And Apple Pay is much harder to trace (except for Apple and your bank I guess?) than just using a plastic static card.
I can't count the amount of times I've lost or been robbed physical bills. Never once have money siphoned out of my online bank. I don't use cash anymore, I'm all digital, and still use a VPN to watch porn.
Turns out different people have different threat models. My threat model includes my neighbour, my ISP (to a certain extent), my employer (again, to a certain extent), private companies like Google or Facebook, burglars, thieves, and scammers.
It doesn't include the NSA, the government, the NSO group, banks, or North Korean government-sponsored hackers. If you think you can defend yourself against the NSA, lol. Good luck.
Threat model should include banks , credit scores and spending patterns of credit cards is the foundation of credit worthiness in this country .
For example, your credit score is penalized if your have high utilization on your card doesn’t matter if you never default on a payment, Low credit score results in low limits in turn keeps utilization high.
Bank knowing I defaulted on a card as a risk parameter is one thing, them knowing how much I spend every month and likely on what line items is not ideal when they can control a lot of your life.
Bad credit score can mean high interest rates , higher down payments rejected for loans that can have major impact on your life.
It is also likely bank or payment processors can indirectly sell our buying patterns for targeting ads.
Those are highly regulated, regarding which data they can or can not use, and that regulation is (surprisingly?) very consumer friendly. There's more of a risk of a CRA getting hacked and their collected data being sold
The advise I have always given is you must have credit history to apply for any sort of loan. To get a good history apply for a credit card even if you don't need one and use it, but no so much that your utilization is too high that will reduce your score. Merely apply for a loan your credit score goes down just cause you applied!. How is this consumer friendly ?
It would be one thing if Credit Score for a government run central thing, couple of private companies having all your spending data without your consent at all seems major invasion of privacy.
Scoring methodology depends on sharing my private spending data to others, data that I cannot control being resold or have full visibility into its use. CRAs will try to charge you to "freeze" your credit or even see your own data!.
This is extremely anti-consumer, CRA industry did not develop for consumers or their protection, it is merely a tool for businesses to improve their operations.
Imagine if FB had a "social credit" and that is now used every social gathering as an eligibility criteria, and Facebook charged you to see your own data, that is how the current system feels.
