One implication of Apple Pay is it erodes advantages of leaders like Uber. Minimizing payment and account friction means trying a new service becomes much easier.
It erodes, but also enables you to focus on your companies core competency rather than payments.
Also viewing this through the lens that e-commerce view shopping cart conversion rates, this might up initial conversion for new services, which in Uber cases is a win. Just forces everyone to focus more on product.
Exactly the opposite seems to be true. Uber had a presence in the keynote today with a way to ride without ever creating a login, which should enable lot more people to use the service. If you thought that the advantage Uber had was mostly was in minimizing payment friction, that would be pretty wrong.
It would be pretty wrong. Which is why that wasn't the statement. :) Especially for services like transportation, which are commoditizing faster than they're not, removing the need to create accounts and enter credit cards increases consumer willingness to try alternate services. For example, if an aggregator shows a Sidecar 2 min away and an Uber 10 min away, Apple Pay now makes it vastly easier for an Uber customer to try Sidecar for the first time.
Yes, though unlike the App Store, this will take much longer to unfold since there is so much infrastructure out of Apple's control. But Apple Pay should galvanize the payments and commerce industries, eventually leading to much greater competition among retailers and service providers -- and more benefits to consumers.
Also viewing this through the lens that e-commerce view shopping cart conversion rates, this might up initial conversion for new services, which in Uber cases is a win. Just forces everyone to focus more on product.