Mobile payments are a joke. Full stop. The technology to make mobile payments work has been around forever, it’s just that there’s a battle for control that’s causing the market to stagnate. Your bank wants to own the relationship between you and your money. So does Visa. So does your operator. So does your handset maker. So does the company who wrote the OS that runs on your smartphone. See where I’m getting at?

So it pains me to announce that Samsung has just launched Samsung Wallet in South Korea. It looks like a mix of Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet, and chances are no one is going to bother using it since it’s easier to just swipe a credit card or take hard currency out of your bi-fold.

I’m sorry for sounding like a depressive, but over the years I’ve learned that just because something is technically possible, that doesn’t mean it’ll actually get implemented in the real world. Larry Page, speaking at I/O, was right. We’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible with the technology we have, it’s the petty arguments between multinational corporations that’s holding us back.

Until those arguments stop happening, my plastic Visa works good enough for me.