Originally Posted by
tmiw
On that note, I've heard stuff about Oyster eventually going away in favor of contactless cards. I'm not sure how true that is or when that'll happen, though. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the US isn't the only country that (mostly) doesn't include contactless on cards, so such a move might screw over more than Americans.
I doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Between Londoners without bank cards and tourists without contactless, a whole lot of people would be really screwed if there weren't a way to convert cash into travel.
Another advantage of using Oyster or a physical card over Apple/Google Pay is that I've never been able to get the whole "card" number for Apple or Google Pay (since it's not transmitting your actual account number). Without the full card number, you can't look at your travel history on the TfL website.