDs and car keys and other stuff that’s slowly creeping into phones, or rather into the hands of the handful big brother entities.
But the payment systems are just one thing that came to mind, it’s not the only problem with these ideas.
I get the sentiment and where it’s coming from, but I just want to emphasize that the privacy arrangements, such as the one I linked, do lay out in somewhat explicit detail what data apple is retaining (eg, not your credit card number), what is sent to the card issuers, what is sent to the merchant, and what remains on your personal phone. I’m not talking about any other parties.
I do not trust companies to act in my best interest. I do trust them, to a first order approximation, to act in their own. Apple has made user data privacy a cornerstone of what they use to appeal to customers, and I feel that I can trust them not to risk a three trillion dollar valuation on trying to mine some credit card data.
I think there’s a middle ground between using cash in person for all transactions and going heels to jesus by posting extensive personal information to facebook and twitter. Everyone needs to find their comfort zone, and should do so with information that’s as accurate as possible.