I feel like merchants need to do better to advertise the contactless payment methods. Many merchants don't have contactless payment options.
Well sure… but when it comes to consumer advantage there's little that Apple Pay offers. Granted I live in Europe, as opposed to the US, where credit card services are more uniform but Apple Pay provides me no incentive to use it outside of maybe speeding up the payment process by 10 seconds. I'm still paying for the good all the same.