Re: Wallets

Hi, Manu–

I have to say that, as a newbie, the literalism of the wallet metaphor 
actually really clicked for me, when I read the charter.

I've heard the term "digital wallet" before, and mentally parsed it as 
"digital credit card" (though I'm sure I was missing intended 
subtleties). When I read the charter, the skeumorphism made me realize 
that indeed it was more than just the credit card, but ID, receipts, 
loyalty cards, and maybe even task-based authorization credentials 
(similar to a driver's license).

You make a good point that some of those things are out of scope of the 
current charter, and you're right that this will do more than what a 
"real wallet" does, but I see an initial working group charter as 
aspirational and contextualizing, not just a scope-setting exercise. I 
don't think it over-promises or misleads. If the WG completes its scoped 
deliverables in a timely way, that paves the way for it to tackle other 
aspects of the wallet, longer-term… or to liaise with other WGs 
chartered to do so. Setting the scope and hope will attract and guide 
others (not just the AC) to the WG, which is a pragmatic outcome.

I defer to y'all on what the scoped deliverables should be, and on the 
technical merits of different approaches; I just wanted to offer my 
perspective on the value of the messaging.

Regards–
–Doug

On 7/7/15 9:01 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
> On 07/07/2015 06:03 AM, Adrian Hope-Bailie wrote:
>>> Wallets
>>
>> I really don't like the wallet skeumorphism. When we're done, I
>> don't expect that what we will have will resemble a wallet at all.
>> For those that have worked on these systems, a wallet is a really
>> poor metaphor that helps us align with the current industry language,
>> but that's about it.
>>
>> I strongly disagree. We will not have a wallet when we are done but
>> we will have an interoperable way for browsers to interface with
>> wallets (both native and cloud-based).
>
> In the end (version 2+), we'll have an interoperable way for /user
> agents/ (browsers aren't the only important thing on the Web) to
> interface with /payment services/ (aka payment agents).
>
> Some of these payment services will have functionality that looks like a
> digital wallet (but that's a very limited way of looking at what we're
> trying to do here). Other payment services will have functionality that
> looks far more like Siri for commerce than a wallet.
>
> I get that we may have to "market the message" a bit to communicate this
> to the general public. A charter, however, isn't intended for the
> general public, it's intended for W3C Advisory Committee
> representatives. W3C AC reps tend to be highly educated, technically
> minded people. Sure, we may need to market a bit to them as well, but
> "wallet" may be misleading (at least, that's the point I'm trying to make).
>
> I don't think this is a make or break thing, just that we should be very
> careful NOT to buy into our own marketing message. If folks think that
> all we are doing is creating an interface to a digital wallet, you're
> missing the point of what this work is capable of accomplishing.
>
>> The linked data, fuzzy, user space concept where a payment request
>> is "resolved" through some process that crawls the payer's possible
>> payment instruments stored in a myriad inter-linked private places on
>> the Web is too abstract for what we are trying to solve today. We
>> should be standardising the interface from the Web to this wallet
>> service in a way that allows this service to evolve into something
>> that can do search and discovery one day.
>
> My warning is that we should be standardizing the interface to this
> payment service in a way that doesn't prevent the future that we want,
> which is far more broad than wallets containing things that we provide
> to websites.
>
>> Finally, the concept of a digital wallet is well understood and is
>> even being adopted by those who avoided the terminology in the past
>> like Apple [1]. For us to pro-actively avoid the terminology used by
>>   the industry is a recipe for confusion and apathy toward our work.
>> The standardization process starts to appear like a well meaning
>> academic exercise with no pragmatic purpose or understanding of
>> reality.
>>
>> TL;DR: The rest of the world are using wallets but they don't have
>> an interoperable way to make them work with the Web. We should be
>> fixing that problem not trying to persuade everyone that we know
>> better.
>
> My point was that giving "wallets" special attention in the charter
> could turn out to send the wrong message. I think we're doing that
> primarily for marketing/messaging purposes, and maybe that's the
> trade-off we need to make.
>
> The downside here is that people will think that we're primarily
> interested in creating a standard API for wallets, and they expect
> wallets to do everything their current physical wallet does. This
> functionality includes holding receipts, coupons, and identity
> information - all of which were specifically placed out of scope for
> version 1 with no concrete plan to do anything about it for version 2.
> So, doing that may cause confusion as well.
>
>> We should put some time aside on the Thursday call to discuss a
>> different way of describing what we're creating. It's more akin to a
>> "payment service discovery" mechanism than a "wallet".
>>
>> I disagree. I don't think we are creating a wallet or a payment
>> service discovery mechanism. We are standardising the mechanism for a
>> payer and payee to exchange payment terms so that wallet providers
>> can build great wallets that simply plug into the Web ecosystem and
>> payee's can offer user's a better payment experience (if they are
>> using a wallet that implements this standard).
>
> I think that we are standardizing a mechanism for a payer and payee to
> transact over the Web so that payment service providers can build great
> experiences that simply plug into the Web ecosystem. Wallets are a part
> of that, but they are not central.
>
> A wallet does not help you perform:
>
> 1. Negotiation of Terms, or
> 2. Payment Processing
>
> We should mention wallets, but in a way that does not make it seem like
> the concept is central to the work we're doing. The current charter
> makes it seem like wallets are central to the work we're doing.
>
> -- manu
>

Received on Wednesday, 8 July 2015 04:47:17 UTC