And the weekly cap. Unless you are staying for a while (e.g. working here for a month, overseas leg of a degree with-a-year-abroad) you can just tap into all of London's transport with your payment card and it's simpler without costing extra.
Although the weekly cap is always a fixed Monday to Sunday period, so if your arrival/departure dates don't match up with that, you can end up paying an additional capping period as compared to a dedicated travelcard (which can start on any day of the week).
The daily or weekly pay-as-you-go capping also can't be combined with rail tickets beyond the TfL/Oyster zones (whereas a travelcard can, even if it's on Oyster), and if you're a transit nerd, the maximum journey times allowed with pay-as-you-go can occasionally be annoying.
Having said that, I do concede that contactless payment is pretty neat, and I did make use of it, too, if I was staying less than a week in London, but all in all I'd still be a bit unhappy if e.g. the weekly travelcards were simply discontinued.
