[yardstick]

It would be a serious issue for in person transactions like shops, supermarkets, gas stations, etc

Imagine Walmart or Costco or Chevron centralised payment services went down for 30+ mins. You would get a lot of lost sales from those who don’t carry enough cash to cover it otherwise. Maybe a retailer might have a zapzap machine but lots of cards aren’t imprinted these days so that’s a non starter too.

[squeaky-clean]

Not just lost sales. I've seen a Walmart lose all ability to do credit card sales and after about 5 minutes maybe 10% of people waiting just started leaving with their groceries in their cart and a middle finger raised to the security telling them to stop.

[coldtea]

That's some low class rogue behavior though, not the standard in sales ("they can't process my card, let me take the stuff for free anyway").

[kaashif]

> Maybe a retailer might have a zapzap machine but lots of cards aren’t imprinted these days so that’s a non starter too.

When I Google "zapzap machine" this comment is the only result, but after looking around on Wikipedia, I see this is a typo for "zipzap".

Is this really the only time in history someone has typoed zipzap as zapzap? I guess so.

[HellsMaddy]

For anyone who is still confused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_imprinter

[yardstick]

Haha yeah I guess so! Last time I used one was in the previous millennium.