Plastic credit card costs next to nothing to manufacture, can be dropped from a 10 story building (good luck finding it afterwards though), can get wet with me in a heavy rain, can be replaced in 24 hours (at my bank) and I have $0 liability if I lose it or someone steals it from me. Compare this to Coin (or other solutions like phone based payments) and you will see that it is indeed a step in the wrong direction though not for the reasons discussed in the article.