Interestingly, fintechs score at or near the bottom.
Discussion
Makes sense.
Most are clueless startups.
That may well be, but most consumers would be oblivious to that, so it’s something else.
It’s likely because so many Fintechs fail or get bought out by larger banks/corporations that immediately make the product worse or deprecate it entirely. In the past decade, I’ve been a member of Simple, OneFinance, Envel, PointCard, and N26 (US division). Simple was bought out and deprecated by BBVA. OneFinance was bought out and stripped of all its notable features by Walmart. The last three are completely dead, Envel being the most recent. Novel technologies in finance are certainly needed, but the average person isn’t willing to trade stability for innovation.
Fair play. I’d argue that, from the Jobs to be Done view, fintechs are “hired” for very specific and often different jobs than banks.
Also, RIP Simple. What a pioneer.
I agree on the purpose of fintechs. They’re meant to shake things up and are, as a result, more volatile by default. It’s just hard to sell the average working-class person on that kind of volatility. And yes, my wounds from the Simple fallout never fully healed. lol
Unfortunately bitcoin gets tossed into the fintech category. Educating people on the difference is going to take quite a bit of time and effort.
Trust vs portability
Identity is broken
DID is the way
I was very bullish on DID ~3 years ago, but it appears to be over-engineered and DOA. Would like to be wrong.
Just need one legit credential issuer to kick it off, no?
What are the key / unresolved problems in your mind?
🙏
In essence, zero adoption after all this time, talent, and capital.
Those survey results look weird.
The incentives were never (and arguably still aren't) there. And there are some major companies building their own walled-gardens for 20+ years now...so, not an easy fight. Let alone a state or the federal government. These things take time.
Open protocols are basically a free stack for a credential issuer to empower their customers / end-users. It only takes 1state, trade association, social network, etc. Maybe I'm naive / hopelessly hopeful.