Is it? I have found there can be massive PoS differences between the coast. For example everywhere on the west coast it seems restaurants bring the CC scanner to your table and use a fancy digital checkout/pay system in restaurants. On the East coast we still hand credit cards to wait staff who give us paper receipts that then disappear to god knows where to run it.

I dont even think Apple Pay is common at all around here in Boston/Cambridge.

I figure contactless got a big unexpected boost from COVID. Suddenly not having to touch anything at all to check out because very appealing.

It was "around" for ten years previously, not making many inroads. Suddenly it's everywhere.