It’s my opinion that underutilization is because of application rather than any more ephemeral thing like appearance. QR codes haven’t had a killer app yet, and they tend to be used for marketing rather than any critical tasks that rely on the qualities that make it a useful technology. My guess is this will change as it’s become more or less a requirement to have a cell phone to function in western society.
Since the virus hit, where I live restaurants are prohibited by law from having reusable menus. Instead, nearly all of them have a QR code at the able that you scan to see the menu on your phone.
When I lived in China, scanning QR codes was how we initiated payments for restaurants, groceries, couriers and other offline goods/services. It was also how we added people to WeChat.
I would guess at least 20 million QR codes are scanned per day in Beijing.
I think they’d need some hardware to verify that the transaction happened. A small business owner can use their own phone, but other businesses need a smartphone per point of sale, which might be more expensive than a card reader (that one likely has to have anyway)
You can use a phone (or whatever) to verify the transaction, but in practice I've never seen anyone do that. It probably helps that crime is pretty low in this part of Asia.
As an European I’d say over half of my mobile payments are already via a QR code (it triggers a direct debit from my bank app). It’s infinitely faster than going through online checkout forms.
I am French, use mobile payments and would be interested to see a payment qrcode (never seen one)
Also, when you mention Direct Debit, is this the mechanism which allows a merchant to draw on your bank account? There need to be confirmed with the bank before (though maybe it is possible now to have that in one step, which also has your consentement)
Also 1) only works up to a daily limit which you can configure 2) it’s a SEPA transfer, goes straight to another local, very traceable account and not a random bitcoin wallet in case you try to pull that off :)
Look at just any thing you’ve purchased and you’ll find a QR code on it somewhere (or the box it came in). They have massive uptake in warehousing and manufacturing.
They are also very popular in China, the dang things are on just about every surface.
The big problem is that any random QR code could be malware or the like (not a big problem for the tech-savvy, but worrying for those who are not) and few urls are so unwieldy that QR codes work better.
I can see it being useful for stealth links to .onion sites which are generally impossible to remember and a pain to type out.
> it's become more or less a requirement to have a cell phone to function in western society
Owning a cell phone doesn't mean everyone keeps it with him at all times, and this will limit potential uses. Hopefully people don't become tied to it that badly.
