Are mobile payments a solution for a problem that nobody has?
“PayPal co-founder Max Levchin is a self-described “payments geek.”
And yet, as he approached the checkout counter at San Francisco’s Marina Meats, he reached for his credit card — not one of the payment apps on his phone.
“That was the entire transaction in two-and-a-half seconds,” he said, narrating the exchange. “I have an entire suite of apps for mobile payment on my phone, and yet I’m using my credit card to buy fish for my dinner. That should tell you how I feel about mobile payments.”
Most advertising for mobile wallets relies on a tremendous assumption: that rifling through an overstuffed wallet for the right credit card, or through a purse crowded with makeup and mints to unearth the wallet hiding at the bottom, is so arduous that shopping itself becomes a pain.
The issue with this pitch is that it proposes a solution to a problem that nobody really has. Paying with cash or a card simply isn’t that difficult (and plenty of women lose their phones in their purse, for what it’s worth).
Selling convenience without the existence, first, of inconvenience, is hard.’
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