28 ms·

In praise of cash

437 points by tchalla 10y ago

nunez 10y ago
While I agree that cash is extremely convenient and largely anonymous, it is still much more of a hassle to manage than credit or debit cards are. I lived in NYC for a bunch of years and the one thing that I absolutely do not miss is paying for >$100 dinners, entirely in cash, because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees.
- marak830 10y ago
  Did you mean less than? The processing fees part is throwing me off. I do agree though, in Japan I'm seeing a lot of credit or phone based transactions , I almost never carry cash now. Side note: my wallets last longer!
  - nxc18 10y ago
    There are business owners who for some reason think it is appropriate to stick their customers with that burden. Those business owners are customer hostile and are worthy of neither my business nor anyone else's.
  - ISL 10y ago
    Interesting -- just got back from Japan, traveling in smaller communities. Almost all of our transactions were in cash.
    - marak830 10y ago
      Yes while travelling it's a huge cash based society here, but Tokyo/yokohama are really leaning towards cards/suica(the train ticket pre-charge card)/Edi(mobile phone payment system) and such.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      Restaurants and anything mom&pop will probably be cash-only, but pretty much anything that's a chain (big supermarkets, stores in malls with their own branded cards [includes JR train stations], etc) tends to support electronic payments. I find a lot of places may accept cards if you ask them, but they don't have card logo stickers anywhere or a prominent card reader.
  - fjdlwlv 10y ago
    Greater than, makes paying in cash annoying
- the-dude 10y ago
  Start a business, discover the fees.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > still much more of a hassle That's when everything works correctly. What about when the power goes out and the card reading device stops working? What about transaction denials due to bank mistakes (or predatory policies)? Having the option to pay with credit/etc is nice, but the failure modes can be nasty.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I've had the pleasure (?) of going on vacation without notifying the card company. Because a hotel was late with a correction to their charge, that showed the card in use at two places at once, so they shut it down. While I was on vacation. That got... uncomfortable. Fortunately, they only shut down my card. My wife's still worked, and we were able to proceed. It made for a more stressful vacation, though...
    - ghaff 10y ago
      Pro tip. Always carry a second credit card (from a different bank) when you travel. It's just too easy for anti-fraud systems to be triggered by something they don't like and to be in a situation where you're not really in a position to spend 30 minutes on the phone proving you are who you say you are. The systems can really trigger on random stuff too. After the last time when I gave them holy hell and threatened to pull my business, I haven't had trouble since. But before that, as someone who travels worldwide, I had transactions declined at 1.) a gas station convenience store and 2.) a grocery store in the Western US.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      This is why I always have two bank accounts (with two different banks and two different ATM cards) and always have two credit cards, in case one bank account or one credit card gets shut down or skimmed it wouldn't be a big inconvenience. Especially helpful if you are going out of the country.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        I've never gone so far as to have a second bank account. But I'm guessing a brokerage account could basically serve as the same thing.
- mrec 10y ago
  > it is still much more of a hassle to manage than credit or debit cards are I don't really get this. I use credit cards (almost entirely online), but I've never used a debit card. Not out of any deep-seated aversion, I just don't see the point.
  - eric_the_read 10y ago
    The appeal is largely that credit cards let you spend money you don't have, and debit cards, by definition, don't. For people who have a hard time operating within their budget with credit cards, this is a huge difference.
    - jk563 10y ago
      Worth pointing out that this can be fuzzy, I have a £1600 overdraft facility that I can use with my debit card (I don't use it though).
      - eric_the_read 10y ago
        True enough, but I hate those things. They tend to incur nasty fees when used on top of the overdraft itself, and then there's interest to be paid on the overdraft amount if not paid in full, etc., etc. If allowed, I will always disable them, and when not allowed, I will change banks to one that will allow it.
        jk563 10y ago
        I agree with the sentiment, though I'd argue they're getting better. For example the Nationwide FlexDirect current account[0] comes with a £1,200 overdraft limit that gets charged at 50p per day it's used. A vast improvement in my mind, I remember getting charged around £30 for going £2 overdrawn for less than 2 hours! [0] http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/our-current-accounts/overview http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/our-cu...
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- phil21 10y ago
  > because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees. I applaud businesses like this. The fact we slowly let a few giant private corporations enact a 1-3% fee against pratically the entire consumer economy would be ludicrous in any other situation. Plus the privacy concerns just are not worth the convenience. Whenever possible I use cash, simply so I slow the day coming where I can't function in society without having my entire spending history out there for any agency to decide to take a look at.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I'm not a big fan of credit cards, but cash isn't free.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Money is an information and accounting system. Regardless of how implemented, it has processing costs.
  - jliptzin 10y ago
    The bulk of that transaction fee gets rebated back to the consumer as points, cash back, etc. I only use 2% cash back cards.
    - beambot 10y ago
      So anyone who isn't creditworthy (ie. poor) pays additional tax in the form of higher-priced goods. But to heck with them for being poor, right, because you get the convenience and cash back?
      - aianus 10y ago
        That's not at all what creditworthiness is. You can be rich and have bad credit as easily as being poor and having good credit.
        10y ago
- jjawssd 10y ago
  I assure you the reason they didn't accept anything but cash was not because they were cheap but because they could mix in and clean up dirty cash from their other clients for a fee without an audit trail.
  - jrowley 10y ago
    Also related, tax purposes, e.g. they can pay workers under the table.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Heh, where I live in Brooklyn there are no places that take card for less than $20 (sometimes $10). It definitely required some adjusting.
  - jk563 10y ago
    And yet I'm living in a village outside Leicester in the UK and I've paid <£0.50 on a card/using Android Pay on multiple occasions.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      Historically a lot of restaurants and retail establishments in the US had minimum charges for credit cards. My anecdata is that this is far less common today (Brooklyn notwithstanding). There's also just been this psychological shift that makes it generally OK in most places to put that $3 salad on a credit card. I'd never have done that 10 years ago. Now I routinely charge my lunch or a cup of coffee. I don't know how much of this is changes to credit card fee structures and how much is that it's just become a cost of doing business many merchants now feel they have to put up with.
      - jk563 10y ago
        We had that in the UK for a while too. It seemed that the big corps ended up absorbing the fee and then most others had to too. There's still the occasional merchant that has a minimum but I see less and less as time goes on. In theory, our interchange fees were reduced, but from what I saw it just resulted in most decent cashback schemes disappearing. This seems to have resulted in issuers making the same margin as they no longer pay out a part of it to the customer.
    - deleted 10y ago
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  - deleted 10y ago
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  - mmagin 10y ago
- sametmax 10y ago
  Which means your bank knows if you buy a sex doll, if you have diarrhea, if you are a member of a political party or if you donated to your cult. And I don't believe in the legal system enough to think that the information is not shared. Also, cash is one of society safety net. You see, nothing is black and white, and society is not perfect. If it can control everything, then the citizen has no margin, no grey zone to try things that the current society consider wrong. And this is a problem, because you can't make society evolve if you can't try what you want to change for first. Cash let a small part of society locally try things that are not (currently considered) right. Without it, you would soon have a static society. Another problem is that, because society is imperfect, it will create rules that in certain situation are bad for the people. Without a way to bypass the system at a local level, you are at the mercy of errors (not even talking about evil doing), with no short term solution. Without cash, if visa or bank x doesn't like you, you are screwed. Without cash, if you are doing something moral but illegal, you are screwed. Without cash, if you are doing something that society consider immoral (ex: going to a gay bar in a repressive country), you are screwed. Yes cash is abused, but a life without cash eventually would derive to something way worse : a rigid society.
  - krallja 10y ago
    In my state (NC), membership in a political party is public information.
    - sametmax 10y ago
      I recall that america was chasing communists pretty badly some decades ago...
- galago 10y ago
  Its probably both the fees and the taxes. They want to be able to choose what business activity to report.
nxc18 10y ago
In my experience as a college student, it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. While you can argue that one should be able to reasonably break laws and not get caught - anything else is a surveillance state and there is value to discretionary enforcement - I wouldn't characterize criticism of cash as just manipulative. For example, on my campus, the vast majority of all cash transactions, from what I've experienced, are to buy illegal drugs or to illegally obtain alcohol. The rest of the transactions are with dining services and with clubs. Because dining services has to keep so much cash on hand, they are a major target for crime; they need to hire more expensive managers to count it, they need to have more cameras and security staff to monitor it, and they need to hire armored guards to carry it off to the bank. In the past front line employees have been shot in armed robberies, so yes, the many safety mechanisms are necessary. What incentive does anyone in this story have to keep using physical cash? It is crazy insecure, dangerous, inconvenient, and used often for illegal things. The criminals (who are more than you'd think; who do you know who hasn't broken at law at least once or twice?) have an incentive to keep cash around. That is legitimate, but as a society, a better approach would be to rewrite our laws to better capture the realities of human behavior and serve the community interest. When people are routinely getting away with things (drinking, smoking, etc.) it is probably time to make them legal and grant those people the full protections of the law and the monetary system - including non-physical value.
- canadian_voter 10y ago
  In my experience it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. I own a legitimate, legal business. Half my revenues come in as cash. It is crazy insecure, dangerous, inconvenient, and used often for illegal things. If you don't like it, don't use it. But don't take my right to use it away.
- angersock 10y ago
  Have you never paid for admittance to a club? Paid a busker? Gone shopping at a thrift store or pawn shop? Bought something at a garage sale? Paid for dinner and tipped without having to split the check for n different cards? Your post reeks of inexperience.
CPLX 10y ago
The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea that someone you have never met and don't control has the ability to stop you from using your funds in the way you'd like to at any time. A cashless society is, at a fundamental level, not free.
- ghaff 10y ago
  I can go weeks without touching cash these days. Nonetheless, I find the idea that I could be prevented from making a person-to-person financial transaction for even a modest amount without a paper trail pretty unsettling.
  - huffmsa 10y ago
    Paper trail? What are you hiding citizen? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
    - icantdrive55 10y ago
      He buys a pack of cigarettes for someone else, and happens to rack up a huge medical bill. The Insurance company might have a reason to disavow him? (Trump and disavow?) He buys a 12 pack, and his kid steals it, and gets into an accident causing front page news. His kid lies, and says dad gave me the beer. (He is screwed.) He goes onto physical therapy office. One of the legitimate places that, but sounds weird--like the power of hands--whatever. The wife sees the bill and it always stays in the back of her mind forever. He buys a pressure cooker, and is suddenly profiled? He pays out of packet for a CAT scan because he's a hypochondriac, and things he has a brain tumor. He is forced to claim he did have a CAT scan on all those pesky insurance forms. (Happened to me.) Yea some of these are far fetched, but not being able to buy groceries last nights wasen't. My slick new chipped bank card was not recognized by the machine. I usually carry a c-note, but used it the following week because of bank card problems. I guess the McCarty Era is not taught in school anymore? So no--I don't want a paper trail either. Hell Safeway knows my diet better than me. (Yes--different card.)
seibelj 10y ago
I would never support getting rid of cash, it's a basic right to spend money without being tracked.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  it's a basic right to spend money without being tracked. No it's not. I very much want there to be a way to spend money anonymously, but I can't frame that as a 'basic right'.
  - 67726e 10y ago
    One could argue it's inherent in a right to privacy.
    - matthewmacleod 10y ago
      I'm just not sure you can construct a coherent argument around that though. Obviously a seller isn't obligated to accept cash; is there a suggestion that we should legally require sellers to do so?
      - DennisP 10y ago
        No, but I think an argument can be made that if both parties agree to the transaction, then it is their right to carry it out.
      - mamon 10y ago
        >> a seller isn't obligated to accept cash Isn't he? I don't know how it works in US, but at least in Poland every banknote has printed statement that it is "the legal payment method ". The law institutes a fine for any seller that refuses payment in cash.
        ghaff 10y ago
        A seller in the US absolutely does not need to accept cash. Certainly most online merchants won't accept cash but there are also examples like onboard purchases on airlines where cash isn't accepted. Relevant statement from US Treasury: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages...
sparrish 10y ago
After having my card skimmed for the 4th time (at a gas station pump, at checkout at grocery store, etc), I decided to pay for everything with cash. It's not worth the hours it takes to clear up things with the bank and I get a better understanding of where my money is being spent when my wallet gets light.
- fjdlwlv 10y ago
  How many hours will you spend at the ATM withdrawing cash? You get a better understanding of spending by feeling your wallet then by looking at your bank statements? That smells like a false pseudounderstanding.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryanobjc 10y ago
    Considering that banks use poor customers as a source of fees to make money, the GP comment is spot on. They've regained control, and honestly your "just check a thing once a month" is hardly the kind of visceral knowledge from watching your wallet get thinner as the month goes on.
  - macintux 10y ago
    You've clearly never tried to go cash-only. You feel the pain when you buy something; pulling out a credit (or even debit) card does not have nearly the same emotional angst. Seeing those bills go away with the knowledge that they're not coming back is quite enlightening.
- koolba 10y ago
  Hope you're not using an ATM to get your cash ...
  - frandroid 10y ago
    ATMs are more hardened, and you visit less of them (and you keep visiting the same ones) so you can spot skimmers more easily.
013a 10y ago
My biggest concern is the frightening fact that all of these cashless systems are powered by private, for-profit banks. I'd be more fine with a move to cashless if the fundamental system which powered it were operated by the Fed (for free, as a public service), not Visa or Mastercard.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I go the other way. If Visa decides they don't like me, Mastercard or American Express may still do business with me. If the Fed decides they don't like me, my only option is to leave the country.
  - rvense 10y ago
    If the people who run the Fed decide you shouldn't spend or receive money, they'll make sure it goes that way regardless. And I'd much rather be taxed by my government than by the shareholders of my bank.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  ...as though the Fed is chartered entirely for public benefit? The structure of the 12 Fed district banks are very similar to private corporations. The whole system is run for the benefit of the US Treasury and (secondarily) the private member banks that hold stock in the district banks. It's there to keep the system solvent and stable. And it may be required to remit all profits to the treasury, but the Fed is not there to protect the general public, and if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that the meaning of "profit" can be blurred with clever accounting. I would only be fine with cashless if the power inherent in the system were diffused, such that no single entity could exercise significant control over it, and if it were supported by laws, such that attempting a 51% attack (perhaps by merger or secret collusion) would get those responsible thrown in PMitA prison for their dire felonies. You let the Fed control it, and they'll just use it to print money, much like they do now with paper money and bank deposits. For some, that may be a beneficial feature, but I think the power to control the size of the money supply is simply too dangerous for any one group to wield it unchecked. And I think the Fed's ongoing policy of targeting a positive rate of inflation has harmed the whole US-dollar economy to a greater extent than the problems that are hypothesized to have been avoided by it. You put one nexus of control on the whole money supply, and that's where all the crooks will go to get their scores. Bitcoin had the right idea in trying to solve the Byzantine Generals problem, because I don't trust any big financial institution to handle money alone, but I do trust them all to distrust one another enough to gang up against anyone that tries to pull off a coup.
saxonklaxon 10y ago
Some people might like the idea of all transactions being monitored and controlled. Ensuring that people behave ethically, that they don't avoid tax, etc. The problem is that elitists can't help believing that they know how to run everybody's lives. So it wouldn't stop there and what future regulators claim to be ethical will morph into supporting a tyrannical status quo.
mamcx 10y ago
Do people remember when companies in the past provide his own currency to control people them own? Because he have your money, he own you.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Well, governments stepped on it, and moved the point of control a notch above. What is unsettling is that governments could create a digital payments system that didn't depend on any single authority. This would be convenient enough that I can't imagine it not gaining the entire market (even from cash), and making this move much more palatable. This would be a much easier way for govs to get their so desired universal surveillance. Yet none is doing that. Why?
  - creaghpatr 10y ago
    Because the government needs to print cash to pay off debt, that's why the Federal Reserve exists.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      I'm not talking about Bitcoin. I'm talking about the government issuing digital money. To make it clear, I don't think it's an entirely good thing, but it would be a much easier path to the kind of surveillance they want to create.
      - morgante 10y ago
        Most money is already digital.
        marcosdumay 10y ago
        Most digital money is not government issued...
PaulAJ 10y ago
The thing about the cashless surveillance panopticon is that it still can't stop illegal drugs. Every prison is exactly that kind of surveillance society, and in every prison drugs are readily available. HSBC is one of the principle members of this privatised money system. It was found to be laundering money for international drug dealers, and got off with a slap on the wrist. Nobody working at the bank has been prosecuted.
- RugnirViking 10y ago
  I don't mean to be pedantic, but that statement would definitely be improved with a link to a source
  - jrowley 10y ago
    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=HSBC+drug+laundering http://lmgtfy.com/?q=HSBC+drug+laundering http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drug+use+in+prisons http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drug+use+in+prisons
  - nowarninglabel 10y ago
    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se... (which is a nice narrative account linking off to further sources)
  - ownagefool 10y ago
    Not the OP but one wonders how much they've made verses how big of a fine they'll have paid and who'll have went to prison when all said and done. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-money-laundering-george-osborne-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-mon... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/21/hsbc-profits-slump-volatile-year/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/21/hsbc-profits-... http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN1685ON http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN1685ON
  - mstade 10y ago
    It's true: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se...
PaulAJ 10y ago
How can this article fail to mention Bitcoin?
- rmorey 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. A blockchain is exactly the solution to a shared, secure, accurate public ledger without the need for a trusted third party like a bank (not that current blockchains are perfect, by any means) "The cashless society – which more accurately should be called the bank-payments society" Due to this sentence I'm forced to believe the author has literally never heard of bitcoin, which seems impossible
  - pjmorris 10y ago
    Bitcoin is still an intermediary between the buyer and the seller.
vegabook 10y ago
Obliquely relevant: A healthy society needs a bit of crime. https://kpulawandsociety.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/durkheim-crime-serves-a-social-function/ https://kpulawandsociety.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/durkheim-c...
3pt14159 10y ago
A cashless society I will only ever come once human nature fundamentally changes. Say Canada gets rid of physical currency, the very next day people will use American money to buy things like drugs or stuff they don't want on their credit card like sex toys. Make a law against using other currencies and the market will just move underground. Even if every country eliminated paper money there will always be a way of exchanging high priced commodities, at which point the prevailing choice will become cash.
huffmsa 10y ago
In a rare moment of being in favor of centralization, this article has me wanting almost immediate government takeover of credit / banking systems, as they control cash monies. The only other instance is pharmaceuticals, that industry being "for profit" is nothing but bad news.
smacktoward 10y ago
> This second mode of money is essentially private, running off an infrastructure collectively controlled by profit-seeking commercial banks and a host of private payment intermediaries – like Visa and Mastercard – that work with them. The data inscriptions in your bank account are not state money. This raises a question in my mind which probably shows my ignorance of finance more than anything, but here goes: Why not just have a public system of electronic transactions? What I mean is, the current system of electronic transactions feels to me a lot like the way things were back in Ye Olden Days with cash. Cash didn't start out as state money, it started out as private money -- notes issued by individual banks, promising to pay the recipient in coin or specie on behalf of the bearer. (Which is why paper money is still referred to in some places as "bank notes.") Which was fine for a long time, but as commerce got bigger and more widely distributed, it reached a point where it didn't scale anymore. Every note was only as dependable as the bank it was drawn on, and the farther away the transaction was from that bank the harder that reliability was to evaluate -- uncertainty which added risk to transactions. So governments started removing that uncertainty by organizing central banks and issuing their own notes, which became the paper currency we all know today. Fast forward to now. We have modern cash, which has all the virtues the article cites; and we have a separate system of online payments which lacks those virtues, run by private companies who take a non-trivial piece of every transaction for themselves. Those drawbacks weren't too important when electronic payments were a new thing, because it wasn't clear then that they would ever be more than a niche product for the convenience of rich people. But now they're everywhere, and it seems inevitable that at some point they'll become the universal method of payment. So why not do like we did with bank notes and cut out the middleman? Why not have electronic payments systems operated by governments, in the same way that they print currency? It seems like it could solve a lot the of problems with a cashless society at a stroke, and help the economy to boot by returning the percentage of each transaction that used to go to the banks back to productive circulation. (The cynical part of me says that the reason is because the middlemen in this case are banks, and in the modern world banks tell governments what to do rather than the other way around.)
- colorint 10y ago
  You say bank notes were redeemable for "coin or specie," but really that's state money. So state money precedes bank money. This was also a horrible system, because bank notes didn't have guaranteed parity (with each other or with state money) or guaranteed redemption. Also, the "final" clearing system for electronic transactions is public. In the US, it's called Fedwire, which is operated by the Federal Reserve which, despite various paranoid ramblings, is a public institution. The problem is, only reserve banks are allowed to have accounts with the central bank, which makes the system appear private. It's even trickier with credit cards, where you're basically asking a credit provider for a loan every time you swipe. So maybe the better question is, why isn't there a national depository bank of the United States? And then you can advance whatever answer you want for that one.
sersi 10y ago
I want to continue being able to pay by Cash as it's the only to guarantee my privacy. But, because of the miles I get using my credit card, I end up almost never using any cash. I'll have to think about this, do I value the plane trips so much that I'm willing to compromise on my values regarding privacy? I'm also going to look into blockchain currencies like Bitcoin to see what potential currencies would guarantee my privacy.
j_s 10y ago
The Death of Cash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947219 (1.5 yrs ago)
oculusthrift 10y ago
I've never used cash regularly in my life. I hate carrying extra stuff around, so just have one of those card holders attached to my phone. I feel like older people are ingrained with cash, but it hasn't come into my life at all. College kids these days even use Venmo to buy drugs. Of course I know I'm subjecting myself to tracking which is somewhat scary but I guess the convenience has outweighed that for me.
- coldpie 10y ago
  You're also sending a 3-5% tithe to the payment processor (credit card company, bank, electronic payment provider) with every transaction instead of giving that money directly to the service provider.
  - oculusthrift 10y ago
    Maybe this is harsh, but why would I care? It sounds like a problem for the store. And many of the mom and pop shops around me require a minimum purchase or charge a 50 cent fee for using a card.
    - ThrowawayR2 10y ago
      >Maybe this is harsh, but why would I care? It sounds like a problem for the store. The store passes the cost right back to you, the consumer, in the form of higher prices. You didn't just think they absorbed the cost out of the goodness of their hearts, did you?
      - oculusthrift 10y ago
        Of course not. But some percentage of customers still use cash. So the store might raise prices by 1.5 pct instead of the 3pct that Visa charges them. This essentially means those who use cash are subsidizing the card users. If they raise it the full 3 percent then the cash users are paying extra for a service they don't even use!
RichardHeart 10y ago
National security. When there's civil unrest, or war, all the permission channels are going to go down. Cash is freedom.
otakucode 10y ago
But cash is an untraceable anonymous currency, used by drug dealers and child pornographers!
- petre 10y ago
  If you believe the gov't propaganda, yes. But drug dealers and child pornographers will always find alternative methods of payment because their activity is illicit. The real reason of the move to cashless is taxes and the fact that governments everywhere borrow without intending to ever pay back. When the shit hits the fan, the payment will come out of your and others' bank accounts.
alkonaut 10y ago
Couldn't a lot of the downsides with the credit card system be at least fixed somewhat by anonymization? E.g a card that generates new numbers for each transaction stops the store from tracking my purchasing habits. Similarly a store that doesn't record any more than the amount to the cc company limits what is recorded. I'm not saying this is in the interest of either retailers, banks or credit card companies - but it should at least be possible in theory to improve on the status quo e.g by regulation. The best solution imho would simply be a credit card you can "charge" with plastic cash from your bank account, instead of going to the ATM. The amount stored on the card is then used like cash and then it's re-charged from the account when it's empty. All the cc company sees is the charging withdrawals and the retailer doesn't see any credit card information as the transaction is made with "cash". I have seen attempts at this (e.g in Sweden 10-15 years ago) but none successful unfortunately.
- confounded 10y ago
  See masked cards from Abine[1]. [1]: https://abine.com https://abine.com
- kalleboo 10y ago
  In a lot of places the public transport cards (that are anonymous and can be recharged with cash) are also accepted for payments at various retailers (see Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong...) and are very popular since everyone already has one to ride the subway, so why not buy a drink at the convenience store with it too?
mavhc 10y ago
In the UK, I basically never use cash, it's annoying, having random coins/notes in my pockets, with no pin code to stop them being used, and having to get change.
known 10y ago
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild, 1744
tomohawk 10y ago
And then there's companies like Square that decide to tie their political ideology into their terms of service. http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/square-guns/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/square-guns/index...
frik 10y ago
You can already feel the pain in CN. Almost everyone is using WeChat in tier 1 cities. WeChat is like WhatsApp/FB-Chat but with integrated Paypal-clone. It has also an integrated Didi app (Uber/taxi hailing). You feel the pain if you don't have a local bank account and therefor cannot use the WeChat wallet. So you cannot hail a Taxi with Didi, you have to do it the old way by waving the hand. It's already really a pain, if you don't look like a local but being a visitor from the west. I heard there are restaurants that accept no cash anymore. It's also not so great that bank debit cards now have some regional lock, you have to deactivate it before you travel abroad, otherwise you cannot use ATMs there. Been there, learned it the hard way, good I had 300 USD in cash with me to survive 3 days until the debit card region locked got processed around the globe to enable ATM cash deposit. Let's hope current kind of paper cash stays around and will be a legal and common payment method for a long time to come.
rdiddly 10y ago
This is indeed a fearsome trend we should be on guard against, but there's one thing making me feel it'll never happen in the US: Cash is indeed preferred by criminals, and the government is criminal. There will always be cash for the CIA's drug trade, for example.
mavhc 10y ago
Also most cash is used for crime, abroad. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/-100-bills-make-up-80-of-all-us-currency-but-why/265518/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/-100-bi...

437 points by tchalla 10y ago

nunez 10y ago

While I agree that cash is extremely convenient and largely anonymous, it is still much more of a hassle to manage than credit or debit cards are. I lived in NYC for a bunch of years and the one thing that I absolutely do not miss is paying for >$100 dinners, entirely in cash, because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees.

marak830 10y ago
Did you mean less than? The processing fees part is throwing me off. I do agree though, in Japan I'm seeing a lot of credit or phone based transactions , I almost never carry cash now. Side note: my wallets last longer!
- nxc18 10y ago
  There are business owners who for some reason think it is appropriate to stick their customers with that burden. Those business owners are customer hostile and are worthy of neither my business nor anyone else's.
- ISL 10y ago
  Interesting -- just got back from Japan, traveling in smaller communities. Almost all of our transactions were in cash.
  - marak830 10y ago
    Yes while travelling it's a huge cash based society here, but Tokyo/yokohama are really leaning towards cards/suica(the train ticket pre-charge card)/Edi(mobile phone payment system) and such.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    Restaurants and anything mom&pop will probably be cash-only, but pretty much anything that's a chain (big supermarkets, stores in malls with their own branded cards [includes JR train stations], etc) tends to support electronic payments. I find a lot of places may accept cards if you ask them, but they don't have card logo stickers anywhere or a prominent card reader.
- fjdlwlv 10y ago
  Greater than, makes paying in cash annoying
the-dude 10y ago
Start a business, discover the fees.
pdkl95 10y ago
> still much more of a hassle That's when everything works correctly. What about when the power goes out and the card reading device stops working? What about transaction denials due to bank mistakes (or predatory policies)? Having the option to pay with credit/etc is nice, but the failure modes can be nasty.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I've had the pleasure (?) of going on vacation without notifying the card company. Because a hotel was late with a correction to their charge, that showed the card in use at two places at once, so they shut it down. While I was on vacation. That got... uncomfortable. Fortunately, they only shut down my card. My wife's still worked, and we were able to proceed. It made for a more stressful vacation, though...
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Pro tip. Always carry a second credit card (from a different bank) when you travel. It's just too easy for anti-fraud systems to be triggered by something they don't like and to be in a situation where you're not really in a position to spend 30 minutes on the phone proving you are who you say you are. The systems can really trigger on random stuff too. After the last time when I gave them holy hell and threatened to pull my business, I haven't had trouble since. But before that, as someone who travels worldwide, I had transactions declined at 1.) a gas station convenience store and 2.) a grocery store in the Western US.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    This is why I always have two bank accounts (with two different banks and two different ATM cards) and always have two credit cards, in case one bank account or one credit card gets shut down or skimmed it wouldn't be a big inconvenience. Especially helpful if you are going out of the country.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      I've never gone so far as to have a second bank account. But I'm guessing a brokerage account could basically serve as the same thing.
mrec 10y ago
> it is still much more of a hassle to manage than credit or debit cards are I don't really get this. I use credit cards (almost entirely online), but I've never used a debit card. Not out of any deep-seated aversion, I just don't see the point.
- eric_the_read 10y ago
  The appeal is largely that credit cards let you spend money you don't have, and debit cards, by definition, don't. For people who have a hard time operating within their budget with credit cards, this is a huge difference.
  - jk563 10y ago
    Worth pointing out that this can be fuzzy, I have a £1600 overdraft facility that I can use with my debit card (I don't use it though).
    - eric_the_read 10y ago
      True enough, but I hate those things. They tend to incur nasty fees when used on top of the overdraft itself, and then there's interest to be paid on the overdraft amount if not paid in full, etc., etc. If allowed, I will always disable them, and when not allowed, I will change banks to one that will allow it.
      - jk563 10y ago
        I agree with the sentiment, though I'd argue they're getting better. For example the Nationwide FlexDirect current account[0] comes with a £1,200 overdraft limit that gets charged at 50p per day it's used. A vast improvement in my mind, I remember getting charged around £30 for going £2 overdrawn for less than 2 hours! [0] http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/our-current-accounts/overview http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/our-cu...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
phil21 10y ago
> because the restaurant was "too cheap" to handle processing and transaction fees. I applaud businesses like this. The fact we slowly let a few giant private corporations enact a 1-3% fee against pratically the entire consumer economy would be ludicrous in any other situation. Plus the privacy concerns just are not worth the convenience. Whenever possible I use cash, simply so I slow the day coming where I can't function in society without having my entire spending history out there for any agency to decide to take a look at.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I'm not a big fan of credit cards, but cash isn't free.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Money is an information and accounting system. Regardless of how implemented, it has processing costs.
- jliptzin 10y ago
  The bulk of that transaction fee gets rebated back to the consumer as points, cash back, etc. I only use 2% cash back cards.
  - beambot 10y ago
    So anyone who isn't creditworthy (ie. poor) pays additional tax in the form of higher-priced goods. But to heck with them for being poor, right, because you get the convenience and cash back?
    - aianus 10y ago
      That's not at all what creditworthiness is. You can be rich and have bad credit as easily as being poor and having good credit.
      - 10y ago
jjawssd 10y ago
I assure you the reason they didn't accept anything but cash was not because they were cheap but because they could mix in and clean up dirty cash from their other clients for a fee without an audit trail.
- jrowley 10y ago
  Also related, tax purposes, e.g. they can pay workers under the table.
sotojuan 10y ago
Heh, where I live in Brooklyn there are no places that take card for less than $20 (sometimes $10). It definitely required some adjusting.
- jk563 10y ago
  And yet I'm living in a village outside Leicester in the UK and I've paid <£0.50 on a card/using Android Pay on multiple occasions.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Historically a lot of restaurants and retail establishments in the US had minimum charges for credit cards. My anecdata is that this is far less common today (Brooklyn notwithstanding). There's also just been this psychological shift that makes it generally OK in most places to put that $3 salad on a credit card. I'd never have done that 10 years ago. Now I routinely charge my lunch or a cup of coffee. I don't know how much of this is changes to credit card fee structures and how much is that it's just become a cost of doing business many merchants now feel they have to put up with.
    - jk563 10y ago
      We had that in the UK for a while too. It seemed that the big corps ended up absorbing the fee and then most others had to too. There's still the occasional merchant that has a minimum but I see less and less as time goes on. In theory, our interchange fees were reduced, but from what I saw it just resulted in most decent cashback schemes disappearing. This seems to have resulted in issuers making the same margin as they no longer pay out a part of it to the customer.
  - deleted 10y ago
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- mmagin 10y ago
sametmax 10y ago
Which means your bank knows if you buy a sex doll, if you have diarrhea, if you are a member of a political party or if you donated to your cult. And I don't believe in the legal system enough to think that the information is not shared. Also, cash is one of society safety net. You see, nothing is black and white, and society is not perfect. If it can control everything, then the citizen has no margin, no grey zone to try things that the current society consider wrong. And this is a problem, because you can't make society evolve if you can't try what you want to change for first. Cash let a small part of society locally try things that are not (currently considered) right. Without it, you would soon have a static society. Another problem is that, because society is imperfect, it will create rules that in certain situation are bad for the people. Without a way to bypass the system at a local level, you are at the mercy of errors (not even talking about evil doing), with no short term solution. Without cash, if visa or bank x doesn't like you, you are screwed. Without cash, if you are doing something moral but illegal, you are screwed. Without cash, if you are doing something that society consider immoral (ex: going to a gay bar in a repressive country), you are screwed. Yes cash is abused, but a life without cash eventually would derive to something way worse : a rigid society.
- krallja 10y ago
  In my state (NC), membership in a political party is public information.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    I recall that america was chasing communists pretty badly some decades ago...
galago 10y ago
Its probably both the fees and the taxes. They want to be able to choose what business activity to report.

nxc18 10y ago

In my experience as a college student, it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. While you can argue that one should be able to reasonably break laws and not get caught - anything else is a surveillance state and there is value to discretionary enforcement - I wouldn't characterize criticism of cash as just manipulative. For example, on my campus, the vast majority of all cash transactions, from what I've experienced, are to buy illegal drugs or to illegally obtain alcohol. The rest of the transactions are with dining services and with clubs. Because dining services has to keep so much cash on hand, they are a major target for crime; they need to hire more expensive managers to count it, they need to have more cameras and security staff to monitor it, and they need to hire armored guards to carry it off to the bank. In the past front line employees have been shot in armed robberies, so yes, the many safety mechanisms are necessary. What incentive does anyone in this story have to keep using physical cash? It is crazy insecure, dangerous, inconvenient, and used often for illegal things. The criminals (who are more than you'd think; who do you know who hasn't broken at law at least once or twice?) have an incentive to keep cash around. That is legitimate, but as a society, a better approach would be to rewrite our laws to better capture the realities of human behavior and serve the community interest. When people are routinely getting away with things (drinking, smoking, etc.) it is probably time to make them legal and grant those people the full protections of the law and the monetary system - including non-physical value.

canadian_voter 10y ago
In my experience it is exceedingly rare to use cash, especially cash in amounts greater than $5, for anything other than crime. I own a legitimate, legal business. Half my revenues come in as cash. It is crazy insecure, dangerous, inconvenient, and used often for illegal things. If you don't like it, don't use it. But don't take my right to use it away.
angersock 10y ago
Have you never paid for admittance to a club? Paid a busker? Gone shopping at a thrift store or pawn shop? Bought something at a garage sale? Paid for dinner and tipped without having to split the check for n different cards? Your post reeks of inexperience.

CPLX 10y ago

The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea that someone you have never met and don't control has the ability to stop you from using your funds in the way you'd like to at any time. A cashless society is, at a fundamental level, not free.

ghaff 10y ago
I can go weeks without touching cash these days. Nonetheless, I find the idea that I could be prevented from making a person-to-person financial transaction for even a modest amount without a paper trail pretty unsettling.
- huffmsa 10y ago
  Paper trail? What are you hiding citizen? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
  - icantdrive55 10y ago
    He buys a pack of cigarettes for someone else, and happens to rack up a huge medical bill. The Insurance company might have a reason to disavow him? (Trump and disavow?) He buys a 12 pack, and his kid steals it, and gets into an accident causing front page news. His kid lies, and says dad gave me the beer. (He is screwed.) He goes onto physical therapy office. One of the legitimate places that, but sounds weird--like the power of hands--whatever. The wife sees the bill and it always stays in the back of her mind forever. He buys a pressure cooker, and is suddenly profiled? He pays out of packet for a CAT scan because he's a hypochondriac, and things he has a brain tumor. He is forced to claim he did have a CAT scan on all those pesky insurance forms. (Happened to me.) Yea some of these are far fetched, but not being able to buy groceries last nights wasen't. My slick new chipped bank card was not recognized by the machine. I usually carry a c-note, but used it the following week because of bank card problems. I guess the McCarty Era is not taught in school anymore? So no--I don't want a paper trail either. Hell Safeway knows my diet better than me. (Yes--different card.)

seibelj 10y ago

I would never support getting rid of cash, it's a basic right to spend money without being tracked.

matthewmacleod 10y ago
it's a basic right to spend money without being tracked. No it's not. I very much want there to be a way to spend money anonymously, but I can't frame that as a 'basic right'.
- 67726e 10y ago
  One could argue it's inherent in a right to privacy.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    I'm just not sure you can construct a coherent argument around that though. Obviously a seller isn't obligated to accept cash; is there a suggestion that we should legally require sellers to do so?
    - DennisP 10y ago
      No, but I think an argument can be made that if both parties agree to the transaction, then it is their right to carry it out.
    - mamon 10y ago
      >> a seller isn't obligated to accept cash Isn't he? I don't know how it works in US, but at least in Poland every banknote has printed statement that it is "the legal payment method ". The law institutes a fine for any seller that refuses payment in cash.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        A seller in the US absolutely does not need to accept cash. Certainly most online merchants won't accept cash but there are also examples like onboard purchases on airlines where cash isn't accepted. Relevant statement from US Treasury: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages...

sparrish 10y ago

After having my card skimmed for the 4th time (at a gas station pump, at checkout at grocery store, etc), I decided to pay for everything with cash. It's not worth the hours it takes to clear up things with the bank and I get a better understanding of where my money is being spent when my wallet gets light.

fjdlwlv 10y ago
How many hours will you spend at the ATM withdrawing cash? You get a better understanding of spending by feeling your wallet then by looking at your bank statements? That smells like a false pseudounderstanding.
- deleted 10y ago
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- ryanobjc 10y ago
  Considering that banks use poor customers as a source of fees to make money, the GP comment is spot on. They've regained control, and honestly your "just check a thing once a month" is hardly the kind of visceral knowledge from watching your wallet get thinner as the month goes on.
- macintux 10y ago
  You've clearly never tried to go cash-only. You feel the pain when you buy something; pulling out a credit (or even debit) card does not have nearly the same emotional angst. Seeing those bills go away with the knowledge that they're not coming back is quite enlightening.
koolba 10y ago
Hope you're not using an ATM to get your cash ...
- frandroid 10y ago
  ATMs are more hardened, and you visit less of them (and you keep visiting the same ones) so you can spot skimmers more easily.

013a 10y ago

My biggest concern is the frightening fact that all of these cashless systems are powered by private, for-profit banks. I'd be more fine with a move to cashless if the fundamental system which powered it were operated by the Fed (for free, as a public service), not Visa or Mastercard.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
I go the other way. If Visa decides they don't like me, Mastercard or American Express may still do business with me. If the Fed decides they don't like me, my only option is to leave the country.
- rvense 10y ago
  If the people who run the Fed decide you shouldn't spend or receive money, they'll make sure it goes that way regardless. And I'd much rather be taxed by my government than by the shareholders of my bank.
logfromblammo 10y ago
...as though the Fed is chartered entirely for public benefit? The structure of the 12 Fed district banks are very similar to private corporations. The whole system is run for the benefit of the US Treasury and (secondarily) the private member banks that hold stock in the district banks. It's there to keep the system solvent and stable. And it may be required to remit all profits to the treasury, but the Fed is not there to protect the general public, and if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that the meaning of "profit" can be blurred with clever accounting. I would only be fine with cashless if the power inherent in the system were diffused, such that no single entity could exercise significant control over it, and if it were supported by laws, such that attempting a 51% attack (perhaps by merger or secret collusion) would get those responsible thrown in PMitA prison for their dire felonies. You let the Fed control it, and they'll just use it to print money, much like they do now with paper money and bank deposits. For some, that may be a beneficial feature, but I think the power to control the size of the money supply is simply too dangerous for any one group to wield it unchecked. And I think the Fed's ongoing policy of targeting a positive rate of inflation has harmed the whole US-dollar economy to a greater extent than the problems that are hypothesized to have been avoided by it. You put one nexus of control on the whole money supply, and that's where all the crooks will go to get their scores. Bitcoin had the right idea in trying to solve the Byzantine Generals problem, because I don't trust any big financial institution to handle money alone, but I do trust them all to distrust one another enough to gang up against anyone that tries to pull off a coup.

saxonklaxon 10y ago

Some people might like the idea of all transactions being monitored and controlled. Ensuring that people behave ethically, that they don't avoid tax, etc. The problem is that elitists can't help believing that they know how to run everybody's lives. So it wouldn't stop there and what future regulators claim to be ethical will morph into supporting a tyrannical status quo.

mamcx 10y ago

Do people remember when companies in the past provide his own currency to control people them own? Because he have your money, he own you.

marcosdumay 10y ago
Well, governments stepped on it, and moved the point of control a notch above. What is unsettling is that governments could create a digital payments system that didn't depend on any single authority. This would be convenient enough that I can't imagine it not gaining the entire market (even from cash), and making this move much more palatable. This would be a much easier way for govs to get their so desired universal surveillance. Yet none is doing that. Why?
- creaghpatr 10y ago
  Because the government needs to print cash to pay off debt, that's why the Federal Reserve exists.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    I'm not talking about Bitcoin. I'm talking about the government issuing digital money. To make it clear, I don't think it's an entirely good thing, but it would be a much easier path to the kind of surveillance they want to create.
    - morgante 10y ago
      Most money is already digital.
      - marcosdumay 10y ago
        Most digital money is not government issued...

PaulAJ 10y ago

The thing about the cashless surveillance panopticon is that it still can't stop illegal drugs. Every prison is exactly that kind of surveillance society, and in every prison drugs are readily available. HSBC is one of the principle members of this privatised money system. It was found to be laundering money for international drug dealers, and got off with a slap on the wrist. Nobody working at the bank has been prosecuted.

RugnirViking 10y ago
I don't mean to be pedantic, but that statement would definitely be improved with a link to a source
- jrowley 10y ago
  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=HSBC+drug+laundering http://lmgtfy.com/?q=HSBC+drug+laundering http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drug+use+in+prisons http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drug+use+in+prisons
- nowarninglabel 10y ago
  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se... (which is a nice narrative account linking off to further sources)
- ownagefool 10y ago
  Not the OP but one wonders how much they've made verses how big of a fine they'll have paid and who'll have went to prison when all said and done. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-money-laundering-george-osborne-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-mon... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/21/hsbc-profits-slump-volatile-year/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/21/hsbc-profits-... http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN1685ON http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN1685ON
- mstade 10y ago
  It's true: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se...

PaulAJ 10y ago

How can this article fail to mention Bitcoin?

rmorey 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. A blockchain is exactly the solution to a shared, secure, accurate public ledger without the need for a trusted third party like a bank (not that current blockchains are perfect, by any means) "The cashless society – which more accurately should be called the bank-payments society" Due to this sentence I'm forced to believe the author has literally never heard of bitcoin, which seems impossible
- pjmorris 10y ago
  Bitcoin is still an intermediary between the buyer and the seller.

vegabook 10y ago

Obliquely relevant: A healthy society needs a bit of crime. https://kpulawandsociety.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/durkheim-crime-serves-a-social-function/ https://kpulawandsociety.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/durkheim-c...

3pt14159 10y ago

A cashless society I will only ever come once human nature fundamentally changes. Say Canada gets rid of physical currency, the very next day people will use American money to buy things like drugs or stuff they don't want on their credit card like sex toys. Make a law against using other currencies and the market will just move underground. Even if every country eliminated paper money there will always be a way of exchanging high priced commodities, at which point the prevailing choice will become cash.

huffmsa 10y ago

In a rare moment of being in favor of centralization, this article has me wanting almost immediate government takeover of credit / banking systems, as they control cash monies. The only other instance is pharmaceuticals, that industry being "for profit" is nothing but bad news.

smacktoward 10y ago

> This second mode of money is essentially private, running off an infrastructure collectively controlled by profit-seeking commercial banks and a host of private payment intermediaries – like Visa and Mastercard – that work with them. The data inscriptions in your bank account are not state money. This raises a question in my mind which probably shows my ignorance of finance more than anything, but here goes: Why not just have a public system of electronic transactions? What I mean is, the current system of electronic transactions feels to me a lot like the way things were back in Ye Olden Days with cash. Cash didn't start out as state money, it started out as private money -- notes issued by individual banks, promising to pay the recipient in coin or specie on behalf of the bearer. (Which is why paper money is still referred to in some places as "bank notes.") Which was fine for a long time, but as commerce got bigger and more widely distributed, it reached a point where it didn't scale anymore. Every note was only as dependable as the bank it was drawn on, and the farther away the transaction was from that bank the harder that reliability was to evaluate -- uncertainty which added risk to transactions. So governments started removing that uncertainty by organizing central banks and issuing their own notes, which became the paper currency we all know today. Fast forward to now. We have modern cash, which has all the virtues the article cites; and we have a separate system of online payments which lacks those virtues, run by private companies who take a non-trivial piece of every transaction for themselves. Those drawbacks weren't too important when electronic payments were a new thing, because it wasn't clear then that they would ever be more than a niche product for the convenience of rich people. But now they're everywhere, and it seems inevitable that at some point they'll become the universal method of payment. So why not do like we did with bank notes and cut out the middleman? Why not have electronic payments systems operated by governments, in the same way that they print currency? It seems like it could solve a lot the of problems with a cashless society at a stroke, and help the economy to boot by returning the percentage of each transaction that used to go to the banks back to productive circulation. (The cynical part of me says that the reason is because the middlemen in this case are banks, and in the modern world banks tell governments what to do rather than the other way around.)

colorint 10y ago
You say bank notes were redeemable for "coin or specie," but really that's state money. So state money precedes bank money. This was also a horrible system, because bank notes didn't have guaranteed parity (with each other or with state money) or guaranteed redemption. Also, the "final" clearing system for electronic transactions is public. In the US, it's called Fedwire, which is operated by the Federal Reserve which, despite various paranoid ramblings, is a public institution. The problem is, only reserve banks are allowed to have accounts with the central bank, which makes the system appear private. It's even trickier with credit cards, where you're basically asking a credit provider for a loan every time you swipe. So maybe the better question is, why isn't there a national depository bank of the United States? And then you can advance whatever answer you want for that one.

sersi 10y ago

I want to continue being able to pay by Cash as it's the only to guarantee my privacy. But, because of the miles I get using my credit card, I end up almost never using any cash. I'll have to think about this, do I value the plane trips so much that I'm willing to compromise on my values regarding privacy? I'm also going to look into blockchain currencies like Bitcoin to see what potential currencies would guarantee my privacy.

j_s 10y ago

The Death of Cash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947219 (1.5 yrs ago)

oculusthrift 10y ago

I've never used cash regularly in my life. I hate carrying extra stuff around, so just have one of those card holders attached to my phone. I feel like older people are ingrained with cash, but it hasn't come into my life at all. College kids these days even use Venmo to buy drugs. Of course I know I'm subjecting myself to tracking which is somewhat scary but I guess the convenience has outweighed that for me.

coldpie 10y ago
You're also sending a 3-5% tithe to the payment processor (credit card company, bank, electronic payment provider) with every transaction instead of giving that money directly to the service provider.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  Maybe this is harsh, but why would I care? It sounds like a problem for the store. And many of the mom and pop shops around me require a minimum purchase or charge a 50 cent fee for using a card.
  - ThrowawayR2 10y ago
    >Maybe this is harsh, but why would I care? It sounds like a problem for the store. The store passes the cost right back to you, the consumer, in the form of higher prices. You didn't just think they absorbed the cost out of the goodness of their hearts, did you?
    - oculusthrift 10y ago
      Of course not. But some percentage of customers still use cash. So the store might raise prices by 1.5 pct instead of the 3pct that Visa charges them. This essentially means those who use cash are subsidizing the card users. If they raise it the full 3 percent then the cash users are paying extra for a service they don't even use!

RichardHeart 10y ago

National security. When there's civil unrest, or war, all the permission channels are going to go down. Cash is freedom.

otakucode 10y ago

But cash is an untraceable anonymous currency, used by drug dealers and child pornographers!

petre 10y ago
If you believe the gov't propaganda, yes. But drug dealers and child pornographers will always find alternative methods of payment because their activity is illicit. The real reason of the move to cashless is taxes and the fact that governments everywhere borrow without intending to ever pay back. When the shit hits the fan, the payment will come out of your and others' bank accounts.

alkonaut 10y ago

Couldn't a lot of the downsides with the credit card system be at least fixed somewhat by anonymization? E.g a card that generates new numbers for each transaction stops the store from tracking my purchasing habits. Similarly a store that doesn't record any more than the amount to the cc company limits what is recorded. I'm not saying this is in the interest of either retailers, banks or credit card companies - but it should at least be possible in theory to improve on the status quo e.g by regulation. The best solution imho would simply be a credit card you can "charge" with plastic cash from your bank account, instead of going to the ATM. The amount stored on the card is then used like cash and then it's re-charged from the account when it's empty. All the cc company sees is the charging withdrawals and the retailer doesn't see any credit card information as the transaction is made with "cash". I have seen attempts at this (e.g in Sweden 10-15 years ago) but none successful unfortunately.

confounded 10y ago
See masked cards from Abine[1]. [1]: https://abine.com https://abine.com
kalleboo 10y ago
In a lot of places the public transport cards (that are anonymous and can be recharged with cash) are also accepted for payments at various retailers (see Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong...) and are very popular since everyone already has one to ride the subway, so why not buy a drink at the convenience store with it too?

mavhc 10y ago

In the UK, I basically never use cash, it's annoying, having random coins/notes in my pockets, with no pin code to stop them being used, and having to get change.

known 10y ago

"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild, 1744

tomohawk 10y ago

And then there's companies like Square that decide to tie their political ideology into their terms of service. http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/square-guns/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/13/technology/square-guns/index...

frik 10y ago

You can already feel the pain in CN. Almost everyone is using WeChat in tier 1 cities. WeChat is like WhatsApp/FB-Chat but with integrated Paypal-clone. It has also an integrated Didi app (Uber/taxi hailing). You feel the pain if you don't have a local bank account and therefor cannot use the WeChat wallet. So you cannot hail a Taxi with Didi, you have to do it the old way by waving the hand. It's already really a pain, if you don't look like a local but being a visitor from the west. I heard there are restaurants that accept no cash anymore. It's also not so great that bank debit cards now have some regional lock, you have to deactivate it before you travel abroad, otherwise you cannot use ATMs there. Been there, learned it the hard way, good I had 300 USD in cash with me to survive 3 days until the debit card region locked got processed around the globe to enable ATM cash deposit. Let's hope current kind of paper cash stays around and will be a legal and common payment method for a long time to come.

rdiddly 10y ago

This is indeed a fearsome trend we should be on guard against, but there's one thing making me feel it'll never happen in the US: Cash is indeed preferred by criminals, and the government is criminal. There will always be cash for the CIA's drug trade, for example.

mavhc 10y ago

Also most cash is used for crime, abroad. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/-100-bills-make-up-80-of-all-us-currency-but-why/265518/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/-100-bi...