But with both Google and Facebook essentially being advertising companies a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data. That could be a real hindrance to them becoming ubiquitous payment providers.
> a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data.
I bet this number is much lower than you think it is. People outside of the tech/hacker scene don't care about privacy (in this context). "Who cares if Facebook knows that I went to McDonalds?"
I tend to agree with that, regardless. My general take is that i want life empowering features driven by data. Of course, i would prefer to not give X company my data, but until a home-brew solution comes to light it's unrealistic for me to expect privacy and these types of features. In the end, i want the features. I want Google Now (well, i want what it represents.. it still sort of sucks haha).
Honestly, if said data is used to generate some demographic profile in order to show me less irrelevant ads while still paying for these incredibly useful services, I don't terribly mind. Advertising has been around for a while but being able to guess what might apply means less reliance on sheer volume in order to get the same value from the "ad space". I completely understand the ways this can backfire (shadowy three-letter agencies stealing that profile info, leaks that reveal info that someone figures out how to tie to your identity, etc) but those things are already distinct possibilities with credit card companies, email providers, loyalty cards, medical records, and a host of other things. Leveraging information to create valuable services that would otherwise not be possible is probably not going away anytime soon. At least this way it's easy to split bar tabs or cab rides.