When ecommerce was getting big, I knew a number of people who thought it was absurd. You can't just send money over the Internet, hackers will steal it! You should use normal payment methods, like writing "fifteen dollars and 56/100------" on a special piece of paper the bank gave you.
In the late 90s. Remember that the first PCI standard wasn't published until 2004; people were largely right to intuit that hackers stealing credit cards was a big problem that wasn't being adequately addressed.
