I think that’s viewing it from the current lens. At the time, the big promise was that you could pay for things without involving all of those pesky big companies. Naive, yes, but the idea of a secure financial transaction is similar in nature to the current tap/wallet methods. But yes, it was commandeered by crooks almost immediately.
I have a Canon color laser printer which works pretty well and doesn’t pull any of this shit. They’re probably the last one standing now.