Completely agree. While there's nothing wrong with digital payments, a society without cash just terrifies me. I don't have much to hide, but I don't want every action I take with money to be traceable and that data of what I do with my money to be available to all sorts of private interests without my express written consent. No corporation should get to know if I tip my barber, waiter, uber driver, etc... in cash let alone if I decide to buy a bag of weed.<p>I prefer to keep a bit of cash on me for many reasons, and I don't think it's appropriate for any organization to tell me 1. that I can't; and/or 2. that they have the right to know what I'm using it for (or that they have the ability to deny my ability to use my capital in whatever ways I desire).<p>We're not China. As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to have all their finances completely digitized and tracked.<p>Modern economies have a need for cash, no matter what big banks or credit card companies or FinTech companies think.
I agree with some of what the author says. Especially about how cashless means i can't just give a homeless person spare change.<p>But having worked at a cash register at for a period in my life theres a lot of good reasons businesses do this.<p>Stores dealing in cash need a float at the register. Where I was that was 500 euro. That's 500 euro in coins and lower value notes that has to be at every register so that anyone that pays in cash can be given the correct change.<p>A large store near me has about 20 registers, that during very busy periods could all be open. So to guarantee they can accept cash on a busy day like that means having 10 grand to just park in these registers.<p>That's 10k that's vulnerable to theft either from employees or robbers.<p>Security vans have to be hired to take the days takings to a bank and bring lower denominations to the store to fill these floats.<p>When someone finishes a shift they have to spend time what they have, that doesn't take long but it's another cost for the company.<p>It also means insurance costs are higher.<p>The guy only accepting card payments from his horsebox converted to a coffee shop doesn't worry about any of this.<p>At least where i am *living cash is more expensive than electronic
I recently started seeing advertising related to products that I had purchased at a large US supermarket. I did some digging on the payment card networks and found that they are sent a lot more data that I realized. Level 3 data (the highest and most complete) sends product data about what you bought to the payment network (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc.). I have no idea what they do with this data and who they sell it to.
I love the protection of using credit cards, but if merchants go cashless, privacy goes with it.
These reasons are... dubious. If anything, many are reasons we should stop finding ways to charge for everything. Cash or otherwise.<p>And some of these are, themselves, falling for the odd invisible nature of how expensive some things are. Take your bike. How much does it cost to keep the roadways maintained so that you can use said bike? That isn't a balance. That is you ignoring some costs.<p>Data surveillance? Even if you are sending in checks for your ISP or using cash on delivery for items, they are still just as trackable. Modern computation is just too advanced to think going back to older payment styles will make a difference.<p>Exclusion? You can look at our history to see that you fight exclusion by fighting exclusion. Luddite holding on to older technologies is almost certainly going to be weaponized more to exclude folks than moving to cards.<p>Same for economic censorship. You fight that by building stronger protections for people. Not requiring older payment styles. I'm also not clear on how "cash" helps here. It can be confiscated just as easily. And nobody is going around with enough cash on hand that they can ignore literal government level sanctions.<p>Resiliency has a bit of a point. Is amusing when a store can't let you buy things because the register is down. I'd love to see that explored more.<p>The rest of the bullets seem to be the same. Advocating for old payment styles is largely less effective than advocating for stronger consumer protections. To the point that even things I agree are bad, I just don't see "cash" as a good answer there.
I just want cash <i>cards</i>.<p>I don't want cash to disappear. I just want dumb grubby pieces of paper and heavy grimy coins to go the way of the dodo. With all of the logistical and security costs they entail.<p>Just give me digital cash that can be stored on a card, that doesn't require a bank account and isn't tied to anyone's identity, and where any cell phone is capable of transferring value between cards (and between bank accounts and cards).
All over my area, I am beginning to see discounts for paying with cash. Hopefully this is sufficient to discourage sufficient numbers from going fully cashless.<p>There are situations where cash cannot be used; hopefully this changes in a way that is safe.
Cashless is simply too convenient to be beaten by "you shouldn't do this" arguments. Unfortunate but true.<p>I am not an expert at this by any means, but one idea I've had is for smartphones / a "credit chip" to have preloaded cash on to it, which is then used to make purchases <i>without</i> sending that information back to your bank account.<p>So, for example: you make a $100 deposit from your bank account to your smartphone. You can then make purchases from your smartphone, <i>not</i> from your card. The purchasing data stays local to your device.
>in this piece I’ll lay out 10 talking points that you can use to make even the most ardent card-tapper have second thoughts about a totally bank-dominated society.<p>The writer is starting with the wrong premise: that people who prefer a cashless system don't understand these things. They do. They just don't care enough to do much about it.<p>It's not about a lack of understanding, it's about convenience. A cashless system tends to be more convenient, and that's why people like it.
I hate myself for trying to be "that guy" but I can't believe the author doesn't mention Bitcoin/Monero in an article about digital payments in 2023.<p>The combination of XMR for saving and something like BCH for spending is such a dead simple solution to 99% of the world's money issues it boggles my mind that it's taken 10 years for us to get to where we are now, I thought it would have been 2-3 years at most.<p>And still, 10 years in, a near perfect tract record, people are still unsure about Bitcoin. What's the issue exactly, people are just scared?<p>I will never understand it. Ive said since 2012, I will either be proven to be the biggest idiot in the world if/when crypto get regulated or hacked and comes tumbling down, or people will be begging to know how I saw it coming when Bitcoin swallows up the worlds financial system black hole style. Either way, I'm enjoying the show immensely.
I agree with almost all of his points, but it turns out I don't agree enough to forego the convenience of doing without cash.<p>If bitcoin weren't so stupid I'd gladly use that instead of highly centralized corporate payment systems.
This should put the need for cash into perspective.<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66354476.amp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66354476.amp</a><p>In fact is should put the need for centralized entities for controlling all transactions into perspective.
As I have seen "we are a cash-free business" signs begin to proliferate, I have begun to carry and use more cash, because I don't want to get stuck in a cashless society.
I haven’t used cash in a very long time. I haven’t carried a wallet at all in almost 5 years because every business takes tap payments, so I can use my phone to pay. I don’t think cash should disappear, but I sure am glad there’s an alternative because I hate carrying it around.
“I’ll lay out 10 talking points that you can use to make even the most ardent card-tapper have second thoughts about a totally bank-dominated society.”<p>0 of these points gave me second thoughts.<p>As a merchant, cash sucks. It’s slow AF to make change. I have to trust my employees not to steal it in a way that I don’t with credit card. (They can just not ring something up and pocket the cash, that’s not a thing right credit.)<p>I have to deal with handling it which in my line means sometimes even hiring private security and at least two trips to a bank. (None of the bankless or anti-financial stuff applies to legitimate businesses.)<p>It’s well worth 2.5% of my sales to never have to handle it again. So I don’t, and at every big event I do, there are a small percentage of people mad about it and one guy who thinks I’m violating his constitutional rights and damnit he’s going to do something about it. (He never does.)<p>As a consumer it’s fragile, easy to lose, easy to not have when I need it, and takes up a lot of pocket space. I’m so annoyed when I’m required to have cash for something and thank God for square and the raft of competitors it inspired for not making me do it ever again.
The article makes some great points, but it is surprising that the article doesn't mention Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, or even the theoretical possibility of a "digital cash" that mitigates some or all of the issues he identifies.<p>I personally think that Bitcoin and the Lightning Network (with forthcoming and as-of-yet-undiscovered improvements) is our best long-term alternative to the "unbalanced cashless" society that he rightly fears. I admit I could be wrong about Bitcoin, but the larger point should be that we, as a society, need to allow for options other than what the "banking sector using big tech devices" is offering.<p>Freedom and the market system are about giving people options. Cash, Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies should all be available to consumers. Our right to use cash should be protected and it makes sense for individuals to "vote with their [paper] dollars" to help preserve that option and that right. The same applies to Bitcoin and other "digital cash" systems.
Not mentioned: how rewards/cash back cards are a scheme to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. It happens not just from the fees charged to merchants, but also through interest being charged to people who can't or won't pay off their credit cards each month. Merchant fees are particularly insidious, since not many stores offer discounts for cash, or charge for using a card, so those fees are hidden in inflated prices that everyone pays, regardless of payment method.
I operate on an almost 100% cash basis. I use Amazon gift cards for Amazon (one of two big corporations I regularly do direct business with) and I have a prepaid debit card for online orders for the odd thing I have to get elsewhere. Both are reloaded using cash as needed. I switched to this system relatively recently, I had a bank account but the nearest branch was pretty far, and I used it primarily for online orders and worked with cash for local stuff, it became a pain to put cash in it when it ran low. I no longer have a bank account. Life is pretty easy.<p>I've noticed something interesting though. Rural areas (like where I live) almost never have cashless storefronts, in fact often they have cash only storefronts. The merchants almost always have some indicator of conservative bent. Whereas in cities, you'll see cashless places all over, and it's often some business owned or staffed by people with an obvious left of center ideology, which IMO are the last people I'd expect to want a big finance company to get a piece of every person to person transaction they do.
Crypto is the new cash of the global world – it abolishes borders, it abolishes overwhelming grip of state actors and scam banks in the economics.<p>You can move it around fast and peer-to-peer, without asking any authority.<p>No one can take it from you without your error or consent.<p>You can find a peer to exchange it to any cash currency in every part of the world.<p>Most people who don't understand crypto don't understand any of this.
I'm still curious if we could have the best of both worlds with something like Taler <a href="https://taler.net/en/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://taler.net/en/index.html</a> . I don't know if it could be a genuine replacement for cash. My concern about Taler grew when they demonstrated you could fit in purchases that were restricted, ostensibly to give a kid cash that prevented them from spending it on adult items. This restriction could theoretically be applied to adults who aren't "good enough" as well.
Anecdata: before a visit to Berlin I got the standard advice that in Germany, cash is usually king. On the ground tho I found that a card worked almost everywhere that was not a humble corner shop. My largest no-card purchase was a 50€ lunch bill. Still tho, I had to prepare for the trip by withdrawing a wad of cash. This is not necessary in Scandinavia.
While I think cash is important, and I think many of the threats posed by digital payments infrastructure to low income individuals are real, I believe that the fears of surveillance capitalism are exaggerated. Google hasn't been able to convincingly provide targeted ads that reflect my obvious demographic and interest profile, data they definitely have available, for years. Amazon is incredibly crude at this as well, and Alexa obviously can't recognize our consumer habits at all. Square never informs any advertising I am inflicted with, otherwise I would be inundated with hoagie ads. People love fear, but I think it would be better to focus on reality rather than speculation. I hear you about the cost of cash -- it is clearly very high -- so high that some major banks are simply closing large numbers of branches, and, more to the point, many ATM locations. This is happening even in dense urban areas. It is increasingly difficult for me to obtain cash, particularly without paying a bank fee for the "privilege". We can't simply wish that cost away without some government intervention -- and good luck with that in many countries.
all good points.<p>But, we are forgetting the unbanked, underbanked, the day laborers and migrant farm workers paid cash, the LexisNexis tracking leading to unbanked.<p>Check cashing places are slimming, buts that's more due to entry level jobs offering prepaid debit cards as payment of salary. Yum Brands I believe does this. But of course, prepaid debit cards cant be used everywhere. (Hotels, deposits, some gas pumps, etc)
I have an idea. What if we could create something that has the privacy of cash, is uncensorable like cash but could also be digitally transmitted like electronic payments.