52 Mondays 2020: The Year Of Speed, Scale And Seismic Shifts in Payments

Looking back, when we take stock of what happened and sift through the chaos and heartbreak of the year that was, we’ll see the seismic shifts that took place in 2020.

I’d written back in January that “the 2020s promise to bring about a convergence of the technology and innovations that have defined the last 10 years — to bring about new disruptions as the web shifts into higher gear, mobile becomes ever more popular and vital, homes and automobiles become hotbeds of commerce. Big Tech firms face significant political and policy challenges and redefine themselves for the new decade. New ecosystems are being created as the old methods, in many cases, start to fall away.”

While many of those projections came to pass, it would have been impossible to even guess at the speed and the magnitude of those changes. It’s been widely remarked that commerce, and specifically digital-first efforts, accelerated by a number of years throughout a mere few months.

For just two examples: Didn’t know what curbside pickup meant before the pandemic? Odds are that you do now. The restaurant experience may feel long ago and far away, and the aggregators have helped fill a need for restaurants to salvage (at least some) top line and for consumers to get the food they wanted at the doorstep.

Indeed, we might look to March 11 as the dividing line between what was and what is and will be in the connected economy. Traditional business became anything but traditional.

A continuing series of consumer surveys, as detailed in separate research, recapped and placed in context on Mondays right here, showed that consumers made the great digital shift out of concern for safety and, along the way, for convenience.

Main Street small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) scrambled to make their own digital shift, even while facing operational pressures that were only partly ameliorated by stimulus packages and government programs.

Big Tech faced threats, suits and other actions from regulators and lawmakers that centered (and still may succeed) on making Big Tech a little ... smaller.

Dozens of Monday reflections are gathered here, in a year where each Monday seemed to herald a week rougher than the previous one.

But with challenges come opportunity, of course — and we’re on track, post-pandemic, to see a new age of (truly) digital commerce as the digital-first economy takes shape in 2021.

And, as always, we’ll take stock of the big picture right here — one Monday at a time.