But even if not, and it was truly a phone-only payment world, I can't believe that they wouldn't have some kind of backup process available.

And even if no backup process were available, the first friend I could bump into or email could help me buy a cheap phone, and then I'd pay them back after I'm up and running again.

I see no scenarios where my risk exposure is significant in a phone loss or breakage scenario.

That's just moving the goalposts. The whole point of the original post was that moving to a phone-only payment world is a bad thing, and that's what is happening in some places (China is only one).

I see no scenarios where my risk exposure is significant in a phone loss or breakage scenario.

Then I submit that you lack imagination.

Here's a scenario: You're in a country you've never been before. You took an Uber to a restaurant recommended by the hotel concierge. Food was great. You pay with your phone, then leave.

In the street as you try to text your wife a picture of the awesome food, a passerby bumps into you and your phone goes through a sewer grate.

You now have no phone. You can't summon another Uber because you don't have access to the app. You can't call a cab because you can't pay for it. You can't take transit because your transit pass was on the phone. You can't walk back to the hotel, because your map is an app. You can't talk to the locals because your translation dictionary is an app. You're screwed.

Many tourists keep backup cash and travel documents in a waist-pack just for that contingency.

To expand on the original scenario, last year my primary phone was soaked in freak torrential rain and shut-off. Thankfully I had loaded all my travel docs, password safe and maps to a backup tablet and I was able to call into a service station and arrange my affairs over their wifi. It took two days for my phone to dry out.

Always, always take a backup when away from home.

> I'd just borrow the driver's phone to login on WeChat and pay

You'd know your password from memory? You'd trust his phone? Would you use banking apps on his phone too?

You have your phone out all the time. The risk of losing/breaking it is significantly higher than your wallet which sits your pocket 99.9% of the time.

I suppose at some point all this might be moot in the long term because people will have succumbed to having chips implanted in their skin or brain, and we won't even really need phones anymore. /a little bit of s

Or maybe cell phone networks will turn into something equivalent to wifi, that you could pick and choose from a software menu.

If you're that totally helpless in a foreign country without your phone, you probably should go with a friend or local.

As noted above, you don't speak the language and both your foreign translation app and dictionary are in your now gone phone.

then keep the meter running until you get a new phone

That was funny. Thanks for that one.

If you're that totally helpless in a foreign country without your phone, you probably should go with a friend or local.

It's not the person who is helpless. It's being forced to rely on a single point of failure (the phone) that makes people helpless.

Also, there are literally millions solo travelers in the world. Telling someone they cannot travel unaccompanied makes no sense. The whole point of the map apps, the translation apps, the recommendation apps, etc... is to allow people to accomplish things without others.

Your scenario is contrived. Imagine a mystical time before phones - maybe it was your pocket translation dictionary that fell down the grate? You're out of luck in much the same way - unless you just go back inside and talk to the restaurant and have them send a cab, or call the hotel, or find someone on the street to help you out.

Yes. 27 countries so far. And I traveled to the ends of the earth in a time before cell phones even existed.

Imagine a mystical time before phones - maybe it was your pocket translation dictionary that fell down the grate? You're out of luck in much the same way - unless you just go back inside and talk to the restaurant and have them send a cab, or call the hotel, or find someone on the street to help you out.

If my pocket translator fell down the grate, I'd still be able to hail a cab, point to a location on my paper map, and pay with cash. I've done it in Thailand, Japan, and Turkey. Probably other places I don't remember.

The point made repeatedly upstream is that the phone is a single point of failure, and eliminating the cash option in favor of a smartphone is a seriously bad idea.

I like keys / phone / wallet because you can lose 2/3 of those things and still be fine in you home city.

Lose your phone/wallet? Call a cab, go home, get a backup CC or cash. Lose your keys/phone? You can buy/borrow a phone / call a locksmith. Worst case you can book a hotel with your wallet.

Etc.

Phone only..... you lose it, what do you do? Keyless locks with codes do offer part of a solution here.

Maybe the right answer in the future will just be to have two phones. Probably a fancy primary and a cheap backup.

I hope you're carrying your passport in a foreign country.

Not possible everywhere. In some places, the hotel holds on to your passport.

One should absolutely not do this. You'll be royally screwed if you lose your passport. Leave it in your hotel room, with just a photo of it on your phone.

If it's a cash-only society, then the debit card wouldn't be useful anyway. Only cash would be useful in a cash-only society.