7 ms·

>, pay cash upon arrival. Paying cash is a non-starter. I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years. I don't even know what my card's secret PIN is to mak

by jasode 10y ago

>, pay cash upon arrival. Paying cash is a non-starter. I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years. I don't even know what my card's secret PIN is to make a cash withdrawal. Being virtually cashless by using credit-cards for everything is very common in professional circles. A credit-card is simpler and the exact line-item amount showing up on my monthly statement helps me keep track of travel expenses. (Also, many credit cards transactions will download to the Quicken ledger for people that use that personal finance software.) Paying by credit also helps keep drivers accountable and reduces fraud.

antocv 10y ago
Here we have an alternative payment method https://byteball.org/ https://byteball.org/
- computerwizard 10y ago
  Byteball is the future.
antonioevans 10y ago
That is a first world problem. Majority of the the world does not have a credit card or real access to a card. Majority of world pays with cash. A statement like this is similar to when I see American abroad and shocked that places don't take Amex for purchases. It's a very first world thing to even own an Amex let alone use it for a small purchases below $50.
- jasode 10y ago
  >That is a first world problem. But owning a smartphone with a touch screen (instead of tin cans connected by a string) and having the luxury of choosing between Uber vs LibreTaxi (instead of waving your arms on the street to hail a taxi) is also a 1st world problem. If we're discussing percentage of world market, 51%+ do not have combined attributes of (1) smartphone ownership[1] + (2) Uber availability + (3) preference for paying cash. For customers, one of the key attractions to Uber is that drivers can't play the game of "oh sorry my credit card reader is broken, you'll have to pay cash". In other words, many customers deliberately choose Uber as way of not having to pay cash. (This point is more relevant in Uber-USA and not Uber-India that allows cash payment.) The developer name I see on the LibreTaxi page is "Roman Pushkin, San Francisco, California" and since he's based in a 1st-world location, it seems like the Uber-vs-LibreTaxi has relevance to cashless people like me. If he intends for the service to be used mostly by 3rd-world countries where cash is king, I misunderstood the point of the Uber vs LibreTaxi comparison. EDIT ADD 40-minutes later: I found author's comment on the intended market of customers: "Just started http://libretaxi.org http://libretaxi.org - uber alternative for communities and remote regions." : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052 also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355: "Uber, a company evaluated at $60B, will unlikely go to remote Siberian region where I was born." Conclusion: LibreTaxi isn't really a competitor to Uber -- it's more of an alternative to remote villages having no ride sharing at all and therefore cash payments makes perfect sense for that market. [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone-penetration-per-capita-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone...
  - tshawkins 10y ago
    Errrh, i live in the Philippines, it has 80 million people on very low incomes, and yet it has one of the highest penetrations of android smartphones per head than most all other countries. You can get a quadcore 16GB android smartphone here for $30-40US, and they have a fantastic prepay system here where peopl can send credit to each other via the phone, such that it has become a virtual currency in its own right. https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-load https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-load https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516 Since that article prices for smartphones have tumbled again. I bought a smartphone, quadcore, 4GB, built in TV, Built in radio for P1,700 (about $34) Its a cheap phone, but it works fine. http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/ http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/
    - lmm 10y ago
      Sounds like jasode's point stands - anyone who has access to a smartphone also has access to non-cash means of payment.
      - sirtaj 10y ago
        As an example: India has 700 million mobile phone users, of which around 300 million are estimated to be smartphone users. Number of credit card users are around 20 million. the vast majority of "non-cash" payments would be done at some shop that will take cash and perform a digital payment or transfer for you.
  - mcjiggerlog 10y ago
    Actually yes that's super common in a lot of countries. In Vietnam it's the norm to have a smartphone but it's seriously difficult to get hold of a normal debit/credit card.
  - TuringNYC 10y ago
    Not all systems in developing countries develop at the same speed. Some systems lag due to regulations, culture, etc. Other systems manage to leap-frog a generation. I've been in Qatar for business. Coming from the US, it is shocking. Some systems have leapfrogged -- e.g., ease of banking, 2FA, mobile phone plans, messaging, ride-hailing apps, etc. Other systems lag -- the most egregious example being the lack of a national address system. Correct -- i have no home address. Half the country does not -- people send GPS coordinates and WhatsApp location pindrops for ride-hailing and food delivery.
- adevine 10y ago
  Places like Kenya have been leading the world in mobile payments.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Which you can use for this service as well. s/cash/peer-to-peer/
mschuster91 10y ago
> Paying cash is a non-starter. That certainly depends on the country. Good luck living cashless in Europe, especially in Germany where virtually no small store, food vendor etc. has a CC reader.
- pimterry 10y ago
  Really? That's pretty surprising - I live in Barcelona, and I use cards 99% of the time, and in the UK it was even easier. Even taxis here have card machines, and every small shop definitely does. The only holdouts are the occasional tiny old wine bar here and there, but even most of them have moved with the times.
  - schlowmo 10y ago
    Unfortunately I didn't find more actual stats, but there is a report from Deutsche Bundesbank (German Federal Bank) from 2014 which states that in 2014 the share of cash payments in Germany was 79.1% and only 1.3% credit card transactions.[0, page 27] If I remember correctly, there is no other European country with such a low percentage of credit card transactions. [0] https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publications/Studies/payment_behaviour_in_germany_in_2014.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publication... [PDF]
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      The relevant page is 31 (pdf-page 33), containing a figure "Share of payment instruments broken down into various transaction amount categories in 2014, 2011 and 2008". In particular, 96% of transactions below 5€ were in cash, and 90% for transactions between 5 and 20€. A breakdown by age group is on page 33. Unsurprisingly, young people pay by card more often than older people. Various other figure breaking down card/cash usage along different lines are on the subsequent pages. Poorer people use cash for a larger percentage of their transactions than richer people. Page 63 breaks down usage by occasion/purpose of payment (gas/restaurant/retail/...). Lastly, 97% of Germans have a girocard (debit card), but only 1 in 3 have a credit card.
  - 10y ago
Aissen 10y ago
Not having to carry cash is the one main reason those apps work well. Otherwise, just call/hail a cab. Done.
- antonioevans 10y ago
  Just was in an uber here in Bogota, drive says (hearsay but heard it before from Uber users) that majority are women, and safety is #1 concern. 1. Drivers of Cabs suck in the city. They drive like race car drivers and always get into accidents. 2. Harassment. Colombia being a very male dominate country women are harassed daily and cabbies are some of worst. 3. Crime. Some cabbies not all will over charge you, literally hold you hostage if you don't pay whatever fee they say (Cartagena doesn't even have meters..it's what ever the gringo price they want to charge at times). I've spent lots of time SEA, SA and some in Africa.. it's not as easy to hail a cab if your female or a foreigner, uber and rideshare systems do alleviate lots of that pain.
a012 10y ago
I suppose it's because it takes time to implement credit card transactions securely and properly, and it could increase fare as well. Here in Southeast Asia Malaysian startup Grab have cash only first then added cards years later and just recently.
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  It's not particularly hard to interface with an external payment processor like PayPal, Stripe, etc. The situation in most Asian countries is a bit different from markets like the US or Australia. Here in Australia, I use cash maybe once every two weeks, it's very rare for me to have more than $30-40 in my wallet - I often have no cash at all. I suspect the real reason here is that credit cards aren't anonymous and are contrary to the ethos of the author here.
mjpuser 10y ago
I see where you are coming from with the cash issue, but in NYC, it's not uncommon to have to pay cash at a store, so many people carry cash.
jblz 10y ago
+1 To add to this, part of the draw of Uber for me is its ubiquity (& Lyft, but it's less widespread). My consumer experience is maintained in different international & US markets. I don't have to worry about securing local currency before I can get around -- it just uses my card (which doesn't charge a fee to convert). I don't have to worry about not being able to explain where I'm trying to go across language barriers or various levels of familiarity with a locale -- the built-in map app works the same way in Paris, London, Prague as it does in San Francisco or Durham. The GPS features keep drivers honest as to routes and adds a (small) sense of security as you know your journey is being tracked in case something goes sideways. All that said, LibreTaxi looks really promising & I really like the premise behind it. Maybe, some day, I'll not want the tracking features, for example. I hope it takes off!
anigbrowl 10y ago
A non-starter for you. Lots of other people like cash. Absent the need to make a profit, the app may gain traction by serving them. I don't find cash that convenient but I like using it, because I value privacy as much as I value convenience.
coldpie 10y ago
I use cash as often as possible at small and local businesses, because then they don't have to pay the 3-5% fee to the debit/credit card processing company.
em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
You can still pay by credit card, provided that both the driver and passenger agree. There are portable credit card readers that interface with smartphones.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
>> "I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years." I'm curious how this is possible or if you're exaggerating. I live in London, so a pretty well connected city, and although I can use card/contactless almost everywhere I still need cash about once a week as some small places won't accept card. 10 years ago I'm sure cash was much more necessary.
- jasode 10y ago
  In America, my only need for cash is to leave tips for the hotel maid. But those amounts are $1 bills and the ATM machine only spits out $20. So every 2 or 3 months, I write a check for $100 (payee is "cash"), give it to the teller and she gives me back a stack of one-dollar bills. If I stay at a corporate apartment, I don't even need the $1 bills. That bank interaction is obviously too cumbersome to withdraw $80+ every week to pay cash for taxis. If all taxis refused to take credit card then yes, I'd have to use the ATM on a regular basis. You're right that cashless was only possible recently. Even though credit-cards had been around for 50+ years, most people couldn't go 100% cashless because many places like McDonald's fast food only took cash. Those restaurants avoided credit transactions because having customers wait for the charge receipt and then sign their name clogged up the queue with impatient people. However, a recent revolution in payment processing allowed "no signature" transactions for small amounts under a threshold (say $20). The "no signature" includes not having to electronically sign the touch pad -- it isn't just avoiding paper and pen. With that change, McDonald's started accepting credit cards in 2002. People also might notice that when they pay by credit card at Starbucks, they don't have to sign anything. Credit transactions are now so fast, the situation is reversed: cashiers take longer to count out exact change for cash transactions than let customers pay by credit card! The "no sign" revolution helped make lots of the "cash only" places disappear so now it's very easy to be credit-card only.
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    Interesting, thanks for explaining. The bit I find most curious is writing the cheque. To me that seems more antiquated than using cash as I've never even owned a cheque book (although I understand it's still common in America to use them).

by jasode 10y ago

antocv 10y ago

Here we have an alternative payment method https://byteball.org/ https://byteball.org/

computerwizard 10y ago
Byteball is the future.

antonioevans 10y ago

That is a first world problem. Majority of the the world does not have a credit card or real access to a card. Majority of world pays with cash. A statement like this is similar to when I see American abroad and shocked that places don't take Amex for purchases. It's a very first world thing to even own an Amex let alone use it for a small purchases below $50.

jasode 10y ago
>That is a first world problem. But owning a smartphone with a touch screen (instead of tin cans connected by a string) and having the luxury of choosing between Uber vs LibreTaxi (instead of waving your arms on the street to hail a taxi) is also a 1st world problem. If we're discussing percentage of world market, 51%+ do not have combined attributes of (1) smartphone ownership[1] + (2) Uber availability + (3) preference for paying cash. For customers, one of the key attractions to Uber is that drivers can't play the game of "oh sorry my credit card reader is broken, you'll have to pay cash". In other words, many customers deliberately choose Uber as way of not having to pay cash. (This point is more relevant in Uber-USA and not Uber-India that allows cash payment.) The developer name I see on the LibreTaxi page is "Roman Pushkin, San Francisco, California" and since he's based in a 1st-world location, it seems like the Uber-vs-LibreTaxi has relevance to cashless people like me. If he intends for the service to be used mostly by 3rd-world countries where cash is king, I misunderstood the point of the Uber vs LibreTaxi comparison. EDIT ADD 40-minutes later: I found author's comment on the intended market of customers: "Just started http://libretaxi.org http://libretaxi.org - uber alternative for communities and remote regions." : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052 also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355: "Uber, a company evaluated at $60B, will unlikely go to remote Siberian region where I was born." Conclusion: LibreTaxi isn't really a competitor to Uber -- it's more of an alternative to remote villages having no ride sharing at all and therefore cash payments makes perfect sense for that market. [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone-penetration-per-capita-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone...
- tshawkins 10y ago
  Errrh, i live in the Philippines, it has 80 million people on very low incomes, and yet it has one of the highest penetrations of android smartphones per head than most all other countries. You can get a quadcore 16GB android smartphone here for $30-40US, and they have a fantastic prepay system here where peopl can send credit to each other via the phone, such that it has become a virtual currency in its own right. https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-load https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-load https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516 Since that article prices for smartphones have tumbled again. I bought a smartphone, quadcore, 4GB, built in TV, Built in radio for P1,700 (about $34) Its a cheap phone, but it works fine. http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/ http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/
  - lmm 10y ago
    Sounds like jasode's point stands - anyone who has access to a smartphone also has access to non-cash means of payment.
    - sirtaj 10y ago
      As an example: India has 700 million mobile phone users, of which around 300 million are estimated to be smartphone users. Number of credit card users are around 20 million. the vast majority of "non-cash" payments would be done at some shop that will take cash and perform a digital payment or transfer for you.
- mcjiggerlog 10y ago
  Actually yes that's super common in a lot of countries. In Vietnam it's the norm to have a smartphone but it's seriously difficult to get hold of a normal debit/credit card.
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  Not all systems in developing countries develop at the same speed. Some systems lag due to regulations, culture, etc. Other systems manage to leap-frog a generation. I've been in Qatar for business. Coming from the US, it is shocking. Some systems have leapfrogged -- e.g., ease of banking, 2FA, mobile phone plans, messaging, ride-hailing apps, etc. Other systems lag -- the most egregious example being the lack of a national address system. Correct -- i have no home address. Half the country does not -- people send GPS coordinates and WhatsApp location pindrops for ride-hailing and food delivery.
adevine 10y ago
Places like Kenya have been leading the world in mobile payments.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  Which you can use for this service as well. s/cash/peer-to-peer/

mschuster91 10y ago

> Paying cash is a non-starter. That certainly depends on the country. Good luck living cashless in Europe, especially in Germany where virtually no small store, food vendor etc. has a CC reader.

pimterry 10y ago
Really? That's pretty surprising - I live in Barcelona, and I use cards 99% of the time, and in the UK it was even easier. Even taxis here have card machines, and every small shop definitely does. The only holdouts are the occasional tiny old wine bar here and there, but even most of them have moved with the times.
- schlowmo 10y ago
  Unfortunately I didn't find more actual stats, but there is a report from Deutsche Bundesbank (German Federal Bank) from 2014 which states that in 2014 the share of cash payments in Germany was 79.1% and only 1.3% credit card transactions.[0, page 27] If I remember correctly, there is no other European country with such a low percentage of credit card transactions. [0] https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publications/Studies/payment_behaviour_in_germany_in_2014.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publication... [PDF]
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    The relevant page is 31 (pdf-page 33), containing a figure "Share of payment instruments broken down into various transaction amount categories in 2014, 2011 and 2008". In particular, 96% of transactions below 5€ were in cash, and 90% for transactions between 5 and 20€. A breakdown by age group is on page 33. Unsurprisingly, young people pay by card more often than older people. Various other figure breaking down card/cash usage along different lines are on the subsequent pages. Poorer people use cash for a larger percentage of their transactions than richer people. Page 63 breaks down usage by occasion/purpose of payment (gas/restaurant/retail/...). Lastly, 97% of Germans have a girocard (debit card), but only 1 in 3 have a credit card.
- 10y ago

Aissen 10y ago

Not having to carry cash is the one main reason those apps work well. Otherwise, just call/hail a cab. Done.

antonioevans 10y ago
Just was in an uber here in Bogota, drive says (hearsay but heard it before from Uber users) that majority are women, and safety is #1 concern. 1. Drivers of Cabs suck in the city. They drive like race car drivers and always get into accidents. 2. Harassment. Colombia being a very male dominate country women are harassed daily and cabbies are some of worst. 3. Crime. Some cabbies not all will over charge you, literally hold you hostage if you don't pay whatever fee they say (Cartagena doesn't even have meters..it's what ever the gringo price they want to charge at times). I've spent lots of time SEA, SA and some in Africa.. it's not as easy to hail a cab if your female or a foreigner, uber and rideshare systems do alleviate lots of that pain.

a012 10y ago

I suppose it's because it takes time to implement credit card transactions securely and properly, and it could increase fare as well. Here in Southeast Asia Malaysian startup Grab have cash only first then added cards years later and just recently.

ajdlinux 10y ago
It's not particularly hard to interface with an external payment processor like PayPal, Stripe, etc. The situation in most Asian countries is a bit different from markets like the US or Australia. Here in Australia, I use cash maybe once every two weeks, it's very rare for me to have more than $30-40 in my wallet - I often have no cash at all. I suspect the real reason here is that credit cards aren't anonymous and are contrary to the ethos of the author here.

mjpuser 10y ago

I see where you are coming from with the cash issue, but in NYC, it's not uncommon to have to pay cash at a store, so many people carry cash.

jblz 10y ago

+1 To add to this, part of the draw of Uber for me is its ubiquity (& Lyft, but it's less widespread). My consumer experience is maintained in different international & US markets. I don't have to worry about securing local currency before I can get around -- it just uses my card (which doesn't charge a fee to convert). I don't have to worry about not being able to explain where I'm trying to go across language barriers or various levels of familiarity with a locale -- the built-in map app works the same way in Paris, London, Prague as it does in San Francisco or Durham. The GPS features keep drivers honest as to routes and adds a (small) sense of security as you know your journey is being tracked in case something goes sideways. All that said, LibreTaxi looks really promising & I really like the premise behind it. Maybe, some day, I'll not want the tracking features, for example. I hope it takes off!

anigbrowl 10y ago

A non-starter for you. Lots of other people like cash. Absent the need to make a profit, the app may gain traction by serving them. I don't find cash that convenient but I like using it, because I value privacy as much as I value convenience.

coldpie 10y ago

I use cash as often as possible at small and local businesses, because then they don't have to pay the 3-5% fee to the debit/credit card processing company.

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago

You can still pay by credit card, provided that both the driver and passenger agree. There are portable credit card readers that interface with smartphones.

k-mcgrady 10y ago

>> "I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years." I'm curious how this is possible or if you're exaggerating. I live in London, so a pretty well connected city, and although I can use card/contactless almost everywhere I still need cash about once a week as some small places won't accept card. 10 years ago I'm sure cash was much more necessary.

jasode 10y ago
In America, my only need for cash is to leave tips for the hotel maid. But those amounts are $1 bills and the ATM machine only spits out $20. So every 2 or 3 months, I write a check for $100 (payee is "cash"), give it to the teller and she gives me back a stack of one-dollar bills. If I stay at a corporate apartment, I don't even need the $1 bills. That bank interaction is obviously too cumbersome to withdraw $80+ every week to pay cash for taxis. If all taxis refused to take credit card then yes, I'd have to use the ATM on a regular basis. You're right that cashless was only possible recently. Even though credit-cards had been around for 50+ years, most people couldn't go 100% cashless because many places like McDonald's fast food only took cash. Those restaurants avoided credit transactions because having customers wait for the charge receipt and then sign their name clogged up the queue with impatient people. However, a recent revolution in payment processing allowed "no signature" transactions for small amounts under a threshold (say $20). The "no signature" includes not having to electronically sign the touch pad -- it isn't just avoiding paper and pen. With that change, McDonald's started accepting credit cards in 2002. People also might notice that when they pay by credit card at Starbucks, they don't have to sign anything. Credit transactions are now so fast, the situation is reversed: cashiers take longer to count out exact change for cash transactions than let customers pay by credit card! The "no sign" revolution helped make lots of the "cash only" places disappear so now it's very easy to be credit-card only.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  Interesting, thanks for explaining. The bit I find most curious is writing the cheque. To me that seems more antiquated than using cash as I've never even owned a cheque book (although I understand it's still common in America to use them).