Well, to be fair, I'm not exactly sure where I'd use NFC since no where around where I live has NFC terminals. It's only the transit system... Barcodes at least work at Starbucks and the Airport, among other places.

I know this is a somewhat inaccurate comparison, but no-one (and by that I mean major brands, etc) had mobile apps until Apple made a phone that allowed them. If Apple made an NFC-enabled iPhone companies could see reason to jump on the bandwagon.

I'm sure it would, but it's not a huge loss IMO. It'll come eventually and I'll miss not being able to do things like the Nexus Q + NFC Android phone pairing, but oh well.

Not sure where you live but this may help: http://www.mastercard.us/mobile/paypass-locator.html

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. If Apple were to include NFC in iPhone you can bet adoption would start taking off soon after.

Chicken meet egg.

In my area, Square and LevelUp are pretty much solving the mobile payments "problem." I say "problem" because in every situation where I use Square, I also have a credit card handy (using my credit card is not really a problem).

If I were to buy an iPhone 5, NFC would be the feature I would be guaranteed not to use. There's simply no vendors who are NFC-enabled anywhere near me. I'm not sure I've ever seen an NFC-enabled vendor anywhere, for that matter.