Are you using mobile payments? The end game for big business.
Sun 08 Jul 2018
By John Nayler
Don't get me wrong, I love using Google Pay. To be honest, I am not even sure where my physical credit card is these days.
If you are like me though, you are now one of the 25%^ of people in Australia using Apple Pay or Google Pay (as smartphone preference dictates). Why does big tech want to offer this service?
The truth below the surface of this convenience is that the biggest companies in the world want to further enshrine their intimate knowledge of "you" by knowing your spending. Elsewhere the digital industry predicts that In the future they are likely to want to offer credit services and have their own banking system. One further step and you can see that they would also like their own currency. Apple "coin" here we come.
But let's stick with the now.
Many of us may recall a controlling partner that controlled the money and credit card at some point in our life that the held the position that big tech now wants. The smartest of us got a divorce, only to fall into the same trap with a big tech company, Apple or Google.
Let's dig a bit deeper. It's pretty simple to perceive that big tech wants to "close the loop" on our every transaction and for a company like Google it really is the end game. Why? Because they then get to know, collect and learn about spending behaviour from SEARCH to PURCHASE. Along the way you will react to ADS, BROWSE, COMPARE, READ REVIEWS, WATCH VIDEOS, and enter a TRANSACTION.
All the way through this process big tech (most effectively today Google, ebay, Alibaba and Amazon) want to look over your shoulder, so they can "suggest" best alternatives.
For mine, I actually like the "helpful" version of this questionable behaviour to a point, but it's important to be aware.
A partner selecting your product choices and paying for them, be it Google, Apple, Amazon, Steve of Mary can simplify your life a lot as long as your slick new smartphone selection does not get defaulted to the 32Gb home brand edition with last year's processor. Mary, was it really worth the $80 saving? Half my friends won't talk to me now!
Welcome to reality.
Related Links:
^ Mobile Consumer Survey 2017 The Australian cut, Deloitte