Despite all of their security issues, I've never thought credit cards would go away. I figured one day banks would become liable for identity theft, and credit card companies would fix their broken-by-design security models.
I never thought credit cards would just go away -- until today. Today I went to pay my American Express Blue cash back statement. I do this monthly, it's usually a minor nuisance. Today, however, I found a newish web site. It feels Flash based. It features obnoxious, flickering ads. It made me do a security reset. The "feedback" button didn't render correctly in Safari, it wasn't the only rendering problem (just the most ironic one). To add injury to injury, the new site told me AMEX was making some incomprehensible change to its cash back program next March. I don't think that change is meant to please me.
I've seen this kind of service regression before. It doesn't end well.
It's a sign that the smart people at AMEX have abandoned ship. That fits with news coverage of the woes of the credit card business. Credit card margins are being squeezed, their prime victims, people who paid interest, have gone bankrupt.
We've all heard stories for years about a replacement for the credit card. It hasn't happened, but maybe this year will be different.