Instant Pleasure

I don't need ANYTHING this quickly.

E-commerce promoters have long urged us to store credit cards, use our phone as a wallet, tap on things or otherwise tried to grease the wheels of parting us from our money.

American Express, Visa, Master Card, Google and others have tried. And yet it fails every time.

Why?

Because it’s a stupid idea.

Can you seriously argue that the 1.3 seconds saved by not having to take out your credit card and *gasp* physically swipe it amounts to anything other than a gimmick? Don’t even say the word “convenience.”

Perhaps the largest obstacle to this effortless cash transfer isn’t a device or a purpose, it’s security. My credit card is not known to jump out of my pocket and start broadcasting its information by itself, willy-nilly. Which is good. Since no matter how earnestly companies exhort us to trust their privacy policies, data keeps getting leaked with alarming frequency.

A recent New York Times Tech blog post outlines yet another “future of e-commerce” scheme in which you can buy instantly while watching television, reading magazines or, I assume, while eating, sleeping and showering, too. I should hope that I never am so unstably, manically impulsive that I have to interrupt watching something in order to buy and possess merchandise.

It seems I’m wise to be sceptical of such a dubious use of our national brain trust. Quoting the developer of such proposed mobile payment systems:

“We have developed it, but we haven’t deployed it,” said Chris Gardner, a co-founder of Paydiant. “I would imagine someone is going to want us to do that over the course of the next year.”

— “For Shoppers, Next Level of Instant Gratification,” NYT, October 8, 2013