"I'm not on Facebook" - oh yes you are. There's a shadow profile built of you even though you never signed up for Facebook. Same goes for Google, and many other services you never explicitly signed up for.
So now let's talk about cash. So you pay with cash and you think your privacy is preserved? Nope! The moment you walk in the store, the wifi beacons are tapping into your smartphone and adding to the internal profile the shop has of you. They know when you walked in the store, they know when you walked out, and they probably know enough to correlate your cash payment with your profile.
I'm sorry but that's the world we live in.
For many people in the world, the smartphone is their only computer. For many people in the world, a smartphone is an invaluable tool that has been a driver of positive change. For many people in the world, a smartphone is required for them to make a living and put food on their family's table.
Having a smartphone is on par with having access to the internet to economic success in many societies.
Like the internet, yes the smartphone has a multitude of downsides that are well documented. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater and make sweeping statements like the one you've made is just wrong.
> Apple Pay retains anonymous transaction information such as approximate purchase amount. This information can’t be tied back to the user and never includes what the user is buying.
https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf, page 38.
They don’t have much information that the issuing bank/card network do not have already.
Credit cards track your purchases. Square maybe makes it a bit more obvious that your purchase history is going up to the internet, but i'm not sure why you think other credit card processors aren't tracking you.
A while back Mastercard did a commercial where they showed you how you could see what you bought in your online statements.
One significant benefit of having that data would be that it would be easier to remember and prove things you owned for insurance purposes after a loss.
This is true about every store. All credit card companies and vendors work together to collate all of this data easily. Most don't tell you they're doing it. Square at least made you aware of it.