用Apple Pay花钱是何样体验

Apple Pay?

Apple Pay是什么？

It is the tech company’s new, contactless way of having us pay for things.

是这家科技公司新推出的非接触式支付服务。

How does it work?

怎么用？

Imagine you’ve ordered your flat white with soya milk at Pret A Manger. Normally you then have to reach for your bank card and place it on the contactless reader to pay.

想象你在Pret A Manger点了一杯加豆奶的白咖啡。通常，接下来你要掏出银行卡，放在非接触式读卡器上进行支付。

And now?

那么现在呢？

You have to reach for your iPhone 6 and place it on the contactless reader to pay.

你得拿出你的iPhone6，然后把手机放在非接触式读卡器上进行支付。

This hardly seems to herald a “shake up” in consumer spending.

这似乎很难说是消费者支出即将迎来“巨变”的前兆。

In the world of payments, small gains in efficiency can lead to big changes in behaviour. It might not seem like much, but if it were to take one second less to take a phone out of a pocket than a card out of a wallet, then Apple Pay could become the default way to pay for more than coffee. Paying via the iWatch, Apple’s new wrist gizmo, is probably even quicker.

在支付领域，效率的小幅提升也能引发行为的巨大改变。或许这看起来相差不是很大，但如果从口袋里拿出手机比从钱包里拿出银行卡要快1秒的话，那么不仅仅是咖啡，Apple Pay可能会变成我们为许多东西付账的默认方式。通过苹果(Apple)新推出的腕部配件iWatch支付很可能还要更快。

I just don’t see how it makes much difference.

我实在看不出它能带来多大变化。

Perhaps not. But there is more to how payment methods change behaviour than efficiency. We also need to consider what Apple Pay might do to the “pain of paying”.

变化或许的确不大。但就支付方式引发行为的改变而言，问题可不只是效率。我们还需要考虑Apple Pay对“支付的痛苦”(pain of paying)可能造成的影响。

Is that the pain you feel when you think you might actually have to talk to the human behind the counter?

你说的是在想到不得不和柜台后面的人说话时所感受到的那种痛苦吗？

Not quite. It is a term behavioural economists use to describe the salience of paying for something — and how that might affect what it is we are consuming.

不全是这样。这是行为经济学家使用的一个术语，用来描述支付的一种突出特性——以及这种特性会如何影响我们的消费。

I don’t understand.

我不明白。

Dan Ariely, a psychology professor at Duke University in the US, explains the idea by using pizza.

美国杜克大学(Duke University)心理学教授丹縠庂里(Dan Ariely)用披萨来解释这个概念。

I like pizza.

我喜欢吃披萨。

I like pizza, too. But I am more likely to like pizza when the pain of paying is low, Prof Ariely says.

我也喜欢吃。但艾瑞里教授说，如果支付的痛苦更低，我会更喜欢吃披萨。

You mean when someone else is paying.

你的意思是有别人付钱的时候。

Journalists and free food have a longstanding healthy relationship, but that is not what Prof Ariely means. He suggests considering what it would feel like if you were charged for pizza not by the full amount but by the bite. Rather than return at the end of the meal the waiter might lurk nearby and keep a tally of how many times you put the quattro formaggio in your mouth.

记者一向能通过正常的渠道获得免费事物，但这不是艾瑞里教授所说的意思。他提出，可以设想一下这样的情况：如果餐厅不是依据食物的全部份量，而是依据你吃掉的那部分来收费，你是什么感觉？侍者不是在你用餐结束时返回，而是躲在附近，记下你把quattro formaggio披萨放进嘴里的次数。

I would consider that to be weird.

我会觉得那样很怪。

Exactly. It might have been cheaper for you to pay for only what you ate but the pain of paying is too high to make it worth it.

正是如此。如果按照你吃掉的部分来收费，或许的确便宜一些，但支付的痛苦太过高昂，所以不值得这么做。

Not to mention the pain of chewing. I would have taken very large bites.

更别提咀嚼的痛苦了。我肯定每一口都会吃下很多。

Now you can eat in peace and comfort. And when you are done, you can keep the immediate pain of paying low, says Prof Ariely, by not paying in cash.

现在你可以安心舒适地用餐了。艾瑞里教授说，吃完了以后，你可以通过不用现金支付来降低立即到来的支付的痛苦。

Is this because cards are quicker?

这是因为用银行卡支付更快吗？

Not always. But behavioural economists have consistently found that since it feels less like spending when we use a credit or debit card, we tend to spend more.

不一定。但行为经济学家一再发现，用信用卡或者借记卡支付感觉不那么像花钱，这使我们倾向于花得更多。

So if I want to spend less money, I should carry more cash?

那么，如果我想少花钱，我应该带更多现金？

Richard Thaler, a behavioural economist, likens spending with cash as “having one’s meter running”: there is a heightened awareness of the pain of payment. And when the meter is running, as Woody Allen showed, we are very aware of it.

行为经济学家理查德帠勒(Richard Thaler)把花现金比作“让我们的计价表转起来”：我们会更强烈地意识到支付的痛苦。就像伍迪縠伦(Woody Allen)展现出来的，当计价表跳动的时候，我们会非常清楚地意识到这一点。

Woody Allen?

伍迪縠伦？

You know the scene: in Manhattan, he’s in a cab with Mary (played by Diane Keaton) and he tells her: “You look so beautiful I can hardly keep my eyes on the meter.”

你知道这一幕：在电影《曼哈顿》(Manhattan)中，伍迪縠伦和黛安蘒罗(Diane Keaton)饰演的玛丽(Mary)坐在出租车上，他对她说：“你看起来真美，我几乎无法盯着计价表看了。”

And you’re saying he wouldn’t have that problem with Apple Pay.

那么，你是说如果用Apple Pay，他就不会有这个问题？

For a variety of reasons, I can’t see him ever writing the line: “You look so beautiful I can hardly keep my eyes on the Apple Pay notification centre.”

出于各种原因，我无法想象他会写出这样的台词：“你看起来真美，我几乎无法盯着Apple Pay的通知中心看了。”

I see. So cash is salient. This is presumably why casinos have gamblers exchange money for chips.

我明白了。所以现金才是重点。想必这就是为什么赌场会让赌客把钱换成筹码。

Yes. As neuroeconomists Drazen Prelec and George Loewenstein have shown, the more payment is “decoupled” from consumption, the more we consume. We also spend on more frivolous and less healthy items when the pain of payment is lower.

是的。就像神经经济学家德拉赞渠雷莱克(Drazen Prelec)和乔治勒文施泰因(George Loewenstein)所证明的，支付和消费越是“脱钩”，我们消费的就越多。在支付的痛苦更低的时候，我们也会在更加无聊和不那么健康的事物上花钱。

The pain might be lower but it comes eventually — with interest.

支付的痛苦可能更低了，但最终它依然会到来——和利息一起。

That is if we remember. The academics Priya Raghubir and Joydeep Srivastava have found that we are less likely to remember purchases made by electronic means.

如果我们记得的话。普里亚拉古比尔(Priya Raghubir)和乔伊迪普斯里瓦斯塔瓦(Joydeep Srivastava)两位学者发现，我们更难记住通过电子方式进行的消费。

So even if Apple Pay isn’t faster, it may still change how we spend?

因此就算Apple Pay并没有更快，它还是可能改变我们的消费方式？

It is possible. This is merely an idle theory but since a phone or a watch is not normally associated with spending, people may feel even less “pain” when using it than a bank card.

有可能。这只是一个不严谨的理论，但既然我们通常不会把使用手机或者手表与消费联系在一起，使用这种支付方式感受到的“痛苦”或许比使用银行卡还要少。

But I can see how I would start to hate my phone if I knew it were making me poorer.

但我能预见到，如果我知道我的手机让我变得更穷，我就会开始讨厌我的手机了。

That is only if you realise what is happening. It comes down to the Woody Allen question: are your eyes on the meter, or elsewhere?

除非你意识到发生了什么，才会那样。这就归结到伍迪縠伦的问题：你的眼睛是盯着计价表，还是别的地方？