Signal_2: Loanable Portable Charger Every Where — — Don’t Have to Worry About Your Phone’s Power Anymore
I believe the most of us have experienced this kind of situation at some point: You have been outside all day. You use your phone to navigate, listen to music, make phone calls, play a game to kill time, which is all very power consuming. Then you notice that you only have 1 percent power left, you really have to charge your phone before it runs out of power. This is when the loanable portable charger comes in handy.
There are so many different kinds of loanable portable chargers in China that people can loan whenever they want to charge their phones for a small fee. Most of the chargers are located in malls, restaurants and other places that have high crowd density. It is very easy to use — all you need to do is use Alipay(similar to Venmo) or Wechat to scan the QR code, and it will charge you for a deposit, which will be give back to you when you return the charger.
As convenient as it sounds, there are also some problems that come with this popular product. For example, there are so many different companies are investing in this product, which results in an excessive same kind of product are being produced by different companies. When you go to ten different restaurants, you probably will see ten different brands of portable chargers. Since everytime you scan the QR code to loan the charger, the company that owns the charger will get all your personal information, such as your bank information, your name, your current location, etc, the fact that there are so many different brands of chargers on the market makes people to concern about their personal privacy and bank account security.
One way that could probably improve this situation is to get the government involved. For example, the government could introduce some regulations to limit the number of portable charger company. The government could also encourage big companies to acquire small companies by giving some benefit to them. Also, all of those companies should explain to all their customers how do they keep their customers’ information safe in order to make them less concerned.
