Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vampiero | Hacker News Reader

I literally just bought a LTE watch because I hate phones, I never use mine, and I keep forgetting it anyway. I'd rather have a watch with an eSIM

View on HN

I would do this too, but in some venues you have to pay by scanning QR codes, which makes it impossible without camera.

And I don't want this:

https://wristcam.com/blogs/learn/do-apple-watches-have-camer...

They have QR payments, but no NFT? That doesn't seem right.

Outside the US, third party payment apps are popular, since they often don't require a credit card. But since Apple refuses third parties access to the NFT hardware, those apps almost universally have to use QR payments. It works OK, because most payment terminals have a display with sufficient resolution for a QR code anyway.

Outside the US, modern banking is available, and credit cards are unnecessary.

How do you use "modern banking" to pay contact-less for a coffee using an iPhone, and can you use the same method to send a friend $5?

NFC payments with cards. Payments based on proximity. Payment requests over chat etc etc.

Please. By all means, get out there. And look around and be amazed by how inventive people are.

How cultural differences form technological preferences. How people in one country send eachother billions a year via Tikkie, in another country pay at all shops via their chat app. How unbanked in many places pay with SMS credit. Or how many people pay fast and easy with QR.

Your bubble isn't "the best for everyone" it's just one of many options. One that you and your peers probably prefer.

But this is exactly my point. Those apps exist, and are popular. But they can't use NFC because of Apple's limitations on hardware APIs. So, QR payments are popular.

All those apps would use NFC for many of those use cases if they could. Which brings us back to the start of this discussion: which use case has QR payment, but not NFC (and thus requiring a camera in addition to a NFC chip in a smart watch)? Answer: the huge (international) market of non-NFC payment/ticketing apps.

A trust box, for example. Or a simple donation option. The ticket (pay what you want) at my favorite punk gig in town. Etc.

In e.g. the Netherlands, the majority of payments go via a payment system iDeal¹. Its easy to start an ideal payment with a QR code. It's, by my knowledge, impossible to do so via NFC - other than via Apple Pay or Google Wallet.

Then, there are vast fleets of phones out there that don't even have NFC. I wouldn't be suprised if a majority of phones in use today don't have nfc chips on board.

And, a large section of the population won't switch on NFC even. For battery. For privacy, for fear etc. If not for scanning my glucose meter, I would've switched off NFC by default. I'm no tinfoil hat, but 30+ years of software development and hackery has kept me weary of such stuff.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL, which, as former developer in dutch fintech, is far from what the name suggests ;).

There’s an account number on the register, you send money to it by app or web. For others a debit card will work. Apple is not required.

You can send a friend 25 cents for half a cookie or ten thousand for a deposit on an apartment, all free.

If your world is limited to the US and western Europe, sure.

In my home country of Smugistan, greatest country in world, banks unnecessary. Check-outs take money directly from brain waves using technology invented by Smugistanian super computers. Money is crypto backed generated from farts released by citizens of Smugistan. Also, farts smell like roses.

> you have to pay by scanning QR codes

I've never encountered that, but that sounds like a venue that doesn't want my money anyway.

It happens a lot in societies where people know and trust each other.

Often you can even buy drinks by scanning a QR code, paying, and then grabbing a drink from the fridge. With nobody else involved.

While not disagreeing with what you said, such "grab a drink from the fridge" things are always in a monitored environment. There are no unlocked public fridges even hyper-high trust societies like Japan or Dubai.

No. In baltics, northern EU you can encounter countryside unsupervised apples, tomatoes and even honey where you take it and put money a box. No camera.

Also, even with cameras, it is little help of I am a tourist. In Switzerland, I was in such a store in a mountain village.

I visited there once - no point trying to find me if I stole something.

Same in Farms around Vancouver, Canada

Would you wear a Pebble too?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com