On the way into work, you pick up a cup of coffee with a swipe of the phone at a Starbucks counter. Don’t get annoyed at the tourist ahead of you who’s trying to pay with cash that the clerk must check with a counterfeit scanning machine next to the cash register. Everybody else is using something like the phone app Alipay, an e-wallet service of China tech giant Alibaba.

Join a group of friends for lunch. When the bill comes, you pay it by photographing the restaurant’s QR code, those pixilated squares now replacing bar codes everywhere. Then tell your phone to move the correct amount from your online debit account to the restaurant’s. Your friends create an online group into which they deposit their shares of the meal, which gets transferred to your account so you’re paid back. If you liked the service, the waiter has a QR code badge on his lapel. Photograph it and send him a tip.

Outside, a beggar on the street hopes for a digital handout. He’s got a QR code alongside his cardboard plea for charity.