Dee Hock is still oddly unknown. He is the one founding CEO of a company that went on to do more than a trillion (yes, that is with a "T") in transactions: he founded VISA. Dee Hock fundamentally re-thought the very notion of money, realizing that its natural evolution would be towards bytes and bits. Money began in forms like pelts and shells and today is nothing more than electronic blips.
In yet another trend, in the last couple of decades, nonbank financial institutions have taken over more and more of deposit and credit business.
So, I'm sitting somewhere the other day, noting how many people have iPods or variants on them. Why can't they double as credit cards / wallets? Why not use them for purchases? When will Apple essentially become a bank? (Probably about the same time that kids begin to denominate all their transactions in songs.)
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
6 comments:
the last name is hock? that's pretty funny!
I'm concerned about the future of all transactions, both social and financial and, well, artistic, happening on these small hand held devices, seeing as they're so easily misplaced. If married to someone with ADD, you know of what I speak. It's scary to allow my husband out of the house with an ATM card. And forget about his MP3 player, we're on the 4th iteration of that. Maybe we can develop some sort of permanent portal by which we attach these devices to our person making separation from one's PDA/MP3/Phone/ATM card thingamajiggy impossible.
But it is happening already. This weekend, I went to Saks and while there, I'd remembered I'd left a coupon I'd received from them via e-mail without printing. The cashier noted that I had my iphone with me. I whipped it out, pulled up the e-mail, scrolled down showing the barcode number for the discount and voilá!
And what about the ordering of java from Starbucks through the iphone. Have you heard of that?
An i-phone can be a car buying tool.
For instance, fancy terms like lease acquisition fee (profit for the bank) and capital cost reduction (down payment) can attach to hard-to-decipher numbers.
So right off the bat, my iPhone’s calculator came in handy. As the dealership offered numbers, I plugged in formulas I’d already worked out to help me decide whether or not the deal was fair.
But the real help came in form of the e-mails that the dealership and I had sent back and forth, as well as access to the Web.
I had pre-loaded Edmunds.com as well as ConsumerReports.com onto my iPhone’s home page and had both up and running at the dealership when I walked in. When I was presented with a fact, I’d verify it online. When I needed to counter, I’d just hand the salesman my iPhone and tell him to look at the data for himself.
When the dealership changed the original offer they sent me via e-mail, I simply called up the old e-mail to remind them what had been said, and which way the deal needed to go if we were going to agree.
Having this information available to me at my fingertips was incredibly beneficial. In the past, I’d have to make print outs of this stuff from the web and hope for the best. In this case, I had real-time information and it saved me a bunch of money.
At the end of the day, I saved $5750 by using my iPhone as a negotiating tool. I more than paid for the phone and AT&T service that I’ll use over the next two years in one two hour session.
So take your iPhone with you the next time you plan to buy a car. You never know how much you might save.
If that happens then it is a sure sign of the end of time, mark of the beast, 666 or at least a very good business decision by apple.
smom,
yeah, I'm not sure if Dee's destiny was determined generations earlier. And yes, it is kind of funny.
cce,
I should have thought of that. Had I just posted, 'a thingamajiggy will eventually double as a credit card,' no one could have refuted that.
Milena,
ordering coffee through your iPhone? How long does it take to download?
anon,
I am so excited! First I thought that this read like an ad for an iPhone. But I got it! Steve Jobs, welcome to R World. I'm glad to have you reading and commenting. Thanks.
hrh,
so, you think that apple stock is a good "end time" investment play? But when do you cash out?
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