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This is the government's problem. I tend to be on the side of less government, but it is so obvious that payment facilitation should be a service provided by the government. The government is just allowing corporations to collect rents, because they are lazy and incompetent.

Or Apple Pay can just be like Google Wallet is on Android? The alternative is not multiple apps.

A possible compromise is to allow Apple Pay to be a monopoly as long as it doesn't charge any fees.

Remember CurrenC? The thing a bunch of them tried to make that failed horribly during test with no consumers liking it? If I remember a description it involved using an app where you had to scan a QR code, and then the point of sale terminal had to scan a QR code on your phone or something like that.

It was all so hilariously badly designed compared to tap and pay.

Now do developers.

I don't really care about any of Apple's business partners being upset about their business terms with Apple. Developers want a bigger cut, banks want a bigger cut, Foxconn wants a bigger cut.

My interests as an Apple user are aligned with Apple. But even if I wasn't an Apple user, market forces determine what the "fair" cut is for everyone.

granted i am a bit of schadenfreude at the thought of poor poor megabanks having to pay....fees...

Another argument for turning finance into a public utility. Instead we have different factions of rentier capital competing for who gets to parasitize us.

I would use my non-profit credit union Wallet if it meant less fees on their end.

"My short term convenience trumps all" is why everything sucks and we have far worse short and long term convenience and efficiency in everything. Thanks for that.

I won't use $bank-wallet either but that's a seperate issue which is that the bank is not really any better than Apple or PayPal or anyone else. The only reason they "fight" Apple tax is because they want to do $bank tax.

Walmart only relented because they finally broke through the final missing link of the contactless issue. They got customers conned into giving their phone numbers at checkout, just like it's the grocery store.

Cards get linked to accounts automatically behind the scenes based on first6/last4 card number tracking, then everyone else self-selects to punch their phone number on the screen.

Same reason Walmart Radio is such gruesome auditory cancer, it's part of the data collection and advertising vehicle.

Retailers may get less than using their own app, but I agree I don’t really see how it affects the processors or the banks.

However Apple is providing something in all this. Apple Pay requires biometrics which (in theory) should help lower fraud costs for everyone. So it’s not like they’re just rent seeking for nothing.

I don’t know how it went for everyone else, but I don’t remember tapped pay getting popular until after Apple Pay and Apple pushing it. I know that coincided with when EMV terminals really started to get popular because the credit card companies were forcing it. But I honestly wonder if they helped push it to the mainstream, even for people just using tap cards.

Well, fortunately Pix is statedriven/stateenforced/strateregulated, so it contains some of the most important ingredients to become some type of standard - the only reason why Mastercard et.al. are so powerful is because this area/field of tech was long no recognised as critical/relevant enough.

Pix is doing exactly the right thing, as ECB/SEPA is as well.

There's walt, which will be launching soon.

https://walt.is/

If the banks win and other stuff is allowed on the iPhone, that’s fine.

I have no intention of using it. I have a feeling it’ll be crap. That’s how this stuff usually is. And I’m absolutely not going to use a different app for each card.

So I wonder if this will end up being a Pyrrhic victory.