The original call
Original year: 2015
2026 assessment
Scorecard verdict: Hit
Hit. Tap-to-pay, the phone-as-wallet, the associate checking you out on a handheld anywhere in the store, the cashier-less format — all mainstream by 2026. The plastic card isn’t fully dead, but it is increasingly the backup, not the default, and a huge share of the developed world now treats the phone as the primary way to pay. The direction of travel was called correctly more than a decade out.