Google Wallet Launches With $10 Credit 170
Following up on our digital wallet discussion yesterday, CWmike writes "Google officially launched its Google Wallet application today for NFC-ready Sprint Nexus S 4G phone users. The application launches initially for Citi MasterCard credit card holders, but Google also said today that Visa, Discover and American Express will be able to add their cards to future versions of Google Wallet. The application, first announced in May, was described in an official blog post. Visa said in a separate statement that it has licensed Google to use Visa's PayWave technology, used in 'hundreds of thousands' of terminals worldwide. But Visa didn't describe a timeline for when that function would be enabled. Google said it will allow users to add any bank card to a Google Prepaid Card and they will receive $10 to try the service."
Reviews of the service are popping up, and many seem to say the same thing; when it works, it's great, but your real wallet isn't going anywhere.
first google knows what kind of porn i watch (Score:2)
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You BUY porn?
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Not very often but sometimes it sneaks in with the Cheetos and Mountain Dew... Why? What do YOU buy?
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I know. I see your signature is wrong.
Swap.avi (Score:2)
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while your mom is close to free, the IRS won't let her take cash
You should see what his mom will do for a box of Twinkies.
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while your mom is close to free, the IRS won't let her take cash
You should see what his mom will do with a box of Twinkies.
There... fixed it for ya.
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while your mom is close to free, the IRS won't let her take cash
You should see what his mom will do with a twink.
There... fixed it for ya.
Again.
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while your mom is close to free, the IRS won't let her take cash
You should see what his mom will do with a twink.
There... fixed it for ya.
Again.
You insensitive clod, my dog's nickname is Twink!
So what does this actually do? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if my physical wallet isn't going anywhere because I still need it for all the cards, cash and stuff I need to carry that I can't put on my phone, and I still need actual cards for merchants who don't have the right tech at their registers, what exactly does Google Wallet do for me? I can't think of a time when I'd have my phone and wouldn't have my wallet on me, so it's not convenience. About all it seems to do is enable Google to watch what I purchase. Sorry, I'm going to need something of benefit to me first.
Re:So what does this actually do? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ideally everything in your wallet could be in your phone
And ideally, smartphones would be in everyone's pocket.. But cellular carriers in the home country of Google and Slashdot continue to price smartphone service as a luxury.
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Ideally everything in your wallet could be in your phone
And ideally, smartphones would be in everyone's pocket.. But cellular carriers in the home country of Google and Slashdot continue to price smartphone service as a luxury.
I wouldn't consider my smartphone a "Luxury". I paid $110 for my phone and only pay $25 a month for unlimited text, data and 300 minutes of voice through VirginMobile. Sure it isn't a high end phone and doesn't have the greatest coverage over the US, but where it does have coverage it is generally great and it fits all of my needs as of right now.
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I believe by doing your homework and wanting adequate, not just 'top of the line,' you can get away relatively cheap.
But nowhere near as cheap as the $15 per 90 days (that's about $5 per month) that I pay Virgin Mobile USA for service for my Audiovox 8610 dumbphone. I make very few calls, mostly to arrange rides. I'm still looking for a solid value proposition for paying five times as much for entry-level smartphone service.
What's in your wallet? (Score:3, Insightful)
library card, NO
driver's license, NO
cash, NO
postage stamps, NO
receipt from store, NO
business cards, NO
employer-provided keycard, NO
foreign currency, NO
insurance card, NO
rolling papers, NO
So I do without all those things, and some more I didn't think of, and switch to electronic versions of credit cards and ... I guess just credit cards. Oh shit, my battery is down, I'm out of the service area, I got wet, I'm on an airplane, etc.
And not to mention, I don't do online banking because it's a huge security hole
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What I'm curious about is, do the current limits of NFC payment systems apply to this?
I have a Visa PayWave debit card, and I can't make purchases with the NFC portion of it if the total is greater than £15. That's fine for the card, because it also works as a Chip&PIN card. But that's not possible with a phone.
To cut a long story short, unless/until the £15 limit goes away, you're still going to have to carry a regular card in a regular wallet.
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rolling papers, NO
"tobacco", NO
lighter, NO
I think you're stretching a bit there.
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Re:So what does this actually do? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about your credit card in that wallet?
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This means you belong to that 1% of people buying and selling goods with cash. The phone-as-a-wallet idea is meant for the other 99%.
Re:So what does this actually do? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly what problem does putting the contents of your wallet in your phone solve? Maybe it's just me, but a physical wallet is hardly a great burden to be carrying around, given it's an object sizing somewhere around 12 cm x 10 cm x 1 cm and weighing well under 1 kg.
See, that's my definition of "progress": Using technology and knowledge to solve a demonstrable problem. If you haven't solved a problem, all you've done is created Yet Another Payment System.
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Well, my wallet got stolen recently. So I've lost a couple hundreds of dollars, several bank cards, my driving license and several club cards.
Right now I have spare change in all pockets, about $100 in various banknotes, NYC MetroCard, Moscow Subway pass and Kiev subway card. I keep my driving license in a separate pocket along with my keys and my bank card.
I won't mind replacing all those subway passes and loose change with NFC and an app on my phone. Sure, I'll lose some privacy - but it's not like I care
Re:So what does this actually do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid question - and what happens when your PHONE is stolen? Or you left it behind? Or you dropped it?
So now you've lost your wallet and your phone. And now you're stuck because you have no cash, and no way to call for help.
That being said, I hope NFC enforces user confirmation. Walking around with a mobile NFC terminal, just like those RFID readers would be great fun...
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TFA specifically says that NFC is disabled when screen is off, and the phone will also ask you for PIN if you haven't made any other purchase within the last few minutes.
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what happens when your PHONE is stolen? Or you left it behind? Or you dropped it?
Never mind that, what happens when you forget to charge it (perhaps you're out all night and can't) and the battery dies?
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Plus if you drop your phone or the battery runs out you're fucked and because Google is handling everything for you the person doesn't have to necessarily be physically near you to steal your data.
I'm not really seeing the benefit certainly not while battery life on phones is p
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If my phone is stolen I can just buy another phone and have everything back up and running in about 1 hour.
Battery issue is the problem, but I'm already pretty much screwed if important calls can't get through to me. So I always carry a spare battery.
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Well, that's in YOUR country. In my country I can get replacement SIM card in 15 mins in any office of my phone operator (been there, done that) and then wait around 30 minutes for its activation. My phone is Galaxy S which is pretty common here as well, and I backup everything to my home PC.
And I believe that battery life will in future be improved (possibly by switch to fuel cells). Wallets can't really be improved.
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The Google Wallet technology sounds more secure than the current magnetic strip on the back of a plastic card solution. But to address your point, putting the information on my phone makes it more accessible. I don't carry a phonebook anymore because it's on my phone. I can search the information much faster. For a credit card solution, having it on my phone can give me information about my expenditures much faster than using an online banking app.
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Yawn. It's clearly progress. Ideally everything in your wallet could be in your phone, so this is just a step towards that. It's not pointless, its progress.
Progression rather - can't call it progress thought, not yet.
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But, unlike email which served a theoretical purpose at that time, this serves no particular use. We have credit cards that do all that, and the only situations I can think of where it would be useful to have it built into the phone are the same instances where one is likely to not have their cell phone.
Progress is great, but progress for the sake of progress is best left to researchers.
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Yeah, hey, in 1999, we already had pocket still cameras, pocket video recorders, and cell phones, and laptops that could get on the internet. So why would we ever want one device that could do all those things? That would just be progress for the sake of progress.
Or did you miss the part where he said "everything in your wallet could be in your phone, so this is just a step towards that" ?
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Yeah, hey, in 1999, we already had pocket still cameras, pocket video recorders, and cell phones, and laptops that could get on the internet. So why would we ever want one device that could do all those things?
We still don't, unless you use your iPad to make phone calls somehow.
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But, unlike email which served a theoretical purpose at that time, this serves no particular use. We have credit cards that do all that, and the only situations I can think of where it would be useful to have it built into the phone are the same instances where one is likely to not have their cell phone.
Progress is great, but progress for the sake of progress is best left to researchers.
Can you do micro transactions on your credit card? As far as I can tell (so far) the advantage of this is for retailers - not consumers. Either way, without a compelling reason I'm not in a huge rush to sign up.
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Unfortunately, if you do it on the phone, it will likely FORCE you to use valid informatioin on said loyalty cards.
Many of mine go to non-existant addresses, and to have fun skewing the stores' data....many think I'm a 98yr old spanish woman named Helga who buys some really interested products for her demographic.
I have a feeling using a phone for this would force you to use your real info.
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Yeah pretty much. Then again...welcome to north america. Where Japan and S.Korea were doing this in 2002.
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I think it's pretty obvious that, as of right now, your real wallet isn't going anywhere. However, technology has to start somewhere (i.e. even before widespread adoption) and eventually, tech like this will be usable nearly anywhere. Like credit cards are now, but weren't when they first started.
So what's the benefit now? Not much. What will be the benefit? Potentially a lot.
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So what's the benefit now? Not much. What will be the benefit? Potentially a lot.
A lot of profitable fees for the cell phone companies.
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You could say the same thing about any debit card - why would you need one, when you still need to carry cash for retailers who don't take cards? And yet, people still use them... so, advantages:
(over cash) You don't have to go to an ATM. Fewer coins to carry around.
(over credit card) It's prepaid, so you don't need a credit contract.
(over prepaid debit card) It authenticates you, so it can be used to store other data that is linked to your identity (loyalty cards, travel passes etc.) Automated accoun
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None of those are advantages. The authentication isn't something that should be unique to this service. The folks at the store are supposed to be authenticating that you are who you say you are.
Linking hundreds of accounts to one is risky business. If somebody manages to break into that one account, then you're SOL.
As for the prepaid nature of it, for folks that really need that, you can get a prepaid credit card, and I'm sure there are other methods of doing that such as a debit card.
Ultimately, this is ju
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None of those are advantages. The authentication isn't something that should be unique to this service. The folks at the store are supposed to be authenticating that you are who you say you are.
Yes, and how do they do that? By using some kind of ID. Usually a different card for every service. This collapses all that into a single card, which is more convenient. Travel passes and other cards are usually machine readable already, so this doesn't really do anything different.
Linking hundreds of accounts to one is risky business. If somebody manages to break into that one account, then you're SOL.
Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" - which is but a matter of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET.
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BTW I have a dumb phone so I am personally not interested in it at this point.
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The article doesn't address this, but a huge benefit for me would be if the point-of-sale terminal sends an itemized receipt to your smartphone in return. This would give people a whole new level of convenience and control in tracking their purchases. (Insert possible big-brother issues...)
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Of course it benefits you. It makes you "hip" and satisfies your curiosity, both at the same time! Just get one and you'll find out.
Whoa. Some advertisement just channeled itself through me. How did that happen?
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So you prefer a fat wallet? :D
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So, if my physical wallet isn't going anywhere because I still need it for all the cards, cash and stuff I need to carry that I can't put on my phone, and I still need actual cards for merchants who don't have the right tech at their registers, what exactly does Google Wallet do for me? I can't think of a time when I'd have my phone and wouldn't have my wallet on me, so it's not convenience.
/. has one of these posts roughly twice a week. I had the same opinion about two weeks ago and I've since come up with a couple "real" apps where I could possibly "pay with my phone"
1) Vending machines. Prices locally have skyrocketed up to about $1 per item, which explains the sudden shocking popularity of $1 coins, because the machines give them out as change for $5 bills, etc. Also a single coin equals a bag of M&Ms or whatever your chosen poison is. Junk food, stamps, contraception, whatever. T
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You don't use a credit or debit card? because, uh, those details about your buying habits might already be everywhere. And you didn't even get $10 for that.
I'd expect that the purchases I make (as a habit) are known only to the CC issuer. Did this change lately?
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Your purchasing habits have never been known exclusively to the CC issuer. They have always been available to the authorities and to hackers.
Authorities - with a warrant, I presume? Not necessary looking for "buying habits" but with the limited scope of certain transactions relevant to the case?
Hackers - well, yes... if they manage to break the eBanking system of my bank. In which case, I think I might have bigger headaches than caring about someone detecting my "purchasing habits".
Re:So what does this actually do? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you got up to 56 days' interest free credit, another liable party to guarantee seller performance, extended warranty, cashback, and the opportunity to make an otherwise unaffordable payment in an emergency at a not-insane rate of interest.
This is worth way more than $10. And credit cards are absolutely not a cash replacement - cash is still available if you want a degree of anonymity.
But what's most important is that Visa/Mastercard/Amex/banks' primary business isn't targeted advertising. They will have a lot of data spread across departments and competitors but they won't group together and trip over themselves to mine and track every last tiny thing out of you. Putting anything more in the Google basket is not wise.
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About all it seems to do is enable Google to watch what I purchase. Sorry, I'm going to need something of benefit to me first.
Yeah but the average Joe doesn't know that and if he did he probably wouldn't care. Soon enough Google will get enough ignorant or apathetic Joes so that most Cashiers will want to support it and bam it'll be convenient for you. Then the only other downside will be its hard to buy hookers with Google Wallet.
Really? The local brothels take credit cards [google.com.au] - they don't even show "brothel" on the bill (I set up their POS, and yes, brothels are legal here). I'm told the local drug dealer (for one of the brothels) takes credit cards - they named two restaurants (one in Manuka) that appear on the receipts.... I'm tempted to believe the brothel manager given the owner of the restaurants has since been busted (released on bail) for importing a large amount of cocaine. Google Wallet transactions for the same things is no
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12 condoms? That's a life time supply!
For a regular married man, yes. This is Slashdot.
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If Google were out of the equation, I'd use it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I simply do not trust Google with anything personal and I will not use this service.
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Since it's still a visa card or mastercard I'd guess you still talk to the bank about backcharges and fraud. The only thing is that your phone is now the plastic.
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PayPal, like Microsoft, just want your money. Google, on the other hand, wants to know everything about you.
I'd sooner trust PayPal than Google with my money.
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PayPal, like Microsoft, just want your money. Google, on the other hand, wants to know everything about you.
Correction -- Paypal, like Microsoft just wants money. That means they have lots of incentive to monetize any scrap of data they collect about you.
They only secure payment option is cash.
Terms and conditions: (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm in so long as the firmware is open and the signing keys are available. A reprogrammable chip implanted for free - cool!
marketing target? (Score:2)
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I don't know if most do, but mine doesn't. And I'll likely cancel my card if they try to force it on me. The last thing I need is somebody lifting my wallet without lifting it.
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The last thing I need is somebody lifting my wallet without lifting it.
Then you need a card that's not attached to a bank. Easy fixed.
Materials:- sharp scissors, lid off an old icecream container, a ruler, a felt tipped indelible marker pen
1. mark out a credit card sized rectangle with the ruler and the marker.
2. carefully cut along the line with the scissors....
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There aren't many NFC phones yet, but this is changing. This all is still an "early beta" in practice, though. Same reason for card limitation for now. But it seems they're going to get Visa onboard, and that would be fairly big.
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Why is there no mention of the GSM Nexus S, the one that actually works outside the US and has an NFC chip?
I'd use it. (Score:2)
Google already owns everything about me and knows all there is to know, so why not?
I'm kinda serious here -- unless you basically boycott the Internet and hide whenever the Streetview car comes, there's no way you've never contributed to Google's vast knowledge base. It's just a fact of modern life that Google knows as much about you as you're willing to give, which for most people including me is basically everything.
And the sky hasn't fallen. Google is tech company run by tech people; they're not selling
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You can trust an individual you've known for a long time
Aaaah - I see the problem, you never studied history.
Google lost my trust when I became an app user (Score:2, Interesting)
...and thus, a second rate citizen in google's eyes. To be clear, once I started PAYING for a google service, I lost functionality with a fuzzy promise date of "soon" ( for the past 6 months ).
I don't think I'll be jumping on board this particular bandwagon, thanks.
Re:Google lost my trust when I became an app user (Score:4, Insightful)
...and thus, a second rate citizen in google's eyes. To be clear, once I started PAYING for a google service, I lost functionality with a fuzzy promise date of "soon" ( for the past 6 months ).
I don't think I'll be jumping on board this particular bandwagon, thanks.
Complaining that beta-quality software isn't available on paid production systems seems a little odd.
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If you'll note, that's not the heart of the complaint. It's google's behavior over the issue. There has been no commitment to the completion of the project. In fact, the only commitment that anyone from google has made has been "soon".
The lack of professionalism to committing to any kind of time frame for their paying customers is, frankly, unacceptable. I had been recommending small businesses take a look at google apps, but have since begun recommending o365. It's more expensive, but at least they se
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Considering Google's core functionality is ADS and SEARCH, and everything extra is literally done on employee spare time (20% to be exact), I don't think you can honestly expect a timeframe unless Google decides to hire people specifically for it.
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Considering Google's core functionality is ADS and SEARCH, and everything extra is literally done on employee spare time (20% to be exact), I don't think you can honestly expect a timeframe unless Google decides to hire people specifically for it.
Google apps is billed as:
24/7 Phone support and 99.9% uptime guarantee
25GB storage per user, no ads
Blackberry and Microsoft Outlook interoperability
Virus and spam protection by Postini
And it costs real money. That hardly sounds like a pet project of individuals. I agree with OP, the support and feature parity does not live up to what a normal person would expect.
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If they're charging for it, it's a bit disingenuous to still call it beta though...
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If you'll note, that's not the heart of the complaint. It's google's behavior over the issue. There has been no commitment to the completion of the project. In fact, the only commitment that anyone from google has made has been "soon".
The lack of professionalism to committing to any kind of time frame for their paying customers is, frankly, unacceptable. I had been recommending small businesses take a look at google apps, but have since begun recommending o365. It's more expensive, but at least they seem to care about the customer.
Well - don't use the product you didn't pay for. I'm sure a beta-tester that doesn't test is no loss.
What was that fable about the fox's tail?
Suggestion - if you don't like something. Don't do it. But don't think playing Henny Penny is going to get you a daytime television chat show (or respect).
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Your arrogance is based on ignorance. Might want to look to fixing that.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html [google.com]
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Your arrogance is based on ignorance. Might want to look to fixing that.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html [google.com]
So sending me a link to a "start free trial" page is supposed to show you are not a whining moron? Perhaps you'd like a refund on your free trial dickhead.
100's of thousands is not impressive (Score:3)
I'd just like to point out:
There are roughly 14,000 McDonald's in the USA.
Virtually all of them take credit and debit cards and have 3 - 5 card readers.
Virtually all of those card readers can take Visa PayWave, as well as the similar technology from AmEx, MasterCard and Discover.
So all "hundreds of thousands" means is they got maybe a half-dozen large chains to put the silly things in around the world. Statistically speaking, nobody accepts them.
Re:100's of thousands is not impressive (Score:4, Insightful)
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You got me curious, so I went and checked [visa.com].
There are actually rather a lot of places that take it, even where I live in Oklahoma. This includes my grocery store, my pharmacy, and a lot of the fast-food outlets I frequent. If they could get QuikTrip (the local convienence store champion) on board, it would work for most of the times I use my bank card today.
What's in this for stores (Score:2)
How is this in any way a good thing for a vendor? I have to wonder what Visa / Mastercard are doing with NFC / contactless payments while all this is going on. I would have thought it would be vastly preferable for stores (and con
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I heard an interview in the town square last month about this and the gentleman was gushing about how in a few years we won't carry bushels of supplies to barter in our oxcarts anymore. Which seems to miss the point that we carry other supplies in oxcarts. My pitchfork, shovel, rake are all still in there, plus some gold shillings for places which don't barter.
Meanwhile, why would I use Paper Money? Most stores don't support it and, in my area, they probably won't for several years. And if I'm out and about
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I heard an interview in the town square last month about this and the gentleman was gushing about how in a few years we won't carry bushels of supplies to barter in our oxcarts anymore. Which seems to miss the point that we carry other supplies in oxcarts. My pitchfork, shovel, rake are all still in there, plus some gold shillings for places which don't barter.
Meanwhile, why would I use Paper Money? Most stores don't support it and, in my area, they probably won't for several years. And if I'm out and about I'm going to have both my oxcart and gold shillings on me. I don't see th benefit of paying for something with paper money.
Mod up this guy up --- ppplease!
I heard there's a thing called television - but my radio works just fine....
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stray further from real (tangible) value like actual physical commodities (gold, silver, etc.).
Why should gold have value? It doesn't have many uses, no way near to the point that justifies it's current price. Why should society waste effort mining something almost worthless to be passed around as "money"? Would it not be significantly more efficient to not waste time mining and instead use debt as money?
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Because virtual money can't be laundered [bloomberg.com].
Ha ha ha! - do you have a gig at the Comedy club? Really? You're serious? You actually believe that shit?
Uncle Surgi runs a market garden, Uncle Bonnoventure runs a trucking company, Cousin Pascaly runs a restaurant, Brother Vincent runs a fishing boat, Mr Ibrahymen runs a night club... throw in a property developer/hotelier and the odd gold prospector and your virtual money plan craps out. I've changed the names (any resemblance to real people is intentional) - but if all the resources of CrimTrek, FinTre
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Tell me about Bitcoin when I can use it buy groceries, shop at Amazon & Home Depot, and pay for my dry cleaning.
Until then, it's just crypto-currency geek games.
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So far as I can tell, based on Amazon.com, this is not true. You may be able to pay someone else in Bitcoins to buy you something from Amazon, but that is not the same as shopping at Amazon.
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TFA has a video where they use Google Wallet to pay for fries at a fast food restaurant. If you can record the same kind of video with BitCoin, it might help. Can you?