PAYMENTS WITHOUT THE HYPE

Independent contents on how power and perception shape payments.

Articles, deep dives without the PR noise

🔄 MARKET IN MOTION🎭 NARRATIVE TENSION  🏗️ STRUCTURAL SHIFTS 🧩 GROUND FLOOR

Current Focus : UNIFIED COMMERCE ILLUSION SERIES  

🧭 Editor’s Choice

Card Model Expansion Limits: How Alternatives cracked the code

Using the term “leapfrogging” about the emergence of alternatives is untrue 

It mirrors the vision of Card Model Expansion and its own limits and blind spots

Published in: Narrative Tension

Editor's latest Deep Dive​

Doom-scrolling LinkedIn won’t give you vision. That’s why I write deep dives here.

Explore payments through four lenses

Spill the Tea on Payment is an independent space to think about payments beyond the surface.

Every piece here belongs to one of four floors of reflection, from the concrete to the systemic: 

Ground Floor explains how the industry really works,
Market in Motion observes where it moves,
Narrative Tension challenges what it tells us,
and Structural Shifts explores how it reshapes power.

Together, they form one thing: an independent view of how payments shape,  and are shaped by, the world.

Explore payments through most recent articles & analysis

Current curated theme : UNIFIED COMMERCE ILLUSION

🛍️ THE UNIFIED COMMERCE ILLUSION : How Retail Lost Ownership of Its Infrastructure

Why do retailers keep integrating more and owning less?
And what does this tell us about the future of payments and retail strategy?

EXPLORE PREVIOUS CURATED THEMES :

🎧 From my Podcast — Tea for Two and Two for Tea

Conversations where payment thinkers drop their filters.

Tired of podcasts where people just hear themselves talk? Not here. Follow along, here it’s loud, sharp, and real.

📚 From MY PREMIUM CASE STUDY LIBRARY

Deeper analyses that turn reflection into structure.