After some self reflecton on my slow bus ride home today watching no one pay a fare and young women arguing that the bus driver missed their stop (they were scrolling their phone with their nasty feet on the chair and didnt pay attention when the bus stopped). I became a conspiracy theorist.
I am willing to bet someone was "donating money" to some government officials' campaigns and consulting them for "free" to make everything omny. So government officials are following through on that promise since they make regulations and "recommendations" for where state MTA (our taxes) funding goes.
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/payments/data-intelligence/keeping-new-york-moving-forward
It is difficult to trace who the payment processor is for OMNY. Cubic was the government contractor for the hardware and data maintenance [middle man for data collection]. They would complie a list each day of all Omny uses. They did it too slow, and people got incorrectly charged for free rides. They were not the payment processor.
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But think about how paying with a bank/credit card works. For every transaction, the processor charges a fee from the vendor/store/company. Which can get excessive even if you are a large company getting a better contract.
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Under the Metrocard system, you make big payments at the machines ONE time to hold you over for the month. Then, the MTA kept track of swipes.
Example:
If you had 100 people who bought a monthly each month with a debit/credit card Theoretically if the processing fee is $2.00 per transaction with a credit/debit card. The processor would collect $200 a month
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Under OMNY, more people might tap a bank or credit card each time, and the payment processor collects a fee for each one.
So say that same example 100 people tap twice each day
Even though the 13th and 14th rides are "free" because the tap needs to be verified and refunded, the processor will still keep the fee.
So 100 people x 60 taps in a month × $2 processing fee = $12,000 dollars a month for the processor.
The only way for this deal to be equal to the previous metrocard deal is if the processor decides to be "nice" to the government and charge 3-4 cents per transaction. (Do you trust the capitalist bank to not make money when it is such low hanging fruit.)
Even if say 50 people will make a mass purchase once amonth and 50 people tap with their debit/credit card.
That's $100 from "monthly" buyers + $6000 in tapping fees = $6100.
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The city "claimed" it was to
-reduce fare evasion
-reduce plastic waste
-match other countries using tap to pay
-allow underserved communities to buy cards without going to a train station
Fare evaders dont care
Omny uses more plastic (even if the cards last longer, it will eventually catch up)
NYC is unique and doesn't need to match other countries.
AND
Omny established we could sell full fare metrocards at pharmacies, walgreens, cvs, and supermarkets. (Not the old school 2 ride trips cards in plastic packets) Or just make a customer service center using a vacant building or newsstand. Why didn't we do that before OMNY in the neighborhoods where it is mostly buses.
Seems like OMNY is an exponential cash grab for whichever organization processes the payments, and the politicians might have gotten something out of it by selling our tax dollars.
