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"Most of us are already moving toward a cashless society -- not because we care about the crime-fighting, but because the stuff is darned inconvenient." What o
by retrogradeorbit 11y ago
"Most of us are already moving toward a cashless society -- not because we care about the crime-fighting, but because the stuff is darned inconvenient."
What on earth are they talking about? Why do people keep saying cash is inconvenient, as if saying it makes it true? It is, in my experience, extremely convenient. It is the most convenient form of payment, person to person. I owe money to my friend. Do you have a pay-pass terminal? Oh you don't. Let's just log into our bank accounts. Let me make sure I got your BSB number and account number right. etc.
I want to give some money to the homeless beggar. Excuse me, do you have your bank details?
Cash is king for a reason: Convenience.
- conanbatt 11y agoYou haven't been to argentina then. Money is an inconvenience every single day. Handling change, and having to have dozens of bills in your wallet all the time is a hassle. Visiting an ATM every couple of days, or running short of cash and being unable to pay for anything. Cash has other inconveniences cards dont have , and viceversa.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoArgentina is a living proof that cash is the king. Until very recently, as a visitor you will be losing 30% of value if you withdraw funds from ATM or pay with card, as opposed to bringing USD cash and exchanging it on street.
- oska 11y agoYou'll do even better if you 'bring' bitcoins with you for exchange.
- pbreit 11y agoProbably referring to things like buying stuff online or paying several hundred or thousand dollars.
- retrogradeorbit 11y agoWhen that is the case you can use electronic payment. But they are not mutually exclusive. Electronic payment can coexist with cash. The fact that electronic transfers are convenient for large purchases does not negate the convenience of cash for small person to person transactions. People are making the argument that because electronic payment is convenient for large transactions, therefore cash is inconvenient in all cases. This is a falsehood. They are both convenient in different cases. In a way, convenience is in the eye of the bearer.
- mindslight 11y agoTo me, it's much more convenient to have transactions over and done with by the time I leave the store, rather than ending up with an unauditable monthly statement that could have extra or missing charges. (Never mind the whole commercial surveillance angle. I've actually made it a point to go back to cash at various places I'd gotten lazy with. Hitting the ATM every week is a small price for participating in society's most popular mix network)
- imtringued 11y agoCash is inconvenient for small purchases. I hate dealing with coins. I wish they would finally kill the 1 and 2 (and maybe even 5) cent coins in the Eurozone.
- chiph 11y agoThat, and avoiding the inconvenience of having your debit/credit card details stolen. Even when used at otherwise reputable merchants.
- vcarl 11y agoWith Venmo/Square Cash, I find myself paying people via app more than anything. Forgot your wallet at lunch? Splitting up bar tabs? Our landlord wants a single check, and paying my roommate rent via Venmo removes all the pain of handing him a check (he was terrible at depositing them) without needing to carry around a few hundred dollars in cash every month. These apps have been available for years, and it's easy to get it set up to pay/deposit directly to/from a bank account, which makes transactions free. Cash is no longer the most convenient way to give friends money for me. I'm also waiting for panhandlers to figure out Square is free, assuming they have a smartphone. "Sorry, no cash" stops being the end of the interaction if they start taking credit.
- justincormack 11y agoCompared to cheques, sure. The non US world stopped using cheques last millennium though.
- toomanybeersies 11y agoI'm 21 years old and I cashed my first cheque a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a novel experience.
- toast0 11y agoElectronic payment is nice because you don't have to make change. Paying a friend with PayPal means I don't have to round up $18 to $20, because I've only got twenties and my friend has no ones. It also means I don't have to closely watch cashiers as they count change.
- avmich 11y agoYou however have to closely watch PayPal. Try to pay to a product or service from former USSR countries; then weeks later suddenly get your account suspended. Or not. Do you like taking chances like that? Cash saves you here.
- toast0 11y agoWould you send cash in the mail to those countries? Edit: You likely meant to pay for things while you're visiting there? Yeah, I would probably use cash for that too.
- gambiting 11y agoWe live in a world where people from all over the world live together. I work with people who are from France, Germany, Spain,but also from Russia, South Korea, China, Israel, South Africa. We might go for a dinner one night, then I have to send them some money - I'm genuinely worried paypal might block my account for sending them money "as a precaution". Seriously, cash is million times better.
- astrange 11y agoIt's very inconvenient to have to pay the bill at a Asian restaurant that doesn't have a credit card reader nor an ATM when you have less cash than you thought you did. But they're giving Venmo a reason to exist, so someone's winning.
- dsjoerg 11y agoI'd like to pay you $1 for your insightful comment. Come to my house to get the cash.
- avmich 11y agoThere is a reason crypto-currencies are still growing in popularity. You might have electronic convenience and decentralization convenience at the same time.
- mirimir 11y ago125uBuHCUWMPdUakevcMEAmxTowe9NPXYg :)
- hobs 11y agoFeel free to mail order, wire transfer, or literally mail me that dollar. All of those options work across the world. Sarcasm aside, I think the entire debate is just blogspam, both have benefits and both will probably remain for a long time.
- drfuchs 11y agoWire fee is typically $25 in the US. And mailing cash (or anything of value) is likely to fail in much of the world.
- dalke 11y agoI don't think your objections are reasonable. First off, Walmart will wire up to $50 for $5 domestic, not $25. Second, what's the point of sending $1 to much of the world, where it isn't legal tender? Third, "cashless" in this context means domestic use. Even if we were all cashless tomorrow, you'll still have to pay transfer fees to put $1 into an overseas account. Plus, the bank on the other side may charge to accept that transfer - mine does. Fourth, the failure rate for sending $1 through the postal system has to be pretty low, because it's hard to detect a single bill in an envelope. A high failure rate would mean that every letter would be opened up, just in case there's cash. That level of tampering is easily detected. (Of course, sending cash overseas is different, as international letters stand out, and perhaps might more often contain cash. But I have send cash to South Africa and it got there just fine.) If we instead talk about sending $1 inside the US then it's $0.49 for the stamp and $0.07 for the envelope ... for what may be door-to-door delivery. What other system can beat that price? (I think Bitcoin's transaction fee is slightly less, but not significantly so.)
- caf 11y agoFrom my point of view, the major inconveniences of cash are having to predict how much you'll need on hand to cover expenses, and having to go out of your way to replenish your holdings when it's likely to be insufficient. I use contactless card payments for pretty much everything except coffee these days.
- ersii 11y agoI'm genuinely interested, why don't you use it for coffee as well?
- caf 11y agoI think it's two things: firstly, I've been conditioned not to use card payments for low-value transactions; and secondly, forking over actual currency for coffee makes the cost more "real" in a way that helps me to limit my consumption.
- mc32 11y agoCash is convenient in some ways, not so much in others. It's convenient for making small purchases and keeping the transaction anonymous. On the other hand, it's inconvenient when you want to be able to prove a transaction [my bank paid a deposit into your bank] and also inconvenient for large transactions. On the other hand, "convenience" is a contrived reason to favor cashless transactions. As if the whole purpose in life is to reduce friction from our lives. It's not. Oh, it frees your time up to do other things. As if people didn't have enough time. The main thing lacking for most people when it comes to time is time management and allocation. That is, people who might save an hour's time by automating activities don't go out and spend that hour productively. Likely they'll find something else that'll use up their time. So, we have people who work in industries which are automating jobs away [say Uber, or even supermarket automation, HFT, etc.] but who on the other hand want authentic hand made or bespoke items. Why not go for the mass produced item from Walmart they helped get produced and are more "convenient"?
- viraptor 11y agoThere's a lot of... judgement? projecting? something else? in this comment. > As if the whole purpose in life is to reduce friction from our lives. It's not. Purpose? No. But it does feel really good not to have friction with silly things in your everyday life. > That is, people who might save an hour's time by automating activities don't go out and spend that hour productively. Likely they'll find something else that'll use up their time. Why do you say so? What's objectively productive? Doing nothing with the extra time may be actually a productive / useful solution. If your day is full, just removing stress from life is great. > we have people who work in industries which are automating jobs away [say Uber, or even supermarket automation, HFT, etc.] but who on the other hand want authentic hand made or bespoke items Do they? Some probably. But generalising like that over whole industry's lifestyle is silly. Even if you do see those items, maybe they just buy something cool they like, which is simply not what's mass produced and stocked at Walmart. I feel like you're trying to criticise lifestyles of other people, but don't see a real reason for it.
- betenoire 11y ago> I feel like you're trying to criticise lifestyles of other people, but don't see a real reason for it. I feel like you are reading way too much into it. You say less friction "feels really good", but don't address his point that maybe less friction is not actually good. There are many areas of life where this is demonstrably true. Take road widths, for example. If we "reduce friction", we end up with wider and straighter roads which have shown to cause people to drive faster and results in more fatalities (i read this on the internet somewhere). Sometimes friction keeps us grounded. I found nothing offensive about the parent comment, and have noticed similar things.
- prawn 11y agoI very rarely have cash on me. I don't encounter beggars and just shout a friend a drink or movie if I owe anything. Bulk of my purchases are contactless (PayWave in AU) at bars, shops, etc. Haven't been to an ATM in almost a year which strikes me as pretty convenient!
- pmalynin 11y agoIn Canada we can send money electronically through email and literally every store is using a debit terminal, so I'd like to call bullshit.
- retrogradeorbit 11y agoWe can have both, you know. They are not mutually exclusive.
- xupybd 11y agoHere in NZ it is literally easier to pay people via bank transfer. If I want cash I have to get a $20 out of an ATM. If I owe someone $5, I then have to get $20 out and spend some to break the $20. Or I can get their bank account, enter it into my banks phone app and bam in seconds the money is transferred, next time I have their account saved. But it wasn't that hard because they had a banking app on their phone and knew how to send it to me in an SMS.
- rodgerd 11y ago> Here in NZ it is literally easier to pay people via bank transfer. Alas, I always struggle to explain it to people from primitive banking cultures.
- EGreg 11y agoI think even the amount to transfer and who to transfer to should be automated. The app should just know who visited the restaurant and the menu would already have the prices. You just choose what to order/buy and it's charged, just like on Amazon etc. Once we abolish tips everything will become automatic!!
- toomanybeersies 11y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but do you mean basically ordering your food on your phone? That destroys the human element, which is a big part of the restaurant/hospitality experience. There are products out there that let you order through a tablet at your table, and also apps that let staff use an iphone instead of a notepad, but it takes away a large part of the experience. It's fine for places like McDonald's (who now have touch screen ordering in some countries, like New Zealand and Australia), but if I went to Bouchon Bistro, I wouldn't want to be ordering through a tablet.
- icebraining 11y agoThat McDonald's style kiosk ordering takes away the human element I can understand, but I don't see why would that be the case if the waitstaff is using a digital notepad instead of a paper one (I'm talking about something like a Noteslate).
- superuser2 11y agoIf the amount of a person-to-person payment is not a multiple of $20 then cash is useless, because that is all ATMs give out and my peer group doesn't consider using it for any other reason. Open Venmo or Squarse Cash, type name (gets auto completed), type amount, done. Works regardless of whether your preceding set of transactions has left with exactly the right number of bills of each denomination.
- stormbrew 11y agoIn Canada all you need to send someone money from your bank is their email address (and you supply a question they should be able to answer). Actually quite an impressively well designed system, considering it's been around for at least a decade now (first one I have a record of having sent was in nov 2005). Honestly, I consider that easier than cash.
- rodgerd 11y ago> Why do people keep saying cash is inconvenient, as if saying it makes it true? I know I enjoy arguing about whether the cash I have is too large for the other party to conveniently make change for. I especially enjoy my wallet bulging with coins and wads of paper. I love the thought of having the week's grocery money ready to be lost and stolen - or even better, carrying my whole pay packet about until I can put it somewhere safe.
- EGreg 11y agoWell I'm glad at least a few people on HN still appreciate the finer things cash provides! Try worrying about muggers with other forms of payment! What's interesting to me is how far ahead some poorer societies are than us in the cash department. Such as in Africa. They have gone all mobile payments and eschew the local currencies.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoCriminal can drain your whole account (plus credit limit) by applying force to you. They can only have whatever you are currently carrying n case of cash.
- toomanybeersies 11y agoConveniently, you can just go to the police, file a report, and get your money back from the bank.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoNot so simple if criminals made you withdraw funds from ATM.
- imtringued 11y agoIn Africa it's quite the opposite. Cash is a liability. It's bound to be stolen. A stolen phone can be locked remotely and easily tracked.
- theodorton 11y agoSwedish and Norwegian banks have apps that focus on person-to-person transfers. Most of them will let you transfer money by adding your VISA card and using the recipients phone number. Vipps, developed by Norway's largest bank, has gotten 1,5M users in 1 year (approx. 5M are living in Norway). There are complementary apps from other banks and financial institutions as well. Aren't here any equivalents in the US? Any particular reasons why apps like cash.me don't get adopted?
- train_robber 11y agoIn India, we have an app called Chillr which eliminates a lot of these inconveniences and numbers. And transfers are instant and account to account.
- pathy 11y agoI open up my Swish App (owned/operated by big Swedish banks), enter my friends phone number (either manually or via my contacts) and then enter the amount and a message, totally free and significantly more convenient than cash, which I basically never carry. I can even pay the kids selling strawberries by the roadside via Swish. Then again, Sweden is in the forefront of the cashless society at the moment, for better or worse.
- 4v1SoundsFair 11y agoOnly to people that also have swish, and I can guarantee you no one I know would be happy about having to make another account and give someone else their bank info. Also there's now proof of your interaction/association with this person. Inconvenient, and publicity... the first one is arguable that you _might_ save time over the long term, but you also have to weigh in time for dealing with tax bs that comes with it, the second however is completely unacceptable and I know they won't fix it. Cash is king.
- ersii 11y agoLet me expand on that, Swish is currently free for sending a transaction between two persons. Accepting Swish-payments for merchants, companies, organizations and associations is not free however. The last time I checked (a couple of months back) - Swish was more expensive than handling credit cards in general.
- dublinben 11y agoIs this app free software?
- ersii 11y agoNo, the Swish application is proprietary software. The application is however a gratis download from the AppStore / Google Play store.
- onion2k 11y agoIs Swish an open system that any bank can join, or is it a way for the incumbents to keep new banks out of the market?
- duaneb 11y agoCash requires the convenience of locality. This is not always feasible.
- toomanybeersies 11y agoI disagree, except for the single case of paying your friend, it's more convenient everywhere else. Here in New Zealand, the only places that don't take cards are small stalls at farmers markets (most of them take cards now), and some taxis (which is more to do with them trying to avoid tax and being generally dodgy, any good taxis take card). I have the bank account details of all my friends saved, and I can just open up my banks app and send them money, and it arrives within an hour into their account for all but 1 bank.
- bryanrasmussen 11y agoI agree, but of course the people who argue against cash on convenience argue on the grounds that using cash you have to carry around different denominations, risk losing it etc. My belief is that the biggest weakness of a solution is generally a side-effect of its greatest strength, in this case the need to carry around cash in different amounts and risk losing it, having it stolen are necessary in order to have something so easy to exchange among people.
- spyder 11y agoBoth has benefits, and also: Why do people keep saying talking in person is inconvenient, as if saying it makes it true? It is, in my experience, extremely convenient. It is the most convenient form of communication, person to person. I want to talk to my friend. Do you have a phone? Oh you don't. Let me make sure I got your phone number right. etc.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoI probably make about 1 cash transaction a month, usually at some old joints or clubs that have no way to take cards, although even at clubs I can now increasingly pay with my card via NFC, it's so painless and seamless. I tend not to give homeless people money in general, I rather do it via an institution or buy them what they need. If they say they need some money for food I'll go shop with them if I have time. But I've indeed also walked to an ATM at various times, which are fortunately all over the place in my city. Even if I had cash I'd always be a bit conflicted to give... On the one hand I've spoken to various (ex) homeless people and they advised me not to give, not be naive for my sake and their sake (read: drug addiction, better dealt with by an institution which are pretty solid in my city). On the other hand, I've loved ones with homelessness in their past who've rebounded by the grace of complete strangers' help, including financial help, and didn't ever use drugs but were really down n out and on the street. You never know which of the two you're dealing with. But let's be real, helping homeless people isn't exactly a daily use case. If it was something you do frequently enough, there'd be way better ways to do it than giving away random small bits of cash. Everything else, digital is more convenient. For example if I have dinner with a buddy, on the way back home I'll grab my phone, open my banking app, click his address which is automatically saved from the first time I used it, type in the amount and press send. It's virtually the same as grabbing my wallet, calculating the tokens I owe him and handing it to him. Payments are literally like messaging for me, but you're sending digital value tokens instead of digital speech. Yes it's hella convenient to do digital messaging of money. The thing about digital payment's that's more convenient is that I don't rely on carrying a specific denomination of cash with me, or rely on being in physical proximity to the payee. Need to send $500? Well I'd never carry that kind of cash, so that's an ATM trip for me, and then a trip to the guy I owe it to. Digital money is more convenient here. Payments in stores? Both I and the cashier need to do basic calculations with the tokens using cash, and again I have to carry enough on me. Turns out digital cash is easier and faster. I have my card out by the time it's my turn in the queue, I let the cashier scan, then I hold my card next to a little NFC scanner and I start walking away. In some older places I put in a 4 digit pin, even so it's faster than cash. That's convenience for me. Don't get me started on online payments, which are btw causing physical store bankruptcies left and right. I see it all around me, I've got friends who buy their entire wardrobe online, their phone online, their groceries online etc etc. I'm not much of an online shopper myself, but even so I rarely use cash and the reason is convenience.
- CPLX 11y agoIndeed. In this thread I have seen dozens of comments about muggers and knife wielding assailants at ATM machines. In my 40+ years on the planet, including living in NYC and DC and traveling to dozens of third world countries, I have been mugged exactly once, in 1989. I was able to get away without giving up any money. Meanwhile, the number of times that an electronic account that I hold funds in has been unexpectedly lower than expected due to error, misunderstanding, or fraud, is at least 100 or more.
- acveilleux 11y agoI live in Canada. I haven't actually had actual cash in my wallet since before Christmas. Every store takes credit or debit. I can email money to people I owe money to. Cash is darn inconvenient. Giving money to homeless people is just about the only thing in your list I can't do. We also have contact-less payments with both credit or debit so it's even faster for low cost purchase. Need a coffee from starbucks? Just tap your credit card and go. But the time you put the wallet back in your pocket it's authorized.