Yeah, the urls were dumb for sure, but communicating cryptographic keys is a pretty great and common use for them.

Authenticator keys, Bitcoin addresses, wallet backup, setting up keys for things like Signal's desktop client, etc. All seem like great uses for QR codes to me.

I know someone that would actually go out of their way to scan those QR codes for contests for the simple reason that nobody ever does and they'd often win prizes by default.

And China also, the Weechat app uses them for so much: paying at restaurants, adding contacts, etc.

For explicit data transfer (e.g. point of sale payment, Bitcoin address exchange) they work well.

For marketing they're stupid.

So we let one (ab)use of it tar and feather the whole technology in the social sphere. Gotta love how we approach tech these days...

What I mean is it's useful when people aren't being punched in the face with them. A QR code to pay for things makes sense. For consumers it's "scan this thing and it transfers", not unlike a tap. In that mode it's a transparent technology. Nobody needs to know what an RFID chip is, or what NFC means. They're all "tap to pay" or "tap to open door".

For other applications where the QR code itself is grandstanding as being somehow important or novel it's ridiculous. In other words, anything that says "Scan our QR code" is an automatic fail because you'll have to open a special app to read it, not the payment app that just happens to use them as a method of data exchange.

Ah yes, Tumblr. I rest my case...