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"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.

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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.

That's a fact.

It's a thing we can't deny.

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

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