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Coin: A step in the wrong direction

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Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#71

Post by jammur »

brettgoldstein3 wrote: post #50
bradgessler wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.

Isn't the "old crusty infrastructure" in this case the credit card itself? It seems ridiculous to try to kill the credit card with... a credit card. I wouldn't be surprised if Clinkle, LoopPay, Square, or any of the many startups in this space kills the credit card (and thus Coin) before Coin makes its first delivery in Summer 2014.

I think you're underestimating how entrenched the CC companies are in our society. I agree that they'll eventually be replaced, but I doubt it will be in the next year, let alone the next 5 years.

I think Coin is a nice intermediate step between 10 cards in your wallet, and no wallet at all. Intermediate steps are viable businesses. I think Square is an intermediate step, and they seem to be doing just fine. They're obviously going to be at the forefront of eliminating cards all together, but they knew that credit cards aren't going away anytime soon, and so they leveraged that to get their foot in the door with the merchants.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#72

Post by [deleted] »

cypher543 wrote: post #60
stormbrew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the 'hate' is coming from places (eg. Canada) that have already moved on to chip cards (which won't and probably can't work with this) and are now slowly moving on to nfc. It's just already late for this kind of development. 5 years ago? I'd have been all over this. Now? I'm just waiting for Apple to adopt NFC so we can all move forward on better solutions.

Their FAQ says that future versions will support chip cards. https://onlycoin.com/support/faq/

[deleted]

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#73

Post by Nursie »

cypher543 wrote: post #60
stormbrew wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the 'hate' is coming from places (eg. Canada) that have already moved on to chip cards (which won't and probably can't work with this) and are now slowly moving on to nfc. It's just already late for this kind of development. 5 years ago? I'd have been all over this. Now? I'm just waiting for Apple to adopt NFC so we can all move forward on better solutions.

Their FAQ says that future versions will support chip cards. https://onlycoin.com/support/faq/

That seems.... unlikely, on balance.

There is no way for the consumer to transfer all the necessary data from their chip to another device, and the banks probably wouldn't be interested due to branding and other concerns.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#74

Post by qq66 »

brettgoldstein3 wrote: post #50
bradgessler wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.

Isn't the "old crusty infrastructure" in this case the credit card itself? It seems ridiculous to try to kill the credit card with... a credit card. I wouldn't be surprised if Clinkle, LoopPay, Square, or any of the many startups in this space kills the credit card (and thus Coin) before Coin makes its first delivery in Summer 2014.

If you wouldn't be surprised by that, you must not be frequently surprised.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#75

Post by Nursie »

jebus989 wrote: post #42
txttran wrote: post #17

For everyone who is poo-pooing Coin because it's not a digital wallet, please answer this question: How long from now will most merchants that accept credit cards also start accepting an e-wallet of some sort? I honestly would be stunned if this happened in <10 years. I think we very often underestimate how slow adoption rate is for new technology and how much money can be made by playing nice with the incumbent tech…

All of them accept online payments. It's really not a big leap to being able to pay for something through their website while in their store and walk out with it. Some places do this now, especially for bulky items, just scan the barcode in-store and they'll deliver it your house. If I'm carrying a wallet or keys in my pockets in 10 years I'll be pretty disappointed.

From the industry side of this - online payments suffer a lot more fraud and just generally have a worse risk-profile than traditional "customer-present" transactions.

Specifically online card payments. Unsure about through other processing facilities.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#76

Post by qq66 »

aeturnum wrote: post #61

I don't have a use for Coin - I have few cards, but the product reminds me of a quote often attributed to Henry Ford, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." While I think it's great for people who have many cards, and there are probably tons of customers like that, it doesn't seem that interesting from a tech point of view.

The tech point of view is the most interesting! They made a reprogrammable credit card that's the same thickness as a credit card. That's impressive tech whatever your opinion of the utility.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#77

Post by chaz »

bradgessler wrote: post #47
jmduke wrote: post #3

I dislike this article: it seems to suffer from 'perfect is the enemy of good'-itis and willful misunderstanding of how complex -- and difficult -- commerce can be. The author basically argues that things should be wonderful and easy and the service providers should handle it all (ignoring the difficulties of such a provision): I should use a plastic card, cheap, easily replaceable, low cost (free in most cases), and…

Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.

Google Voice for credit cards is ... Google Wallet. Or at least, it was supposed to have been. Page killed it off before this year's I/O. http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/google-kills-its-pla...

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#78

Post by Nursie »

ams6110 wrote: post #59
cypher543 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is this has been done before, exact same approach, and it did not work out because the card issuers didn't buy in The card issuers don't have to buy in to anything. You program the Coin yourself using your existing cards. > I use two cards on a regular basis. I have others but rarely need to carry them with me. So I can reduce two slots in my wallet to one. Doesn't seem like enough of a benefit to me. Ah, the o…

cashiers have never so much as glanced at my cards. In fact my impression is that in the vast majority of stores now you swipe your own card. The cashier never touches it.

Strictly speaking that's been one of the card rules for a long time - you were supposed to swipe your own card in stores and absolutely never let a waiter wander off with it.

Reality was always a bit different to that.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#79

Post by dbecker »

jmduke wrote: post #3

I dislike this article: it seems to suffer from 'perfect is the enemy of good'-itis and willful misunderstanding of how complex -- and difficult -- commerce can be. The author basically argues that things should be wonderful and easy and the service providers should handle it all (ignoring the difficulties of such a provision): I should use a plastic card, cheap, easily replaceable, low cost (free in most cases), and…

I used to work at the Federal Trade Commission, so I'm quite familiar with this particular legal issue. What Coin is doing violates neither the spirit nor the letter of the Mail Order Rule.

The law states that orders must be shipped within the time stated by the company, and there is a default of 30 days if no other shipping estimate is given. In this case, Coin clearly and conspicuously states that they will ship in the Summer of 2014.

If they fail to ship by that time, they are required to offer purchasers a refund. However, the law clearly states that the company can set their shipping timeline, so long as they make the company aware of it.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#80

Post by dsl »

bradgessler wrote: post #47
jmduke wrote: post #3

I dislike this article: it seems to suffer from 'perfect is the enemy of good'-itis and willful misunderstanding of how complex -- and difficult -- commerce can be. The author basically argues that things should be wonderful and easy and the service providers should handle it all (ignoring the difficulties of such a provision): I should use a plastic card, cheap, easily replaceable, low cost (free in most cases), and…

Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.

> Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card"

Hopefully not "Google Wave for Credit Card"

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