App stores and payment systems: a license to print money. Today and tomorrow! Maybe.
Todays news is that Samsung is trying again int he digital wallet space. Here's some context, We all know that there are some very large very profitable high tech firms. For instance: Apple, Google, Ebay, and Amazon. Why do I pick those three? What do they have in common?
Probably lots of things but one is that they are starting to control their own payment systems which allows them to take a little slice of a huge effing pie. Basically, a tiny slice of the money you spend.
Apple is the most successful in this realm so far with Apple Pay. It's well established and known as a way to pay.
Google Wallet is right there next to them and most supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, and restaurants are moving towards accepting them too.
Amazon has already made some inroads with their payment system for purchases beyond Amazon.
And Paypal from Ebay is of the granddaddy of all of the digital payment solutions.
Of course, astute readers will notice that I put MAYBE in my opening line. Will all these payment systems continue to flourish in the future or will there be winners and losers? Will Europe or the US declare the combination of combined interests (hardware, OS, app store, and payment systems) to be a monopoly which is detrimental to the public interest and force them to breakup into their separate parts? BTW: I think yes. I think much of our future business progress will come from governments becoming astute and defining new rules of commerce to encourage more growth, innovation, service to consumers, and less monopoly control. I know it's hard to imagine but since the US Guilded Age, the government sometimes steps up and breaks up trusts, banking arrangements, phone companies, and more recently, high tech firms.
So here's todays the news. Introducing Samsung Wallet:
An Easy-To-Use, Secure Platform That Holds Everything Your Digital Life Needs Samsung Wallet combines many existing features into one Samsung Pay with Samsung Pass to store and access digital IDs, payment and loyalty cards, keys and more
Samsung Electronics today announced the launch of Samsung Wallet,1 a new platform that enables Galaxy users to organize digital keys, boarding passes, identification cards and more, in one, easy-to-use and secure mobile application. Samsung Wallet is protected by defense-grade security from Samsung Knox and takes advantage of an open Galaxy ecosystem by integrating with Samsung Blockchain Wallet to easily monitor cryptocurrencies and SmartThings to unlock doors.
For more official info, check out samsung's announcement