In the US it was uncommon. Contactless payments had been supported in Europe and Asia for a while (2007 in the UK), though with fairly low limits at least in the UK.
Interestingly, it seems like the UK still has a £100 limit, while in the US I've paid well over $2000 with a contactless payment using my Android phone.
The UK's £100 limit only applies for using the actual card, if using a device to pay it's authenticated with your PIN or biometric and you can pay up to £10,000. If you look on the receipt you can see "cardholder device verified"
In Australia it seems like a credit card contactless is limited (was AU$100 or fifty quid if you like) but now might be more.
But the apple pay is way higher I have spent over $1k on it before. Probably because there is at least another layer of security which is a Passcode which is probably a better PIN than the credit card pin itself.
Australian also. I wish for the opposite, I’d like to be able to reduce the tap-no-pin limit down to $50 or so. I only use the physical card in rare emergencies, and increasing the times I have to enter my PIN by once or twice per year is hardly an inconvenience.
I believe when using apple pay with an apple watch, there's no longer a threshold where you need to use a PIN/passcode as the watch is using 'biometric authentication'.
Interestingly, it seems like the UK still has a £100 limit, while in the US I've paid well over $2000 with a contactless payment using my Android phone.