I Couldn't Find Tap to Pay on Graphene, and I Learned Something Completely Unexpected About All of Us

My motivation for this post came from a bad morning where I got stuck with no money, and my car was nearly running on fumes.

If you're not in the USA, this story might give you a sense of how far away things are from each other here. We are very car dependent, even in cities, but especially in a rural area like where I live.

Early morning calculations

I was suck where my friends were not close by. My partner was too far away helping his aunt with an errand, and there wasn't anyone else around. Even if there was, I often have a difficult time asking for help. I wanted to get the kids to school on time, and even though we left early, it wasn't early enough to wait around for someone that might be willing to lend me a few bucks. It wouldn't cover a gallon, but it would get me there. I thought I had to figure out what else I could do on my own.

Time is a luxury

That week and weekend, I was getting low on gas but didn't have time to go to the gas station for a few days. So, I was planning on doing it in the morning when I took the kids to school. I've done that before with no issues. We managed to get out the door early, but the gas station closest to my house was out of order. That's fine. There's another one that can be on the way to school if I go a little out of the way. When I got to the gas station, I realized I left my purse at home! No worries, I always keep a little money in my car just in case. Nevermind, that's gone. Now we're at fumes.

Choosing the priority

To give you an idea of the calculation, I didn't have enough time to drive back home, get cash, and come back. My son would've missed some of his first class. I also didn't have enough gas to go home then do school drop off. Depending on the length of the line in the morning, I'd run out of gas, be stuck, and make everyone else in line late.

My solution was an app

BUT my grocery store app has a credit card and I can use it at their gas station. Because I am willing to accept a little imperfect privacy, I had this backup. I didn't think I'd have enough gas to get to school and then the gas station, but I had no choice. Turns out, I had juuuust enough if I annoyed a couple of people by driving really conservatively. The digital payment kept my morning from getting so so so much worse. It wasn't tap to pay, but I was glad I had it set up.

Use virtual cards when you put payments in an app

Tap to pay and Graphene An alternative to Android or iOS on phones. as a Solution

Initially, I was going to write this post hoping to tell you that there was at least one option in the US for tap to pay for Graphene An alternative to Android or iOS on phones. , but I couldn't find anything. Samsung likely doesn't work and they are too far off from privacy-respecting so I wouldn't choose that over putting payment in an app. Curve pay is not available in the USA. My banks don't have it, either, but yours might? Garmin sells a watch that allows you to do tap-to-pay, but it's expensive and I'm not sure it's available in my country. If you're outside the USA, it sounds like you may have a number of options, though!

In the USA, loading payment into apps may be your best option

I was willing to accept a little imperfect privacy with a credit card in an app. But what I was missing is the even more imperfect privacy of making sure I stay connected to friends and to community. There's a mental barrier there, where my first strong drive was to go it alone.

But I forgot about the most human option

I realized in writing a "tap to pay" post, that the goal should be resilience and connection, not solving my problem with an app where I don't have to talk to anyone. It's hard when I'm still holding on to feelings of independence, "do it yourself," "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" that I was raised with from some family, and at school and church growing up. Even though those ideas never made sense to me, they are rattling around in there. I wouldn't expect anyone else to operate alone, but I still do for myself a lot of the time. Thinking that way has caused me more trouble than asking for help has.

I'm tracked

There's a push and pull between privacy and being tracked.

There's a pull toward Facebook in a county like mine, where news, events, and apparently organizing happens on there. I didn't look at Facebook at all for probably 6 months, and rarely for about 6 months before that. That meant I completely missed out on some big things happening in the county (and with friends I went to school with). In my county, there was a data center push from Amazon. Someone told me about a Facebook group "Stop data centers in County", so now I can be a little more in the know. Fortunately, my community pushed back enough. I felt guilty that I didn't even know it was happening. Other parents I know have similar issues being able to spend time, money, and energy on these kinds of things.

Probably the more immediate and strong pull is toward my Google Messages app. I use it so I get RCS messages and don't miss out on texts from friends and family. It's my best way of keeping connected. I think about something and send a gif to a friend. I let my friends know I exist. Google knows all the texts I get, and even though I turn off any settings for AI that I can on Google, they push updates for things so often that I can't keep up. Meta the rebranded company name for Facebook (Facbeook's parent company) makes it so confusing and difficult, that I can't tell what settings I have vs not. On top of that, when they create a new feature, it's automatically enabled, like how Facebook put me in their Dating app without my knowledge or wanting to be there.

RCS and graphene - including what is RCS

Is Graphene An alternative to Android or iOS on phones. pointless without perfect privacy?

So I can't find a perfect privacy solution that makes me a ghost, but does that mean Graphene An alternative to Android or iOS on phones. is pointless? I see comments online from people who feel that very strongly that "yes, you lost the plot." Some argue that it's against the idea of having a privacy phone to then use tech that uses you. I get it, and I think it's good to have people who feel so strongly about privacy.

But I disagree that Graphene An alternative to Android or iOS on phones. is pointless for someone like me. It's still protective the way I use it, and gives you control over your device. I'm still able to get the message across that I don't like the options available off the shelf.

The all-or-nothing thinking is also not helpful, in my opinion, just like my thinking an app can save me. In my case, I get ads, texts, calls, and e-mails that are not relevant to me. In fact, texts are addressed by name to someone else with a larger digital footprint than me. That tells me I'm still doing ok even though I'm being tracked. Even Facebook, who collects a crazy amount of data on literally everyone, seems to not know who I am, even though my account with them is almost old enough to rent a car. That must mean I'm doing something right, right?

If I had stuck with "perfect" privacy, I would've had a much more arduous morning when I was stuck needing to get gas. My "bootstrap" solution was to have an imperfect app with money on it.

Maybe I was stuck, but not how I thought

But maybe I had lost the plot. There was a problem with me wishing I had tap to pay in that moment at the gas station. I was stuck thinking I absolutely had to fix the problem alone. Would someone have helped me? Gave me a fiver? But that's not the only thing either. I have friends. I had at least one person I could've called and said, "Help me. I'm out of gas." It's very difficult for us to do that though, isn't it?

Someone in a show said "many hands," and I asked my son if he had heard, "many hands make light work." He hadn't. I hadn't heard it in a while.

Just because some of us "normies" still have to interact with surveillance in the world doesn't mean we don't benefit from a privacy phone. I choose to interact with others, partly because I think it's more important now than ever to build community and strengthen our connections with each other. Our apps make it so we never have to talk to another person for help. Less connection makes it harder to offer or to ask for help the less you interact with others. Some people might rather let people go than let go of their secure messaging sending messages via apps designed to keep conversations private app, but aren't I doing that every time I use an app instead of interacting with a person?

I want to choose human connection over perfect privacy. This isn't because I'm good at community, but I'm learning that it's the only thing that can save us. I've seen how people can make change when we work together. Most obviously in the community here pushing back against the data center, boycotts, push back on companies who have to change in response, and more.

Maybe I wasn't as alone at the gas station as I thought. And if someone else had been there, maybe it would've made their day to help someone in trouble.

Image credit: Erik Mclean https://www.pexels.com/@introspectivedsgn/