Another step sideways for electronic cash
In his contribution to the September 2012 issue of IEEE Computer Magazine, Neal Leavitt asks Are Mobile [Computer] Payments Ready to Cash In Yet?
A few years ago, I participated in a workshop on future technologies during which my discussion group was asked to answer the question "When will cash be replaced by electronic payments?" I, and a fellow group member whose name I forget, quickly gave the answer "Never". Of course "never" is a long time, and history is well-supplied with infamous statements that heavier-than-air vehicles would never fly, that the world had a market for about five computers, and that home users wouldn't need more than 640 kilobytes of memory.
Nonetheless, I think Leavitt (probably unconsciously) tells us something in his summary of why mobile payments have not yet superseded cash. According to his "industry observers", such payments are hampered by "inadequate security, a lack of standards, and limited interoperability between systems".
I'm sure these are all genuine difficulties with mobile payments, but the industry observers seem to have forgotten to ask: in what way do mobile payments improve upon cash? Why switch to payment by mobile computer when cash, EFTPOS and credit cards already provide effective and convenient methods of portable payment? (The mobile computing industry presumably considers getting a cut of the payments to be reason enough.)
Towards the end of the article, Leavitt summarises the thoughts of a market analyst by the name of John Shuster. Shuster, as paraphrased by Leavitt, conjectures that users "may see no compelling reason to adopt them", and I think this might actually be the most significant reason for limited interest in payment by mobile computer.
Electronic cash looks to me to be one of those science fiction ideas that futuristic writers always assumed would come about, but somehow never did. Like videophones, flying cars and talking computers, it's not that electronic cash is necessarily beyond us, it's just that it isn't particularly useful compared to the established alternative. This is why we haven't replaced our telephones with Skype, our cars with helicopters, or keyboards with microphones. And why I think few outside the mobile computing industry are rushing to replace cash with gadgets.
So what if there's an app for that?
I've long carried a printed timetable for the railway line that I use most often. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled it out in order to check when the next train home left.
The friends that I was with asked me why I didn't have a more modern appliance for doing such things. I said that "It works and it's free". I then went on to my standard explanation that, as someone who sits at a computer all day at work and who also has a computer at home, I don't feel the need to have one while I'm walking around the place as well. (I don't actually sit at a computer all day now that I'm a teacher, but this explanation comes from when I worked as a programmer.)
One of the friends reminisced about the days in which she had a complete collection of printed timetables for Sydney's rail network. I have no doubt that an electronic device containing all of this information would be more convenient than such a collection, and one of the few mobile apps I've seen that actually seemed interesting to me is one that provides timetables for public transport in various cities (including Sydney).
Still, I have no plans to replace my printed timetable. For one, it does work quite well for all of the routine trips that I take, and it is free, which cannot be said about mobile devices and mobile data plans. I use the CityRail and TransportInfo sites from my home computer to plan non-routine trips, but I find these sites to be a little clumsy compared to looking up my printed timetable for routine trips.
More importantly, perhaps, I also enjoy the challenge of working out the most efficient public transport route for myself. For me, an app that works out how to get from A to B would be like an app that solves crosswords or games of patience: efficient, maybe, but not very entertaining.
