but how is this even possible? my parents never gave me direct access to a credit card as a child. eventually I got a debit card to spend my own allowance chore money, but if I blew it all in something dumb that was my own problem. no pizza/movies with friends until I built it back up
The former is highly useful for parents and from what I can tell very common, not just for independence, but also safety reasons.
also, there's credit cards that require approval for each transaction: https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+control+credit+card...
On iOS devices, you can use Apple Pay for Uber (standard credit card charges). But I doubt many parents are putting a credit card on their child’s phone where they can just tap to pay at any store.
Kids apps pull/pulled all sorts of tricks to prevent people from understanding the modal purchase confirmation dialog (eg https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-confirm... )
Even then, any and all payment options on my phone are bound to a password, I make sure I have to enter that password or fingerprint every single time.I do find it a bit strange that others, especially with young kids, wouldn't have similar securities. I'd probably be even more secure if I did.
If I new kids would be using any device I would make sure it had no payment information accessible. Which may mean the inconvenience of adding and removing payment information before and after making purchases. I can't imagine letting a child have access to a device which can spend your money, it's essentially like letting them hold your wallet, and we probably wouldn't trust them to do that if they were in an arcade, or theatre, or shopping mall, etc.