this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
456 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
61227 readers
5673 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I hate to be that guy, but if you're doing NFC payments, your card issuer is tracking you, AND selling your data. And of course, the merchant you're using is almost certainly tracking you and profiling you for more ads, too.
There's no way to do any sort of electronics payment with 'nobody' tracking you.
I trust Apple to be slightly less shitty than anyone else in the payment industry, but if you don't want to be tracked its' either cash, or you become one of those Monero dudes.
I fully understand that. My point is that I don't need Google also getting easy access to my data, along with all the metadata along the way (GPS, heart rate, etc). Right now, I only connect my watch to my phone every other week or so to refresh payment tokens, so the data they're getting is at least delayed.
I really don't need any of the smart watch features other than payments. I don't care about vitals monitoring, seeing my texts, etc. I ride to escape all that. I don't even need the time, I only need a way to buy a snack or something.
I'd probably use cash if we got rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes, because with sales tax, I always end up with a handful of nonsense ($1.84 -. $2.02 or some BS). I suppose I could just drop it all in a donation cup or something, but that adds up. And some stores don't even accept cash anymore.
So my solution is a smart watch. It's not great, but I get extra credit card rewards for using it (3% everywhere), so it'll pay for itself after a year or so.
Maybe I should just suck it up and just use cash. Idk. Maybe once I've finished degoogling everything else (last one Google Sheets), I'll get rid of my Pixel Watch.
Sorry if i missed it but I have a really stupid question: why not just use the card directly?
Is this just a dont-want-a-wallet thing, or something else?
Yup, pretty much.
I don't like stuff in my pockets when I exercise, and I often wear shorts without pockets. Before the watch, I'd put my phone and wallet in my saddle bag, which works, but that's not a thing when running (and I hate those hip ot arm bands).
And my wallet is tiny (basically this, one slot on each side and one pocket), so it's not the size.
Ah cool. I kinda wish that card issuers would issue a tiny little NFC disc or something so I can just integrate that into whatever and get the same functionality.
But that'd probably be a thing all of 8 people on earth want, and everyone else would lose it or eat it or something.
Costco has something like that for gas only (e.g. so your teen driver doesn't need the card).
Just give me the NFC bit and let me set a low limit on it, and I'll tape it to a Casio watch or something, I just need something I can wear and buy stuff with. Make it water proof so I can take it swimming too.
I mean, this is really janky, but you can probably get a second credit card and just cut it down. The NFC area on a credit card is quite small compared to the card itself. I doubt anyone would question it if you were tapping "something" on your wrist to a terminal as people are now used to smartwatch payments.
Lol, that's actually genius, maybe I'll try it with a card I don't use much.
OK, so I followed up on this idea and I'm not sure how viable it is. The chip is very small, but the antenna is quite often traced quite far across the card. The layout depends on the card, but might be more of a pain than it's worth.
https://robinminto.com/post/2014/03/21/Disabling-contactless-payment-cards-or-preventing-card-clash-with-Oyster
Dang. I guess I'll keep my current method for now. Thanks for the update!