
Chinese Tourists Challenge Cash’s Reign in Japan - aerophilic
https://www.wsj.com/articles/smartphone-wielding-chinese-tourists-challenge-cashs-reign-11551609002
======
roobs
I've been living in Japan for about 6 months and recently I've felt a very
aggressive local push to get people to use these barcode payment apps. For
example I recall in January PayPay were offering a discount at FamilyMart (a
konbini/convenience store) for signing up and using their app, then a few
weeks ago LINE Pay had a similar promotion. Both apps offer loyalty points for
paying with them.

But what's strange is this feels like a backwards step; you can also pay with
your train IC card in konbini and now that you can get Suica (one of the train
IC cards) on Apple Pay and Google Pay it's significantly faster to use that
than unlock your phone, open LINE/PayPay and get the barcode. LINE Pay also
have their own prepaid card and Mercari just launched their own prepaid card
built into Apple Pay too.

Still, I wonder which (if any) will come out the winner and how many more will
pop up in the meantime.

~~~
ksec
>But what's strange is this feels like a backwards step

Because it really is. And yet this is again the cheaper, arguably good enough
alternative won. I don't like this QR Code future either, and I am not sure if
anything can be done at this point.

------
sheepdestroyer
flagged for being paywalled

~~~
ksec
While I don't like Paywalled post, I dont think you should flag a post just
for being paywalled. And that is not how it works here on HN. From the FAQ

>Are paywalls ok?

>It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.

>In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do
so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.

~~~
johnnyjuiceNYC
What is the WSJ workaround?

~~~
detaro
outline.com still works

