I’m sure if you’re a store with a bunch of Karen’s asking if you accept an OF card for payment, you’d probably reach out to OF to figure out how to get that money that just walked out the door…
Isn't that how all payment methods get started? Apple Pay wasn't just randomly accepted, people asked and when the answer was "no," they walked out the door.
Not successfully for several hundred years, no. Bottom-up creation of payment methods isn't a thing. Please take a look at the history of the Diner's Club card, and compare it to Amex.
Apple Pay is widely accepted because of three things, ordered here from least to most important: Apple applying pressure on the processors to accept it, paying them when necessary, and the fact that giant card data breaches like Target and Home Depot meant that the whole market needed to move away from magstripe anyway. People taking grass roots action was not a part of the change in any meaningful way (at least partly because it never happened).
There's this very popular cryptocurrency story that individual people have power in this market. The problem with that narrative is that virtually nobody cares enough this issue because it's just not that important. Sorry.
