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Comment by kylehotchkiss | Hacker News Reader

I don't really see how this is a drastically better experience than tap to pay, NFC, Apple Pay, etc. It would feel odd to provide eye scans to everyday retailers, and then at some point, you have to worry about your eye scan being stolen, and you can't (easily) get a new eye afterwards, but you can replace all the payment methods that aren't your eyes.

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Attempt to remain relevant in a cheap instant payment world. People are happy with their card and phone NFC tap to pay, as well as QR codes. It’s all about cutting out the parasitic rails now.

My guess - Poland is hint to this question. Poland was a little behind on the integrating Google/Apple Pay, so they have invented (via MC tech) a tokenized payments (BLIK). I guess because of its prevalence there are not too many people using NFC payments via phone, so MC wants to convince BLIK users to "upgrade" to this insecure atrocity (insecure because source image is generated by a simple selfie, proven to be insecure years ago). The advertisement for this crap is all over social networks.

The bottom line for MC is how quickly can they part you from your money? The core of their profit is still the transaction fee. It is to their advantage to reduce any impediment to you spending money. Even if 'fumbling with your card' is an awkward way to put it, those few seconds are still a moment when you could think, I'm not going to spend that money. You might decide to not get your card out.

> I don't really see how this is a drastically better experience than tap to pay, NFC, Apple Pay, etc.

I do, but I don't see how those methods are better than a chip and pin. Waiting in line at a checkout or getting on a bus behind somebody hopelessly futzing with their phone to mess with the app is the new waiting for someone to write a check. The eye thing is dystopian, but it'll be fast.

Not saying it's a good thing to have the Apple/Google duopoly, but I find that once people tried it a few times, phone payments are much faster than fiddling with the wallet and finding the right card. The phone is a larger and more distinct item in your pocket than the wallet, and choosing the right card is faster than going through them in the physical wallet. And you're rarely asked for pin

I'm guessing MasterCard is viewing this as a payment mechanism that only needs the physical customer as the payment authentication. If it's 0 friction (which I doubt), I could see people opting to just look at a camera to pay rather than fumbling to get your phone out.

Fumbling with your phone sounds like a silly statement but so did fumbling with your wallet.

> Fumbling with your phone sounds like a silly statement but so did fumbling with your wallet.

I don't think people want to look away from their phones to do anything, least of all pass a retina scan. You don't even need to swipe away from TikTok to use Apple Pay.

> I don't really see how this is a drastically better experience than tap to pay

Your wallet and phone are lost/stolen. I wish the ATM would take my bank username and password but this is a close second in that situation. Wouldn't use it otherwise.

It's probably better for MasterCard somehow, not the consumer.

Perhaps selling this collected data to third parties? I'd imagine optometrists would want it to push mail in fliers.

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