4 ms·

> But if your chip is dirty, or there's a network interruption, or... a 30 second transaction turns into several minutes of repeating the same actions, waiting

by usaphp 10y ago

> But if your chip is dirty, or there's a network interruption, or... a 30 second transaction turns into several minutes of repeating the same actions, waiting for the skinner box to spit out some food. How many times did you have these type of issues? I've never had an issue with a "dirty chip" or a network interruption. These types of issues are very very rare. I could tell you - your cash can get damaged while you carry them - that will make some merchants refuse to accept it, Also try going and paying with a $100 bill - a lot of places don't even accept them. > Cash is only really slow because people have lost their familiarity with how to give change. I find that to be somewhat unfortunate, frankly. Seriously? Did you forget how long did it take before to calculate a proper amount of change in the first place??? Nowadays cashiers have a screen that tells them right away how much change to give back, that already drastically reduced the transaction time, but it's nowhere near the transaction time of a credit card, nevermind nfc payments.

phil21 10y ago
> Also try going and paying with a $100 bill - a lot of places don't even accept them. I had a stack of $100's due to a vegas win that I could spend every location I tried (in my home town). The only caveat is I'd ask if they could change it out first, since today hardly anyone uses cash and cash drawers get slim. It's not very difficult to spend them, and that even surprised me a little. > Seriously? Did you forget how long did it take before to calculate a proper amount of change in the first place??? Man these comments make me feel old. I didn't forget at all, I was a cashier. If you can't instantly calculate proper change for any transaction under $100 you didn't make a very good cashier. Most experienced (with cash) cashiers could trivially beat a chip-based credit card transaction. I do agree today you are correct, but I also find it incredibly sad and pathetic. A properly trained and experienced cashier can change out a $100 bill for a random say $35.24 transaction in roughly the amount of time it takes to print one of those extra long receipts. In fact I'm pretty sure with an hour of practicing on a cash register again I could likely match it. A few weeks and I'd consistently beat it without trying. > but it's nowhere near the transaction time of a credit card, nevermind nfc payments. You are correct re: NFC, but that is still not widely accepted. Chip card? Cash better be faster or your cashier is incompetent. They are incredibly slow. I really find it strange so many on HN defend credit cards as a social good - they are not. They are a social evil if anything, exacting a 2-3% tax on all transactions since once they met plurality the merchant fees just got priced into all goods. I do not find this to be ethical at all, and feel it's one of the least ethical systems I contribute to - it's simply a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy. Very few poor folks get to use rewards cards, and they still pay the same 2-3% merchant markup we all do. Without that huge 0% cash back customer base, your reward benefits would be slashed. I also didn't mean my trailing comment to cause such a controversy. I wasn't actually denigrating cards on purpose there, just stating I find the whole 'churning' and 'status' scenes pretty ridiculous and silly. I dropped that prefer cash line in there as an afterthought :)
- usaphp 10y ago
  > Cash better be faster or your cashier is incompetent. A lot of processing time of cash transaction goes into a customer opening his wallet, counting bills, searching for a change to match the amount so that he gets a solid bill instead of coins, same goes for cashier, he/she has to calculate first, double check it by counting again in front of customer. So I am sorry ,but I disagree that even back in the days it was faster to pay with cash vs today's credit cards

by usaphp 10y ago

phil21 10y ago

> Also try going and paying with a $100 bill - a lot of places don't even accept them. I had a stack of $100's due to a vegas win that I could spend every location I tried (in my home town). The only caveat is I'd ask if they could change it out first, since today hardly anyone uses cash and cash drawers get slim. It's not very difficult to spend them, and that even surprised me a little. > Seriously? Did you forget how long did it take before to calculate a proper amount of change in the first place??? Man these comments make me feel old. I didn't forget at all, I was a cashier. If you can't instantly calculate proper change for any transaction under $100 you didn't make a very good cashier. Most experienced (with cash) cashiers could trivially beat a chip-based credit card transaction. I do agree today you are correct, but I also find it incredibly sad and pathetic. A properly trained and experienced cashier can change out a $100 bill for a random say $35.24 transaction in roughly the amount of time it takes to print one of those extra long receipts. In fact I'm pretty sure with an hour of practicing on a cash register again I could likely match it. A few weeks and I'd consistently beat it without trying. > but it's nowhere near the transaction time of a credit card, nevermind nfc payments. You are correct re: NFC, but that is still not widely accepted. Chip card? Cash better be faster or your cashier is incompetent. They are incredibly slow. I really find it strange so many on HN defend credit cards as a social good - they are not. They are a social evil if anything, exacting a 2-3% tax on all transactions since once they met plurality the merchant fees just got priced into all goods. I do not find this to be ethical at all, and feel it's one of the least ethical systems I contribute to - it's simply a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy. Very few poor folks get to use rewards cards, and they still pay the same 2-3% merchant markup we all do. Without that huge 0% cash back customer base, your reward benefits would be slashed. I also didn't mean my trailing comment to cause such a controversy. I wasn't actually denigrating cards on purpose there, just stating I find the whole 'churning' and 'status' scenes pretty ridiculous and silly. I dropped that prefer cash line in there as an afterthought :)

usaphp 10y ago
> Cash better be faster or your cashier is incompetent. A lot of processing time of cash transaction goes into a customer opening his wallet, counting bills, searching for a change to match the amount so that he gets a solid bill instead of coins, same goes for cashier, he/she has to calculate first, double check it by counting again in front of customer. So I am sorry ,but I disagree that even back in the days it was faster to pay with cash vs today's credit cards