Free «Digital Wallet» Essay Sample

Summary

The question at issue is whether the digital wallet should be widely adopted. There are different arguments regarding the digital wallet, because this groundbreaking technology has both positive and negative sides. It is is a revolutionary device, which offers consumers an enormous freedom of conducting purchases at the same time posing serious challenges for the government. Some people may enjoy the freedom of making purchases by using the digital wallet, while others may be nervous about the risk of being abused by criminals.

Premise 1: The digital wallet makes trading operations much easier by allowing people to quickly swipe their device at the register instead of using credit cards or paying with cash.

Premise 2: The digital wallet allows to easily interchange all types of virtual assets such as traditional currencies, cellphone minutes, and loyalty points.

Premise 3: The digital wallet performs exchange of different currencies and loyalty points at the most cost-efficient value.

Premise 4: The digital wallet enables companies to earn money by creating a successful virtual currency.

In the article “The Digital Wallet Revolution” by Edward Castronova and Joshua A. T. Fairfield, the authors argue that the digital wallet should be widely adopted. The authors analyze the pros and cons of using this technology. The authors state that digital wallet will make the purchasing process easier by enabling people to just wave their device at the register. Digital wallet will advantageously exchange currencies. In turn, companies will make money by inventing their own virtual currencies. However, the authors believe that it will be easier for criminals to abuse digital wallet due to the lack of control by the intermediary. Thus, people should decide on their own whether to use the device or not.

Response

The article “The Digital Wallet Revolution” by Edward Castronova and Joshua A. T, is well-composed and interesting to read. The authors successfully made their argument stating that the digital wallet is a groundbreaking technology, which can be extremely useful for people even though it can be risky to use it due to the lack of control by the bank. In my opinion, the authors of the article achieved their aim by clearly conveying their message to the reader. The article is structured in a way which helps the reader to correctly perceive the information. The issue raised in the article is well-discussed and analyzed.

In my opinion, digital wallet is a useful technology, which should be widely adopted by consumers and companies. I think that the most beneficial feature of the digital wallet is that it can interexchange currencies and loyalty points. Transformation of the loyalty points into real currency by enabling people to easily exchange them and pay with them everywhere is a huge progress. It is beneficial that digital wallet makes the transfers of traditional currencies and loyalty points safe and seamless. I agree with the author of the article that the value of money has always been virtual, thus changing paper dollars for digital wallet is not a big step forward, while the emergence of ability to make purchases with loyalty points is a real progress.

I agree with the authors that the negative feature of the digital wallet is that loyalty points do not go through any bank, which makes the transactions made with them hard to control by the government. Thus, the digital wallet will produce problems for regulators, who rely on banks as their main intermediaries in the process of monitoring different kinds of transactions. The digital wallet does not need any kind of account with an intermediary. Due to the fact that the digital wallet app can be written by anyone and then used by anyone, the government does not have a direct way to control the money which will go through this app. If a person breaks the law and tries to escape from police with his/her money going through the bank, the bank can freeze the account. However, if there is no bank, no one would be able to freeze the assets of a person, who steals money, cheats on taxes, and escapes from the police. Even if the trades can be monitored, it is hard to block them.

Thus, digital wallet offers an exchange system, which is cheaper to operate; however, this system is more expensive to control. Thus, the digital wallet is a revolutionary technology, which has both pros and cons. Besides giving the consumers the freedom of conducting purchases by just waving their device at the register, the digital wallet does not provide the traditional access to the assets and cannot be properly controlled by the bank or any other intermediary. The digital wallet can be easily abused by the criminals. Thus, people have to choose for themselves whether to use the digital wallet and enjoy the freedom of shopping without cash and credit cards, or not to use it and not worry about their assets being abused by the criminals. However, people cannot deny that these groundbreaking technologies exist.