Quite true. I worked and lived in Hong Kong for some two years, and I was surprised to be able to "touch and pay" for a lot of things at a lot of places. And without giving my identity, but just using a top up card. However, for some reason this method is not very popular in other cultures. Barclays have been trying hard to push their NFC credit cards in the UK for the last couple of years, as have TFL (Transport for London). Even in the ah-so-modern New York, although the option to pay contactless exists more than just far and in between, you rarely see people use it. So, yes: Cultural thing. Nothing new, and doubtful that even Google will change tastes on such a scale, where others have clearly failed. Still interesting to watch this space.