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Comment by hnpolicestate | Hacker News Reader

Can someone tell me why Apple and Google would want to provide this feature to people? How do they benefit?

They are working toward phones replacing physical wallets entirely. If your phone reduces the number of things you have to carry, that makes it more useful to you and therefore a better product.

Of course there's no chance I would stop carrying my license anytime soon. Maybe in 20 years everything will be ready for that to happen.

I go running with nothing but clothes, shoes, my Apple watch, and airpods. It's awfully nice to have the option to stop by the corner store afterward to grab a cool drink without needing my wallet. It would be similarly nice if I could use the same setup to stop for a glass of wine at the winery where I turn around and come home. (Bonus points that I can hail an Uber because I don't want to run home after drinking wine.)

I'm unlikely to stop carrying a wallet anytime soon. It's a welcome addition to have an extra form of ID with me in case my wallet was lost or stolen though.

In the UK at least pretty much everywhere accepts apple pay / google pay, some bars have gone entirely cashless. I don't usually carry a wallet now.

It's nearly the same here in urban areas. My physical card almost never leaves my wallet.

Apple gets 15 basis points for purchases made through Apple Pay. If you don't carry a physical wallet/credit cards, that's a huge additional revenue stream they capture.

I don't believe Google has the pricing power to demand a cut of payments (yet), but they need to offer this to keep up with Apple.

Building things people want?

For Apple it all contributes to selling hardware. For google, they make money from phone manufacturers installing the google suite by default (afaik), usage of Google, and data collected.

Another layer to the moat that future hardware startups would have to overcome just to get their foot in the door. "Commoditize your complement".

I'm afraid it's staring right at you, in the name of the app: "Wallet". They want to replace your wallet. It's not enough for them to be in every person's pocket; they need the rest of the pockets to be empty, as well.

I'm being hyperbolic, but I worry _not by much_.

I think I agree with your comment the most, even though other comments did provide useful information.

I still think too many people suffer from the "Google, Apple, etc" want to do this because they are altruistic.

The only digital ID, wallet, etc I would want to use would be open source and non proprietary. Someone more intelligent than I could describe it more technically but I'm talking about a digital wallet that's the equivalent of SMS or ethernet. Like a technical standard, not a corporate product.

Per Apple's docs[0],

> Transmission of identity data to the identity reader follows the ISO/IEC 18013-5 standard, which provides for multiple security mechanisms available that are able to detect, deter and mitigate security risks. These consist of identity data integrity and antiforgery, device binding, informed consent, and user data confidentiality over radio links.

Wish granted.

[0]https://support.apple.com/guide/security/ids-in-apple-wallet...

And there are certainly people here who would like to get away from (and some who have) from carrying plastic and paper with them in any form. I don't personally agree in the reasonably near term but that's one perspective.

It gets people to not need to carry their wallet anymore so they will use apple/google pay instead of physical cards.

You know how some companies require a SMS capable phone number to "prove" you're a real person before they let you register an account? It's usually a measure to reduce spam, or prevent banned users from making new accounts.

It's pretty hard for your every day user to get a new phone number at the moment. Dedicated spammers can still get around it though.

But imagine requiring every user to provide their government issued ID on sign up! You instantly know they're a real person, their age, their gender, their demographics!

Oh yeah, and it makes banning / unpersoning people really easy too. The government can distribute a list of "wanted individuals", and they won't be able to use online services!

I wouldn't participate. 80% of Americans would. I'll just eat tree bark and grass.

Aside from the data collection aspect, they seem to like adding features to their phone offerings so customers stay engaged and in Apple's case buy more products. In Google's case, it's all a big funnel to search.

Are you sure Apple and Google don't just want to be nice Nate? lol

Further adoption of just using your phone in replacement of your whole wallet.

Right now when I need to carry my ID I still just end up carrying my wallet. The wallet full of cards not tied to Google Wallet. When I buy things with the Google Wallet tap to pay I imagine they're getting some amount of metadata about that transaction.

Also, its yet another feature for Google to have over Apple, or vice-versa. If one side gets it, the other will probably want to match the feature.

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