I heard there’s privacy implications and the practice entrenches questionable players in the market.

What is the strategy of billionaire Jim Pattison with this?

It's the consumer version of "golden handcuffs." It creates a psychological bias toward vendor lock-in. Ican't use my PC Optimum points at a non-Loblaws grocer for example, which kind of makes it like Company Scrip or Canadian Tire money.

The privacy angle is it ties a purchase history database to an email account/identification number. You ever heard the story about the teenager whose parents found out she was pregnant because the store she shopped at sent her a "Congratulations" package?

Edit: IIRC, she wasn't even sure yet, but the store knew because it tied her purchases to her reward points and the analytics figured it out.

Yeah, all of this.

Never assume a billionaire or a corporation or business has your best interests in mind. Ever.

They want your money, and will do everything possible to extract it from you, so they can hoard it.

It's best we start killing dragons.

The danger is whoever has the number 867-5309 has a profile of gargantuan proportions.

I understood that reference. I'm a Xennial after all.

Of course, if you pay with anything other than cash, they will be tracking you by that information too. The points program gives then additional information about gender, age, address, etc.

More trumpery and trickery to steer you towards specific stores or specific products. I just want to be able to buy something for a dollar that is worth a dollar, without all the noise.