51–56 of 56 posts
Constructive criticism: This is an example how how the illusion of a beautifully designed, professional-looking site is easily burst by an amateur how-to video.
Gaaahh! Shaky camera action!
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Otoh, more people should take credit cards! We should be moving away from credit cards. They are becoming an archaic technology.
While low-tech, credit cards are very flexible. I worry that the more high tech approaches (NFC, etc) are motivated not because its a step forward, but because its an opportunity to grab more control of the market, and leave consumers more exposed to fraud.
Also, how would a phone lead to more fraud? You could authorize each transaction by cryptographically signing it after entering a passphrase. With a credit card anyone that steals your numbers can charge to it.
(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the me…
But the, why doesn't having a photo of the card in-question also qualify for a CP?
I think Square moved toward being able to swipe because it's more 'traditional'. People were going to be upset about vendors taking a pic of their card.
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This is completely from left field, but should you ever move the project to an alternate domain name, card.io would be a perfect domain for a fitness-related app focusing on cardio workouts. I can see the title on HN: "Card.io - fast and easy workouts"
I honestly thought that this was a fitness related site. I can't help but still think of it that way even though I know what it is now.
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While low-tech, credit cards are very flexible. I worry that the more high tech approaches (NFC, etc) are motivated not because its a step forward, but because its an opportunity to grab more control of the market, and leave consumers more exposed to fraud.
How are credit cards more flexible than a computer in your hand? Worst case your phone acts exactly like your credit card where you read numbers off of it. Also, how would a phone lead to more fraud? You could authorize each transaction by cryptographically signing it after entering a passphrase. With a credit card anyone that steals your numbers can charge to it.
The fraud prevention mechanism for magnetic cards is mostly reactive and doesn't require "passphrases" or "cryptographically signing," which is a big usability win.
Since issuers are on the hook for unauthorized charges, and generally make money from transaction fees, it's in their best interest to find a good compromise between fraud protection and usability. Adding consumer software and a wide variety of commoditized portable computing devices into the mix doesn't seem worth the cost.