The user doesn't know that any of that stuff is going on, though, and you don't need data for this to work.
It's not anywhere near as complicated as you're making it out to be. Those saying "I had to go to an ATM" are simply voicing a legitimate downside of cash that this doesn't have because you only have to get an iPhone once whereas you have to go to an ATM/bank every time you need cash.
I'm at your house and I've just done a thing for you. You want to give me some money.
This is the protocol: "Hi, can I pay you for this?" "Sure." "Do you have an iPhone?" "Yes." "Okay, here you go." <writes numbers in, taps phone>.
This is assuming I actually have one. Otherwise you have to do a fallback method.
Contrast with the protocol for cash:
<reaches into pocket, counts out $x, hands over $x>.
It's the same amount of effort as the very final step of the other protocol.
There is no fallback here because I can guarantee that I have cash.
The whole thing is just obviously overcomplicated. If you like cards and phones and stuff because they're techy, that's cool man. I like tech too.
But it's utterly false that they're somehow simpler or more convenient. They work in some specific golden paths whereas the only case in which cash doesn't work is online.
The whole ATM problem you're describing is also super contrived, you may as well say that baked beans are difficult to eat because every time you eat one you need to buy one. Well sure, but you don't buy them one by one do you.
And it's not as if the only place a person gets cash is an ATM, everyone who I pay or who pays me has just gotten cash from.... not an ATM.
I dunno man, whatever, this is just a really weird thread in general, it's like you're treating cash as this magical archaic thing Grandad used to use when to me it's an integrated part of my everyday life.
Is this one of those "Cus COVID" things that don't actually make rational sense but apparently loads of people do it now just "Cus"?
It's not anywhere near as complicated as you're making it out to be. Those saying "I had to go to an ATM" are simply voicing a legitimate downside of cash that this doesn't have because you only have to get an iPhone once whereas you have to go to an ATM/bank every time you need cash.