Knowing that the account will be handed off to another unknown party once Goldman ends the contract is definitely not a selling point.
Switched my wife off this two weeks ago into our shared HYSA.
This is usually rent, power, water companies etc. so it's not that quick to switch as you'll have to update your bank credentials everywhere. Depending on how much you use the account that might be a lot of work and it's not "30 minutes of work".
The only thing I had to change over when switching checking and savings to a different bank was which checking account my mortgage payments were getting pulled from.
If I changed bank accounts, I'd have to untangle a bunch of monthly bills to a new account.
A bit surprised on utilities though. Nowhere I've lived on the west coast has charged a service fee for paying electric, gas, water, phone, etc with a credit card.
https://utilities-self-service.ebill.seattle.gov/SeattleUtil...
Even PSE doesn't fee it. I guess why I bothered with checking account is that my credit cards expire far more often than I change bank accounts, I had a nasty fee once from Comcast because I didn't update my auto pay credit card in time.
Checking (or "demand") accounts work like you describe and people are slower to switch them for that reason.
It is not normal here to have direct debits from savings accounts. That is what a checking account is for. Since Apple does not have a checking account, most Apple Card/HYSA users have a regular bank account somewhere else already. That's where the debits would be happening, so moving the money from one HYSA to another is low impact.
And as someone else mentioned, it's pretty common not to use debit at all. I use my Apple Card for all my utilities in addition to all my regular purchases. I can move money from my checking account over to my Apple card/HYSA in a couple seconds, so it works out pretty conveniently.
Why would I sign up for a system that hands my money over to a US bank, no matter how much they lose on that deal.
It's a giant dept trap that only partially has come to Europe due to those pesky regulations making it difficult to put teenagers in huge dept. /s
1. 5.25% interest rate
2. Can pay cheques out of the HYSA (some x times / month I think, but it didn't matter because my target was 1 time).
Effectively, that means I don't need to pay rent out of a different account. I can leave the HYSA in place and set my rent cheques to go out of there. This means I can run pretty lean on my other accounts. I only have to cover the credit card bills.
The interest rates they're providing also make total sense considering current rates: they have to be rolling short-term treasuries and skimming the spread. Seems fine to me for a HYSA.