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Comment by dmishe | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how this is good, I for one won't use CVS/RiteAid just because of this. And I'm sure their app will be terrible.

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I can, because:

You need to give them your checking account access.

You need to somehow show that QR code, the fastest I can think of on iPhone is getting it from location-based Passbook notification, which is still way slower than touching my finger to home button.

Sure, they won't notice me, but, well, Walgreens got a new customer.

I agree that you can't assume the app will be terrible. I found this explanation Gruber's article (http://daringfireball.net/2014/10/nfc_apple_pay) about CurrentC...

The application can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play Store. Available for both iOS and Android devices, it is designed to ‘simplify and expedite the customer checkout process by applying qualifying offers and coupons, participating merchant rewards, loyalty programs and membership accounts, and offering payment options through the consumer’s selected financial account, all with a single scan.”

1.) Using CurrentC mobile payments the point-of-sale displays a QR code for the customer to read with their phone.

2.) The QR code generates the payment token on the smartphone which verifies the shopper’s presence, identity and initiates the transaction between the merchant and the bank.

3.) The phone connects with the cloud for authorization and sends the approval to the merchant.

CurrentC doesn’t support the contactless Near Field Communications (NFC) used by Apple Pay.

That's a lot of steps. Maybe they'll get it right.

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That's because Starbucks is giving customers additional value (free drinks, etc.) for using their app instead of a bare credit card. This is the "carrot" form of incentive, as opposed to the "stick" that the other retailers are resorting to. Give customers enough incentive and they'll inconvenience themselves a bit.

Technically there is a carrot here as well as the alternate system includes loyalty cards and coupons.

But I'd rather have my privacy, they want to track what you're buying. The fact there are multiple retailers makes me think they'll want to pool data across chains too.

I've stopped using most loyalty cards because the rewards are terrible. "You picked up a prescription, save $0.15 on Coke this week". "Why would I buy Coke from you at a $3 markup if you offer a $0.15 discount? The grocery store is 20 feet away." Or offering me CHAIN Bucks, which require some weird convoluted procedure to redeem instead of just giving me a straight discount.

Note that it's currently impossible for third party apps to support NFC on iOS. Could change, of course.

Doesn't matter if it changes. They disabled the NFC readers and wouldn't be able to re-enable them without re-enabling Apple Pay since it's based on the industry standard NFC technology.

It's more likely that they're doing this to avoid some significant penalties written into their contracts. It's difficult for me to believe that they're doing this solely out of spite, as it's just not realistic that these merchants are going to stop accepting credit cards altogether for payment (which is really what they'd have to do in order to be consistent with blocking NFC reading for the sake of their bottom lines).

> It's difficult for me to believe that they're doing this solely out of spite

I can believe that. It can't be a coincidence that this is happening right after a competitor to their payment system starts to be used.

Their payment system has two advantages for them: they get data and they get royalties.

Since they're involved they want everyone to start using their new system because then they can collect a little fee on each retailer using the system through patents/licensing. When a customer uses Apple Pay (or Google Wallet, etc.) that doesn't happen.

More important to many stores is the data. Since Apple Pay uses unique IDs they can't track me. But their system is built around tracking people, purchases, and loyalty cards. Possibly across chains of stores. That's very valuable data.

"The problem is that under the terms of their MCX contractual agreement, [the merchants] are not supposed to accept competing mobile payments products like Apple Pay, according to multiple retailers involved with MCX, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. If these retailers break their contracts, they will face steep fines for doing so, these people said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/technology/apple-pay-runs-...

Exactly. Eventually they will converge and copy the best features. It might take them a while, but app building is a commodity now. If they build a shitty first experience, it will eventually get corrected. For example, look at airlines, it took them a long time to produce a decent experience, but now many of them realize how important design and UX is to their bottom line and have re-written their web interfaces to produce something usable.

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