I'm currently residing in Mexico City and Apple Wallet passes are ubiquitous here for any type of event purchased online... pretty much all the major bus lines use them, all the theater chains, museums, etc.

There are many events you can't get into now without a smartphone. Unfortunately on-phone digital tickets are far too common and far too commonly mandatory. There's a huge audience of people who are required to use them. It may be specific, but it's also what we're stuck with.

Exactly what I thought, maybe we need to get out more

Not really. When I spend time in rural areas I see bar codes and QR codes are used everywhere. All this does is allow for the option for a business to put their barcode into your phone rather than having to carry around a paper copy. It doesn't preclude the use of paper. Your posting is a false dichotomy. The gap between urban and rural isn't that large.

I’m curious what it does that Claude or Codex can’t. Fundamentally it’s just producing an image with a QR code on it, right?