Those articles are referring to NFC for payments, which requires the phone to have NFC and the vendor to have a suitable EPOS terminal along with merchant services from their bank. Something that can still be quite rare around here.
Thing is I'm already doing that every day with QR codes, and see many others doing it as well. Like a taxi driver only has a phone or his QR code sticker stuck on the dashboard of the taxi. Scan the code, enter amount of payment, PIN, and it's done, fare is paid.
Quite frankly I've found scanning QR is no more difficult than scanning product barcodes at a supermarket checkout.
The bidirectional exchange of data happens online via cellular data or WiFi or whatever. NFC payment methods still have to be done and authenticated online.
It's called Tenpay or Alipay...
no NFC required.
I've seen a few places that accept Samsung Pay or Apple Pay NFC, but they can still be quite few and far between, and require expensive flagship Samsungs or IPhones of course.
FYI I'm in China not United States.
Want to learn English in Jinan with me?
Difficult or more costly to put NFC in a T-shirt!! ...LOL