Transparency

This is what the inside of your SEPTA Key — and any card that uses MasterCard’s PayWave technology regardless of application — looks like. For me, that a technology that emphasizes its “contactless”-ness and purports to be somehow “smart” contains an actual copper antenna is almost funny. “Contactless” and “smart” imply a kind of ephemerality, a lack of tactility, and unfamiliar technologies. However, the same material that has been conducting electricity and radio frequencies for over a century are at the literal core of our “new” payment technology. What’s even funnier to me is that the copper antenna in the card is able to be bent, which renders the card useless. Contrast this to MTA’s Metrocard, where all the information is stored on a familiar magnetic strip: a bend to Metrocard in a particular way can actually grant its holder unlimited rides.