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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

Somehow, I think these kinds of "clever" QR codes would be less used. Most people aren't going to even notice that they are legit QR codes. QR codes are already underutilized enough, at least in western countries. Cool idea, though!

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It’s my opinion that underutilization is because of application rather than any more ephemeral thing like appearance. QR codes haven’t had a killer app yet, and they tend to be used for marketing rather than any critical tasks that rely on the qualities that make it a useful technology. My guess is this will change as it’s become more or less a requirement to have a cell phone to function in western society.

/My guess is this will change as it’s become more or less a requirement to have a cell phone to function in western society./

I think that time has already arrived... I remember seeing reports that a cellphone was generally the most-valued item amongst the homeless in the US.

(Not quite a quantitative study, but here's an article on the importance of cellphones for homeless people, and challenges they face: https://www.calhealthreport.org/2019/01/11/expired-lost-stol... )

As an European I’d say over half of my mobile payments are already via a QR code (it triggers a direct debit from my bank app). It’s infinitely faster than going through online checkout forms.

Do you at least get a manual confirmation? Because if not, I've a QR code I'd like to show you...

IIRC, the QR code is basically telling an app which merchat to pay. The QR equivalent of 'dTal@paypal plz'.

You enter your PIN, or touch/Face ID.

Also 1) only works up to a daily limit which you can configure 2) it’s a SEPA transfer, goes straight to another local, very traceable account and not a random bitcoin wallet in case you try to pull that off :)

> it’s a SEPA transfer, goes straight to another local, very traceable account and not a random bitcoin wallet in case you try to pull that off

Money mules make this less secure than you think. You can just rent some bums bank account.

Can you give an example?

I am French, use mobile payments and would be interested to see a payment qrcode (never seen one)

Also, when you mention Direct Debit, is this the mechanism which allows a merchant to draw on your bank account? There need to be confirmed with the bank before (though maybe it is possible now to have that in one step, which also has your consentement)

> it's become more or less a requirement to have a cell phone to function in western society

Owning a cell phone doesn't mean everyone keeps it with him at all times, and this will limit potential uses. Hopefully people don't become tied to it that badly.

The people who are constantly pushing for everything to be on a cell phone presumably have never lost or broken one.

"QR codes haven’t had a killer app yet"

When I lived in China, scanning QR codes was how we initiated payments for restaurants, groceries, couriers and other offline goods/services. It was also how we added people to WeChat.

I would guess at least 20 million QR codes are scanned per day in Beijing.

That's a fact.

It's a thing we can't deny.

Like the fact that I will love you 'til I die.

QR code payments are also sweeping Japan, despite contactless smartphone payments having existed since before the iPhone even.

For a shop to adopt QR payments, all they need a printout of a QR code. No hardware, not leasing some card reader, zero maintenance.

I think they’d need some hardware to verify that the transaction happened. A small business owner can use their own phone, but other businesses need a smartphone per point of sale, which might be more expensive than a card reader (that one likely has to have anyway)

You can use a phone (or whatever) to verify the transaction, but in practice I've never seen anyone do that. It probably helps that crime is pretty low in this part of Asia.

QR codes haven’t had a killer app yet

Since the virus hit, where I live restaurants are prohibited by law from having reusable menus. Instead, nearly all of them have a QR code at the able that you scan to see the menu on your phone.

That could do it.

The big problem is that any random QR code could be malware or the like (not a big problem for the tech-savvy, but worrying for those who are not) and few urls are so unwieldy that QR codes work better.

I can see it being useful for stealth links to .onion sites which are generally impossible to remember and a pain to type out.

Look at just any thing you’ve purchased and you’ll find a QR code on it somewhere (or the box it came in). They have massive uptake in warehousing and manufacturing.

They are also very popular in China, the dang things are on just about every surface.

Thanks to Coronavirus I’m now using them daily in Australia to record my visit to places.

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