Why Rite Aid & CVS Stopped Taking Apple Pay

The introduction of Apple Pay last Monday was widely described as the dawn of a new era for smartphone payments. But within a week, two major pharmacy chains, Rite Aid (RAD) and CVS (CVS), rejected Apple’s (AAPL) version of the future: Both disabled Apple Pay (as well as other tap-to-pay mobile payments systems Google Wallet and Softcard). As expected, customers took to Twitter to complain, and they almost universally sided with the smartphone company over the drugstores.