I feel safe in asserting that you have a Visa card (or a MasterCard, which is basically the same thing). We all know what Visa does. But what IS Visa? That is to say, what is Visa the company? Somehow it’s just part of the landscape, like it must have been around forever. That’s what good infrastructure always feels like.
Here’s a related story. Last month, for the first time in my life, I traveled to another country and never once changed money. Not once. I was in England for a business trip, and during that weeklong trip, every single expense, from train tickets to candy bars, was conveniently paid for with a wave of my phone (which is linked to my Visa card via Apple Pay), or a tap of my credit card on the little Verifone device. It was so nice to return from overseas and not have my pockets full of heavy, unusable coins. It was pretty remarkable to me now, but I also know that in another year it will seem completely unremarkable. I’ll look back in wonder at this ancient, barbaric obsession with fiddly bits of paper and metal.
England has been ahead of us for a while when it comes to this kind of finance. The last time I went there, several years ago, my American credit card didn’t yet have a chip in it. So I was always the bozo slowing down the line at the coffee shop when I ordered my Flat White. The cashier would roll their eyes and look up the procedure for credit cards that you can’t just wave in the air (Bloody Yanks…). Patrons waiting behind me would shift uncomfortably: can you believe this guy?
But this last trip was an absolute breeze. The infrastructure that made it possible was a payment network that was started in 1958. It has taken something like sixty years for that infrastructure and the associated cultural changes to reach the point where I, standing 3000 miles from my home, can wave my phone at a vending machine and get a pack of gum. It’s another good example of how magic becomes physics. Here is something that seems like it shouldn’t be possible, and yet it is. And what happens next? Something astonishing quickly becomes “how the world works.” Gravity is like this too. Background magic.
Pervasive infrastructure has a way of disappearing into the background and then making it hard to remember what life was like before. Cell phone service, smart phones, the Internet, electricity, running water. It’s now hard to imagine life without any of these. And that makes it hard to think clearly about what a monstrous and slow-moving effort it was to put them in place.
If you’re curious about the Visa story, I have just the podcast for you. The Acquired podcast, which in general is very good, did this episode on the history of Visa.
Visa: The Complete History and Strategy.
When it comes to physical currency, the US has always been pokey compared to other countries. Our currency notes look practically identical. We can’t get rid of pennies. We can’t switch our singles to the eminently sensible dollar coin. We’re so conservative that it takes a major disruption for us to switch. Credit cards are that disruption. The revolution is finally here, and we’re using coins and paper money less with every passing day. I used to visit the ATM regularly to take out a small stack of 20s. Now I can goes many weeks without thinking about cash. Is Andrew Jackson too loathsome to honor on the 20? It hardly matters anymore. People will soon forget which presidents are on which bills.
It’s worth taking a little time to be grateful for the background magic of infrastructure. Cash is slowly fading into a minor supporting role. Novelty money. I won’t miss it.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 