Even Greener Pastures

QR codes are massive in China. I even saw a person begging for money in the street who had, in addition to the hat, a QR code printed on a cardboard – I suppose it was the link to his Zhifubao/Weixin account. Plus, this system is quite handy if you're absent-minded because you don't need to carry any cash or plastic cards on you, your phone is enough for (almost) everything.
There are some disadvantages of course. First, everything gets really complicated if something happens to your phone. I once tried to pay for electricity in person when my phone died, and this simple procedure that normally takes a few seconds (+ a couple of minutes of сrying over your hard-earned money) took a few hours, no joking. Second, buying something illegal using Zhifubao is probably not the best idea ever, and I believe that it's not that difficult to hack my phone and find out where exactly I do my laundry and what kind of grammar mistakes I constantly make (I always use 个 if I can't remember the correct count-classifier... yeah, I know, shameful). So if you're really concerned about your privacy, you'd better stick with cash and... well, more usual ways of getting information?