Sure. These category of companies have leveraged the smartphone to disrupt the legacy processors. They did this by embedding the cc within the app and in doing so grabbing the fee. The legacy guys never bothered to be consumer facing as the consumer used a cc. Now the app guys have created nifty functionality to get the cc embedded and in doing so disrupt the legacy processors.But that’s short cited.

I got the first sentence and 80% and GUI, but the rest is a bit fuzzy. Could you restate?

I *think* what I’m saying is that Google is bundling the platform with application content. To the extent that Google Now is a platform (the way a browser is a platform or Google Glass is a platform), it is different from other platforms in that it prescribes a very specific user interaction pattern and, as of now, only allows Google content.If they do open that up in the future, it won’t be unfettered access – it’ll be, er, fettered by a Google Now AdCards model where a third party needs to spend $1.00 just to notify you that a spot at a fancy hard-to-get-into restaurant that you want to go to just opened up and you can confirm it with a click.Is that an app or an ad?

not enough spectrum

its all messaging at its core. These point solutions (apps) have wrapped a portfolio of messages in a nifty GUI and have leveraged the real estate of the consumers pocket to disrupt a category of payment processors who were traditionally focused on the business as the most commonly used “app” for the consumer at the time was a piece of plastic not silicon.But in doing so – they have become enslaved to the processing business and unless they can get from point to platform, will become marginalized by those that see platform swallowing point and thereby become a universal app with 80% of key point functionality nicely wrapped in a GUI.

All I can say is this has the opportunity to be the most fascinating transformation/battle in technology since probably forever. 5 years from now Google will either be a trillion dollar company or it will be a smoldering mess of global domination gone wrong. Sounds a bit fantastical but if you play this out and see the massive, massive inefficiencies in the consumer economy ($20+ trillion) stripped away through data+analytics+automation+UI, it’s not only feasible, it’s likely.A handful of companies could thwart this (probably) with an open model that federates/opens the backend and maximizes user control instead of maximizing revenue from this new application/communications channel. But that’s such a long game when everyone is simply playing catch-up on earbud shapes and microphones. Sigh.

you could not be more correct! this is the platform taking out the point solution (mobile apps) by swallowing 80% functionality in to a beautiful UX.

love this.