Post #1508872

2026-03-16 14:34 UTC

I see this topic come up often in conversations about degoogled Android and it makes me wonder what if anything I'm missing out on by just using cash/card for payments, cause not once have I been at checkout and thought to myself "man, I wish I could do this with my phone instead" but people talk about this like it's almost a dealbreaker that makes it hard for them to seriously consider switching to Graphene or Lineage or whatever.

Replies (9)

@h_ramus@piefed.social 2026-03-16 15:43

In a lot of counties banks are becoming mobile first. Want to login in the browser? Authenticate with your mobile app to approve. Don't have a mobile phone with the requisites of the bank? Well, go to the branch, take a ticket, wait and then tell them what you want to do with your money. It's not just about paying, banks are moving online authentication to be dependent on Google or Apple, whatever poison you pick. This seems like same shit different flies. Still dependent on some centralised approval which doesn't help openness and security. We need alternatives to the duopoly but this ain't it, chief.

Open ##1508901
@NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml 2026-03-16 14:46

I agree, it’s a nice-to-have but it’s far from necessary. I like having the option as a backup in case I forget my wallet, but I’ll live without it

Open ##1508902
@root@lemmy.world 2026-03-16 18:28

I agree, with the caveat that it's very nice to be able to pay with my phone/ watch if/when forget my wallet, rather than having to go back home to get it.

Open ##1508903
@20dogs@feddit.uk 2026-03-17 10:27

My bank (Monzo) doesn't even offer an alternative way to interact or sign up except through the smartphone app.

Open ##1508904
@Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 2026-03-16 17:21

India primarily uses Phones to pay. And I'm sure there's a big community there that uses custom ROMs.

Open ##1508905
@JoeMontayna@lemmy.ml 2026-03-16 18:39

It's the hardware, and it feels like mobile in particular is intentionally designed to not be modular. I suspect that is by design to keep it under control of the big companies.

Open ##1508906
@puntinoblue@lemmy.ml 2026-03-16 22:55

I don’t use the phone that often as a debit /credit bank card but I use it for payments (bills invoices etc.), paying on line, transferring money to people and accounts, and just managing accounts. The phone app is very useful for those functions - especially if the alternative is going into a bank and queuing. A phone OS that will not work with banking apps is not really a contemporary solution. iOS or Android are the only reliable options at the moment in the US/Europe - Iiuc Open Source Android has to sandbox Google Play for banking apps to work so that’s not viable long-term solution, as Google will only make that more difficult in the future. Given the issues with the judges at ICC and US payment systems, building an alternative to Google and Apple is a high priority

Open ##1508907
@MouldyCat@feddit.uk 2026-03-17 13:40

Unfortunately there is a significant security advantage in using Google Pay or Apple Pay which no one has yet mentioned. When you make a payment with chip-and-PIN using your physical card, your real card number is exposed to the merchant. The proprietary wallet services on the other hand use a device-specific token in place of the card number. In practice, this means that if a retailer is compromised, there’s no usable card data to steal or clone, which removes a large class of fraud that still exists with physical cards.

Open ##1508908
@Don_alForno@feddit.org 2026-03-18 09:34

My bank uses an app as 2FA for online credit card payments. Without this app I couldn't use my cc for online shopping.

Open ##1508909