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Comment by ddw | Hacker News Reader

Are traditional wallets really a problem? What exactly is the problem that is being solved here?

For me, pocket room and security. I used to have to carry around a phone,keys, CD player, wallet, and camera.

Now the camera and ipod are integrated into the phone, and I'm just carrying my phone, keys, and wallet. I really appreciate the extra pocket space, and I'd love to fold the wallet into the phone and get some more.

The extra security of having a PIN on your wallet is just a bonus.

Not to mention, the possibility of wiping your phone remotely with a single action, instead of trying to remember which cards were in your wallet and calling each one separately.

this is an awesome point I didn't even consider. I use AndroidLost and am able to remote wipe my phone at anytime from a browser. Now that I think about it, I would much rather be able to use my phone for payments with this ability, than to carry a physical card and risk losing it or leaving it somewhere. Yes I make backups of my phone using custom recovery ( clockworkMod Recovery).

You know you have your credit card blocked with one phone call, right? And that those not relay on it being on and having internet connection.

why even bother thats the point. With a regular credit card, you'll have to request a new card and number, wait for it in the mail, and now change all your accounts that are associated with it. With my phone, remotely wipe my sd card / lock out my phone. Track it down, and restore. Much easier. I have missplaced my credit card before, and the loss of my phone is more noticeable and quicker in general than my credit card that I didn't realize was missing till the next time I went to use it.

I have three credit cards, and two gift cards in there. That's a minimum of three calls, the numbers for which I have to find and call and sit through what is probably an automated system.

Sure, it's a first world problem. But that's where I live, and those are the problems I'd like solved.

What if Google suspends your account? Won't you lose your wallet then? Google has suspended a lot of accounts lately without consultation or timely redress. That's scarier than losing my wallet.

And maybe Andriod@Home and the car unlock/start apps will get rid of keys as well?

Google not collecting information on every purchase you make?

Oh you meant for the users? I guess the short term gain is receipt maintenance. Long term you can get rid of the wallet itself. Long term we'll have biometric cloud authentication so you won't need the smartphone either.

There's probably some law enforcement angle as well; as physical cash transactions fade away, organized crime will be easier to monitor.

LOL, i have this image of my pot guy showing me a paypass terminal.

Is traditional cash really a problem? What problems does cash solve that pucca shells do not?

For me, it sounds like a super convenient way to replace my stupid thick wallet with a rubber band around my ID and some paper money.

Is traditional cash really a problem? What problems does cash solve that pucca shells do not?

Seriously? The advantages are legion. It would take days to write them all out. I'll just put down a couple. You don't have multiple denominations of shells, so you have to carry around a wagon full of shells, instead of a few large bills.

From a macro perspective, cash has even larger advantages. You can't conduct monetary policy as easily with a commodity currency. One reason recessions were so bad in the past (in the 1800s) is that commodity currencies are pro-cyclical, partially because of nominal stickiness, partially because of speculative attacks, and for other reasons, too.

For me, what's the advantage of replacing my credit card with a phone? My wallet becomes 1mm less thick, unless I want to carry my credit card around as a backup in case my phone battery dies. In a few years, when this becomes standard, and phones are good for multiple days, I'll be able to shave 1mm off my wallet. That's nice, but hardly analogous to the difference between paper fiat money and a hard commodity currency.

You forgot the advantage of not having to take the credit card out of your wallet and swipe it. I think I broke a sweat yesterday doing that.

If you have just one or two cards, I doubt you'd ever see the benefit. However I'm dying for a replacement for my bevy of cards:

- my personal amex

- my business amex

- my debit cards (multiple banks)

- my store cards (multiple)

- all my other ID-like and reward cards (ex: Costco, Avis, etc.).

You can already replace the last two groups with a loyalty card aggregator app like CardStar and its ilk.

Well you made me realise its not solving the wallet problem, as you will still need a card as many outlets won't support the transaction type. There are plenty of other reasons to carrying a wallet, security cards for example, loyalty cards.

So its definitly not solving the wallet issue.

I won't be buying into it as I leave my phone all over the place. Plus I travel abroad a lot and already deal with way more fraud that I'd like anyway. Total pain dealing with banks to get all the fraudulent transactions reversed after getting home :/ anything that automates the process for me also automates it for the bad guys, so I'll be a late adopter thats for sure.

Good point. This is going back a couple of steps in some regards. Assuming every store in the country already had this, I still wouldn't bite. I've had so many instances where my phone (Nexus s) died in the middle of the day, it is not funny. Credit card + 2x20 dollar bills in my wallet work wonders.

That said, I'm a big fan of Visa's blink. Instant payment can be done through ways other than a smartphone.

NFC payments can still work when your phone is out of battery. The reader can still read it (just like your credit card has no power). Google Wallet, of course, wouldn't work.

I thought there was some intelligent circuitry in place to prevent some threat scenarios. Specifically, I'm thinking of "butt sniffing". At Google IO, I thought we were told that you can't use the NFC function when the screen is locked. Am I mistaken? (I might be ... because the Google folks keep talking about a sticker for phones that don't have NFC ... I don't get it ... an explanation would be appreciated).

My take on the problem:

http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/Paying-With-Your-Phone-...

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