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As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you p

As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I understand there is a slight charge to the vendor when charging to a credit or bank card, but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs.

jmnicolas 9y ago
Maybe you're not used to pay with cash but for people that are used to it, it's not slower than using plastic. And sometimes it's even faster, when the card or the card reader don't work, the customer is old etc.
- optimusrex 9y ago
  With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. I understand I need to become more accustomed to the culture that I immigrate too, but that does not mean that there are not more efficient solutions compared to "the way its always been". As for the card reader not working, this is usually only a problem with older machines or places without a strong internet connection.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    > I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. You have to wait for the transaction to verify. That usually takes more than three seconds (at least here), which is roughly the amount of time it takes to get change.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      I don't think it's a good reason to push for cashless, but three seconds on average for both buyers and sellers? Only if Swedes are much faster than citizens across the rest of Europe. Giving the money, inputting the amount into the POS so it can open the register, then choosing the bills and coins - 3s seconds is about the best case scenario, in my experience.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well. Sellers here (Greece) are so used to this (they do it thousands of times a day) that it takes them almost no time to give change back. It helps that change is always segregated into proper trays/slots. Even with contactless, I always feel kind of bad to be paying by card at the super market because I'm slowing the queue down. If the amount goes over 20 euros or so and I have to enter my PIN, it's even slower. It's not even a contest compared to cash.
        icebraining 9y ago
        You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well Where are you buying that has payment queues but doesn't scan the products? I only see people inputting the amount manually in restaurants/bars.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        Where are you buying that you have to enter the amount into the POS to open the drawer but not to start the card transaction? You can't consider the time it takes to enter the amount only in the case that suits you. If you have to enter the amount for cash, you have to enter it for the card as well.
        icebraining 9y ago
        You have to enter the amount the person is actually delivering... If the total is 18.45€, I'll probably be paying with a 20€, which the cashier has to input. Now that I think of it, I guess not all POSs require that (the cashier does the calculation for the change in their head), but in my experience they aren't common.
  - Karlozkiller 9y ago
    And the inevitable rise in wireless card skimming that would ensue? OK maybe not inevitable but it's made a lot easier with wireless cards etc. And I do expect 'thugs' to catch on. Plus, you can only do that on lower sums. If I pay a higher sum than allowed for wireless pay where I live (Sweden) I'd still need chip and pin, and often in restaurants I am told to enter the total sum plus whatever tip I want to give, then confirm, then enter pin. So I'd say cash can be quicker in some cases, slower in other, but my main concern is in the area of privacy and security both of my cash, and my ability to pay in force majura-cases.
  - baud147258 9y ago
    I'm always taking lunch with a handfull of other devs from where I'm working. All the other pay cash, I'm always paying with a contactless card and I'm always taking more time, even when I don't have to enter the PIN.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.
    - notahacker 9y ago
      This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor
      - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
        > This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor How? The machines will literally take an entire stack of bills at once, read them and make change in the same time it takes to verify an electronic transaction. You would need a stopwatch with sub-second precision to even tell the difference. Which one is faster is down more to the specific model of payment processing machine than the payment method. And even if the card was theoretically faster, we're no longer talking about waiting for some high school kid to fumble around for 30 seconds. A difference of 300 milliseconds one way or the other is just pedantry.
        tigershark 9y ago
        It’s at least a 30 seconds difference. You need to read the amount, extract your wallet, check if you have the exact amount of money to avoid filling your wallet with useless coins, 90% of the time you realise that you don’t have it and you start fumbling between your notes to find the correct amount that can give you a reasonable change. At that point you can start to have fun fighting with the machine that won’t accept some of your notes because are too old/crumpled. Even in the unlikely case that it accepts all your notes now you still need to wait for the change and retrieve all of it, with some coin that will invariably be stuck somewhere. Or instead of paying with your sweat and your blood using cash you can simply put your hand in your pocket, retrieve the phone and tap it on the sensor.
  - SllX 9y ago
    A good cashier can process cash sometimes quicker than even the fastest card readers I've seen, and not all card readers are nearly that fast. A lot of them are slow, painfully so. If you have to sign, that's also slow, another step in the transaction. What it works out to be is that sometimes it's better to use card and sometimes it is better to use cash if speed is a factor. Someone that takes too long because they are fumbling for cash are just as likely to be the type of person that would have to fumble around for their card or have other issues operating the terminal. Cash is quick and painless with only the most minimal amount of mental arithmetic necessary to give someone their change, not that your typical register won't spit it back out at you anyway. If it is a sit down restaurant with table service though, there's no real positives or negatives to using either besides whatever is most convenient for you. So all in all, all I see in any push to go cashless is the illusion of progress. It's all theater and it is strictly speaking, completely unnecessary to go cashless with considerable downsides if society is forced to.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  Then every cash handler must not be inept when it comes to breaking bills and making change. Unfortunately, that’s already a trend we’ve been seeing in the US youth for the past 20 years.
dmos62 9y ago
> The Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, called for new legislation to secure public control over the payments system, arguing that being able to make and receive payments is a “collective good” like defence, the courts, or public statistics. > “Most citizens would feel uncomfortable to surrender these social functions to private companies,” he said. > “It should be obvious that Sweden’s preparedness would be weakened if, in a serious crisis or war, we had not decided in advance how households and companies would pay for fuel, supplies and other necessities.”
- optimusrex 9y ago
  The first two points involve the way the citizens "feel" and not is actually most productive. As for the preparedness of a nation to handle a cashless economy during a time of war, wouldn't a electronic ledger be must safer and reliable than if the government say just started printing more money leading to inflation problems. This has happens numerous times throughout times of history during war and could be avoided with a cashless economy.
  - hawski 9y ago
    More reliable? We are not living in a world where every roof is covered with solar panels. Our network is not a wireless mesh. During a war power plants will get bombed. Network and power cables will get bombed. Roads, railroads and bridges will get bombed, so power plants wouldn't even get fuel.
    - jacobush 9y ago
      Heck, if they wanted to be really surgical, they could just bomb the power lines entering the power plants. The effect would be total shock and aw but much easier to reconnect afterwards when they have the new puppet regime in place.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Inflation has nothing to do with whether the currency is electronic. Maybe you're confusing it with cryptocurrencies? That's not what cashless means in this context - most Swedes are not paying with Bitcoin, but with electronic krona.
heavenlyhash 9y ago
Maybe there are other factors than obsession with the speed and "productivity" effect of the money-transfer part of a transaction. Your meal and beer entering your mouth probably took 100x as long as the difference between counting change and swiping a card. So why not puree them together? And damn anyone who thinks it was important to keep them separate; incomprehensible.
- freehunter 9y ago
  I think that's an unnecessarily hostile viewpoint. Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient". I don't think anyone would argue that since cars are bigger than cell phones, that we should make our cell phones as big as cars (it's incomprehensible to think that cars and cell phones should be different sizes). So why should we use a slower and less efficient payment method just because food takes more time to cook and prepare? I don't think anyone would argue that since humans can only walk ~3mph, that airplanes should be limited to the same speed (it's incomprehensible to think that airplanes and humans should travel at different speeds). So why should we use a slower and less efficient payment method just because humans walk slower than an airplane flies? Do you see what I'm getting at here? The speed at which you eat your food does not impact the speed of the payment method you prefer to use. All the payment method impacts is how much stuff you have to carry in your pockets, and how much can be stolen from you at any given moment.
  - heavenlyhash 9y ago
    > Basically your argument boils down It does not, in fact. My insinuation is that perhaps some people have a preference against going cashless which has nothing to do with speed.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    > I think that's an unnecessarily hostile viewpoint. Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient". I think what the parent means is that there are several other reasons, and at the same time makes a case against the main argument in favor of card transactions. Many people simply feel they don't want to give up control over their cash, over information how they spend it, and basically: how they live their lives. As history shown us, once you give up this control, it's gone forever, and here are many actors eager to take over this information, not necessarily to the benefit of the citizen.
sveme 9y ago
> In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. We must be living in very different Germanys.
- sleepyhead 9y ago
  Cash is the norm at all casual places in Berlin.
- carlmr 9y ago
  I'm living in optimusrex Germany, too. You might be alone in cashless Germany.
  - sveme 9y ago
    Maybe different cities? I‘m in Munich.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      Stuttgart reporting in.
EarthMephit 9y ago
Smaller resturants prefer cash, because it allows them to evade taxes by underquoting their profits. The same reason that builders quote less for "cash only" prices This is one of the main reasons that governments are pushing for cashless systems, because there is less evetax evasion and increased revenue
- gnopgnip 9y ago
  It is incredibly rare that a builder would accept physical cash, they will be paid by check or bank transfer. Builders quote less because there is less risk of finance delays, and a greater chance of completing the project for cash buyers than those that depend on a draw and continued credit from a bank.
  - EarthMephit 9y ago
    Here in Australia there are plenty of builders that will openly offer you quotes and then take off the 10% GST/sales tax if you pay in all cash The builders benefit because they then wont pay any income tax on the job
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  Along those same lines if I'm going out to eat somewhere that accepts credit cards I will almost always pay the bill with the card and tip the server in cash. They can just pocket the cash and as far as the restaurant knows they didn't receive a tip (that would otherwise be taxed).
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    If you don't add a tip to the credit receipt, the IRS will estimate a tip value for tax purposes. I don't know the exact amount, but I think it's around 10%. If you are intent upon helping service staff evade taxes, the optimal strategy would therefore be to put 10% on the receipt and drop the remainder on the table in cash. This also means that if you stiff your server and leave no tip, they are still getting taxed as though you left 10%. If you really want to be a jerk, be slightly less of a jerk by leaving a $0.01 tip on the receipt. This will also allow them to post it to outrage-fueled social media for a tiny bit of temporary fame. Most people aren't that invested into stigginit to da Man, or at least not just via their restaurant tips. You'd be better off paying cash for everything, no-receipt requested, and not involving the electronic point-of-sale till at all.
phil21 9y ago
Personally it's because I think a cashless state is "evil" in that now all spending is gatekept by someone - usually a government or large business. Plus tracking every dollar you spend is also problematic for me as well. So I spend cash whenever possible simply to "vote" that I am willing to deal with a little more hassle in the name of freedom. I also don't like that some private party has effectively inserted themselves into the economy skimming 1.5% or whatever off the top of practically all consumer spending. It's only a cost savings if you literally do away with cash - and that's a dystopia I don't want to live in.
- wil421 9y ago
  What you just described can be applied to banks just like payment transaction companies. They both exist to make our lives easier and prevent us from having to hoard cash under our mattresses. They also provide a safe means of doing business. We live in a digital age and it’s only going to evolve faster. Money is nothing more than numbers in a system.
  - pixl97 9y ago
    >Money is nothing more than numbers in a system. Heh, and someone would say that Facebook posts don't say much about you, but I bet really quickly how and where you spend money give a good profile of who you are.
- amorphid 9y ago
  It's a money loser to not accept credit cards, too. I don't like carrying cash. I'm likely to skip a cash only restaurant even if I want to eat there because I want to charge purchase & I don't have cash.
  - 1337biz 9y ago
    As soon as you are offering some form of card payment somebody can calculate what % is usually in that kind of business transacted via credit cards, therefore knows how realistic the reported revenue is.
vegardx 9y ago
Simple, it's easier to pocket some money when you do it in cash. Going on a limb here, the cafes and bars you've frequented aren't the well established with a long history-kind.
dmitriid 9y ago
Germans are very paranoid about giving their details to anyone: government, banks, corporations, other people. Paying with cash is viewed as a safer way to pay without any number of Big Brothers watching over your shoulder. (The reason for paranoia is the history of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi)
- mioelnir 9y ago
  There is also another german word in the realm of centralization - Gleichschaltung. It is nowadays exclusively used to describe the centralization of government functions and bodies during the beginning of the 3rd Reich. Big central government offices, their tracking capabilities and emerging network effects were one of the required precursors for what came later. It is why many parts of the modern/post-war German bureaucracy were intentionally set up inefficient and why we still dislike any "central databases" for anything, from law enforcement to tax collection. Slow, decoupled government systems slow down unwanted usage patterns much more than valid ones, are generally harder to game (try explaining your urgent need for some data to a rural bavarian city hall employee) and easier to monitor/verify for citizens.
mdekkers 9y ago
I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems I am deeply comfortable with the idea that I have the option to keep my spending habits private, and not subject to data mining. I also like the idea of not being tracked all the time, and I like the idea of general anonymity. I don't like the idea that my options are being removed form me, with no discernible benefit to me. You like paying by card? Excellent, go right ahead. I like to have the option, sometimes cash, sometimes electronic.
superkuh 9y ago
I see the opposite here in the USA in rural areas. People are constantly holding up the lines because of the chip/pin updates or other failures and confusions. With cash it is always just simple and quick. And I know it doesn't matter but when you pay with a credit card or third party payment service you are not paying. Some other entity is.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  It doesn’t help that card terminal/chip card rollout in the US has been catastrophic.
  - sowbug 9y ago
    I live in the U.S. and haven't noticed anything catastrophic about it. Am I living in a bubble?
    - EADGBE 9y ago
      Possibly not for you, but I noticed a long roll-out of switching from stripe to chip. Then, a lot of card readers in major retail stores not "allowing" chip transactions and having to switch. Still even now, most fast-food places disallow chip transactions. Most recently, I have a repeatable bug in Walgreens where my newly issued credit card (old expired) will not run chip transactions. Their system requires me to attempt a chip transaction first (of which I must do three times) before it will allow me to finally swipe (and work). If I attempt to swipe at first it will require a chip transaction (and on, and on, and on...) However I can't completely blame Walgreens on it; they're the only one that's reproducable 100% of the time (3-5x now since card was issued). I've also had to re-do transactions with that card at Target but that's hit-and-miss.
jasonkostempski 9y ago
"but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs." I doubt that's the case, especially since fees are usually percent based. Someone accepting, making change for, and depositing $1000 vs. $1 takes about the same amount of effort, but $1000 charged will cost them much more than $1 charge. Maybe if the fees were flat or something like 0.001%, but they're always much higher.
lorenzhs 9y ago
There's a very detailed Bundesbank report on popularity of means of payment in Germany that was recently updated: https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Topics/2018/2018_02_14_zahlungsverhalten.html https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Topics/2018/2018_02_1... -- the full report (in German only, sorry) is at https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Veroeffentlichungen/Studien/zahlungsverhalten_in_deutschland_2017.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Veroeffentl...
marktangotango 9y ago
It’s the transaction fees, Germans are “thrifty”.
mkesper 9y ago
You're legally obliged to accept cash in Germany so offering any other means of paying must be well worth it (fees, readers etc.).
jacquesm 9y ago
> In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I suspect it is to some extent because it is easier to cook the books when you are receiving a large chunk of your income in cash, much less easy if it flows into your company through your bank account.
EADGBE 9y ago
Agreed, when statistically someone is willing to “overspend” on non-cash, the nominal 2-3% transaction fee seems, well, nominal.
herbst 9y ago
This is on one side for tax avoidance reasons. But on the other side everyone I know working in gastronomy rages about Americans and their aggressive credit card usage, how slow usually the process is (these people are trained with cash, plus nearly anywhere in Europe you round the sum to something easy to give out anyway as a tip). From what I can tell these people simply prefer cash. I just asked and my gf said it's just a lot faster to do it by hand.
ionised 9y ago
It's not all about productivity.

jmnicolas 9y ago

Maybe you're not used to pay with cash but for people that are used to it, it's not slower than using plastic. And sometimes it's even faster, when the card or the card reader don't work, the customer is old etc.

optimusrex 9y ago
With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. I understand I need to become more accustomed to the culture that I immigrate too, but that does not mean that there are not more efficient solutions compared to "the way its always been". As for the card reader not working, this is usually only a problem with older machines or places without a strong internet connection.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  > I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. You have to wait for the transaction to verify. That usually takes more than three seconds (at least here), which is roughly the amount of time it takes to get change.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I don't think it's a good reason to push for cashless, but three seconds on average for both buyers and sellers? Only if Swedes are much faster than citizens across the rest of Europe. Giving the money, inputting the amount into the POS so it can open the register, then choosing the bills and coins - 3s seconds is about the best case scenario, in my experience.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well. Sellers here (Greece) are so used to this (they do it thousands of times a day) that it takes them almost no time to give change back. It helps that change is always segregated into proper trays/slots. Even with contactless, I always feel kind of bad to be paying by card at the super market because I'm slowing the queue down. If the amount goes over 20 euros or so and I have to enter my PIN, it's even slower. It's not even a contest compared to cash.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        You have to input the amount into the POS so it can start the transaction as well Where are you buying that has payment queues but doesn't scan the products? I only see people inputting the amount manually in restaurants/bars.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        Where are you buying that you have to enter the amount into the POS to open the drawer but not to start the card transaction? You can't consider the time it takes to enter the amount only in the case that suits you. If you have to enter the amount for cash, you have to enter it for the card as well.
        icebraining 9y ago
        You have to enter the amount the person is actually delivering... If the total is 18.45€, I'll probably be paying with a 20€, which the cashier has to input. Now that I think of it, I guess not all POSs require that (the cashier does the calculation for the change in their head), but in my experience they aren't common.
- Karlozkiller 9y ago
  And the inevitable rise in wireless card skimming that would ensue? OK maybe not inevitable but it's made a lot easier with wireless cards etc. And I do expect 'thugs' to catch on. Plus, you can only do that on lower sums. If I pay a higher sum than allowed for wireless pay where I live (Sweden) I'd still need chip and pin, and often in restaurants I am told to enter the total sum plus whatever tip I want to give, then confirm, then enter pin. So I'd say cash can be quicker in some cases, slower in other, but my main concern is in the area of privacy and security both of my cash, and my ability to pay in force majura-cases.
- baud147258 9y ago
  I'm always taking lunch with a handfull of other devs from where I'm working. All the other pay cash, I'm always paying with a contactless card and I'm always taking more time, even when I don't have to enter the PIN.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor How? The machines will literally take an entire stack of bills at once, read them and make change in the same time it takes to verify an electronic transaction. You would need a stopwatch with sub-second precision to even tell the difference. Which one is faster is down more to the specific model of payment processing machine than the payment method. And even if the card was theoretically faster, we're no longer talking about waiting for some high school kid to fumble around for 30 seconds. A difference of 300 milliseconds one way or the other is just pedantry.
      - tigershark 9y ago
        It’s at least a 30 seconds difference. You need to read the amount, extract your wallet, check if you have the exact amount of money to avoid filling your wallet with useless coins, 90% of the time you realise that you don’t have it and you start fumbling between your notes to find the correct amount that can give you a reasonable change. At that point you can start to have fun fighting with the machine that won’t accept some of your notes because are too old/crumpled. Even in the unlikely case that it accepts all your notes now you still need to wait for the change and retrieve all of it, with some coin that will invariably be stuck somewhere. Or instead of paying with your sweat and your blood using cash you can simply put your hand in your pocket, retrieve the phone and tap it on the sensor.
- SllX 9y ago
  A good cashier can process cash sometimes quicker than even the fastest card readers I've seen, and not all card readers are nearly that fast. A lot of them are slow, painfully so. If you have to sign, that's also slow, another step in the transaction. What it works out to be is that sometimes it's better to use card and sometimes it is better to use cash if speed is a factor. Someone that takes too long because they are fumbling for cash are just as likely to be the type of person that would have to fumble around for their card or have other issues operating the terminal. Cash is quick and painless with only the most minimal amount of mental arithmetic necessary to give someone their change, not that your typical register won't spit it back out at you anyway. If it is a sit down restaurant with table service though, there's no real positives or negatives to using either besides whatever is most convenient for you. So all in all, all I see in any push to go cashless is the illusion of progress. It's all theater and it is strictly speaking, completely unnecessary to go cashless with considerable downsides if society is forced to.
EADGBE 9y ago
Then every cash handler must not be inept when it comes to breaking bills and making change. Unfortunately, that’s already a trend we’ve been seeing in the US youth for the past 20 years.

dmos62 9y ago

> The Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, called for new legislation to secure public control over the payments system, arguing that being able to make and receive payments is a “collective good” like defence, the courts, or public statistics. > “Most citizens would feel uncomfortable to surrender these social functions to private companies,” he said. > “It should be obvious that Sweden’s preparedness would be weakened if, in a serious crisis or war, we had not decided in advance how households and companies would pay for fuel, supplies and other necessities.”

optimusrex 9y ago
The first two points involve the way the citizens "feel" and not is actually most productive. As for the preparedness of a nation to handle a cashless economy during a time of war, wouldn't a electronic ledger be must safer and reliable than if the government say just started printing more money leading to inflation problems. This has happens numerous times throughout times of history during war and could be avoided with a cashless economy.
- hawski 9y ago
  More reliable? We are not living in a world where every roof is covered with solar panels. Our network is not a wireless mesh. During a war power plants will get bombed. Network and power cables will get bombed. Roads, railroads and bridges will get bombed, so power plants wouldn't even get fuel.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Heck, if they wanted to be really surgical, they could just bomb the power lines entering the power plants. The effect would be total shock and aw but much easier to reconnect afterwards when they have the new puppet regime in place.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Inflation has nothing to do with whether the currency is electronic. Maybe you're confusing it with cryptocurrencies? That's not what cashless means in this context - most Swedes are not paying with Bitcoin, but with electronic krona.

heavenlyhash 9y ago

Maybe there are other factors than obsession with the speed and "productivity" effect of the money-transfer part of a transaction. Your meal and beer entering your mouth probably took 100x as long as the difference between counting change and swiping a card. So why not puree them together? And damn anyone who thinks it was important to keep them separate; incomprehensible.

freehunter 9y ago
I think that's an unnecessarily hostile viewpoint. Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient". I don't think anyone would argue that since cars are bigger than cell phones, that we should make our cell phones as big as cars (it's incomprehensible to think that cars and cell phones should be different sizes). So why should we use a slower and less efficient payment method just because food takes more time to cook and prepare? I don't think anyone would argue that since humans can only walk ~3mph, that airplanes should be limited to the same speed (it's incomprehensible to think that airplanes and humans should travel at different speeds). So why should we use a slower and less efficient payment method just because humans walk slower than an airplane flies? Do you see what I'm getting at here? The speed at which you eat your food does not impact the speed of the payment method you prefer to use. All the payment method impacts is how much stuff you have to carry in your pockets, and how much can be stolen from you at any given moment.
- heavenlyhash 9y ago
  > Basically your argument boils down It does not, in fact. My insinuation is that perhaps some people have a preference against going cashless which has nothing to do with speed.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  > I think that's an unnecessarily hostile viewpoint. Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient". I think what the parent means is that there are several other reasons, and at the same time makes a case against the main argument in favor of card transactions. Many people simply feel they don't want to give up control over their cash, over information how they spend it, and basically: how they live their lives. As history shown us, once you give up this control, it's gone forever, and here are many actors eager to take over this information, not necessarily to the benefit of the citizen.

sveme 9y ago

> In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. We must be living in very different Germanys.

sleepyhead 9y ago
Cash is the norm at all casual places in Berlin.
carlmr 9y ago
I'm living in optimusrex Germany, too. You might be alone in cashless Germany.
- sveme 9y ago
  Maybe different cities? I‘m in Munich.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    Stuttgart reporting in.

EarthMephit 9y ago

Smaller resturants prefer cash, because it allows them to evade taxes by underquoting their profits. The same reason that builders quote less for "cash only" prices This is one of the main reasons that governments are pushing for cashless systems, because there is less evetax evasion and increased revenue

gnopgnip 9y ago
It is incredibly rare that a builder would accept physical cash, they will be paid by check or bank transfer. Builders quote less because there is less risk of finance delays, and a greater chance of completing the project for cash buyers than those that depend on a draw and continued credit from a bank.
- EarthMephit 9y ago
  Here in Australia there are plenty of builders that will openly offer you quotes and then take off the 10% GST/sales tax if you pay in all cash The builders benefit because they then wont pay any income tax on the job
iamatworknow 9y ago
Along those same lines if I'm going out to eat somewhere that accepts credit cards I will almost always pay the bill with the card and tip the server in cash. They can just pocket the cash and as far as the restaurant knows they didn't receive a tip (that would otherwise be taxed).
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  If you don't add a tip to the credit receipt, the IRS will estimate a tip value for tax purposes. I don't know the exact amount, but I think it's around 10%. If you are intent upon helping service staff evade taxes, the optimal strategy would therefore be to put 10% on the receipt and drop the remainder on the table in cash. This also means that if you stiff your server and leave no tip, they are still getting taxed as though you left 10%. If you really want to be a jerk, be slightly less of a jerk by leaving a $0.01 tip on the receipt. This will also allow them to post it to outrage-fueled social media for a tiny bit of temporary fame. Most people aren't that invested into stigginit to da Man, or at least not just via their restaurant tips. You'd be better off paying cash for everything, no-receipt requested, and not involving the electronic point-of-sale till at all.

phil21 9y ago

Personally it's because I think a cashless state is "evil" in that now all spending is gatekept by someone - usually a government or large business. Plus tracking every dollar you spend is also problematic for me as well. So I spend cash whenever possible simply to "vote" that I am willing to deal with a little more hassle in the name of freedom. I also don't like that some private party has effectively inserted themselves into the economy skimming 1.5% or whatever off the top of practically all consumer spending. It's only a cost savings if you literally do away with cash - and that's a dystopia I don't want to live in.

wil421 9y ago
What you just described can be applied to banks just like payment transaction companies. They both exist to make our lives easier and prevent us from having to hoard cash under our mattresses. They also provide a safe means of doing business. We live in a digital age and it’s only going to evolve faster. Money is nothing more than numbers in a system.
- pixl97 9y ago
  >Money is nothing more than numbers in a system. Heh, and someone would say that Facebook posts don't say much about you, but I bet really quickly how and where you spend money give a good profile of who you are.
amorphid 9y ago
It's a money loser to not accept credit cards, too. I don't like carrying cash. I'm likely to skip a cash only restaurant even if I want to eat there because I want to charge purchase & I don't have cash.
- 1337biz 9y ago
  As soon as you are offering some form of card payment somebody can calculate what % is usually in that kind of business transacted via credit cards, therefore knows how realistic the reported revenue is.

vegardx 9y ago

Simple, it's easier to pocket some money when you do it in cash. Going on a limb here, the cafes and bars you've frequented aren't the well established with a long history-kind.

dmitriid 9y ago

Germans are very paranoid about giving their details to anyone: government, banks, corporations, other people. Paying with cash is viewed as a safer way to pay without any number of Big Brothers watching over your shoulder. (The reason for paranoia is the history of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi)

mioelnir 9y ago
There is also another german word in the realm of centralization - Gleichschaltung. It is nowadays exclusively used to describe the centralization of government functions and bodies during the beginning of the 3rd Reich. Big central government offices, their tracking capabilities and emerging network effects were one of the required precursors for what came later. It is why many parts of the modern/post-war German bureaucracy were intentionally set up inefficient and why we still dislike any "central databases" for anything, from law enforcement to tax collection. Slow, decoupled government systems slow down unwanted usage patterns much more than valid ones, are generally harder to game (try explaining your urgent need for some data to a rural bavarian city hall employee) and easier to monitor/verify for citizens.

mdekkers 9y ago

I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems I am deeply comfortable with the idea that I have the option to keep my spending habits private, and not subject to data mining. I also like the idea of not being tracked all the time, and I like the idea of general anonymity. I don't like the idea that my options are being removed form me, with no discernible benefit to me. You like paying by card? Excellent, go right ahead. I like to have the option, sometimes cash, sometimes electronic.

superkuh 9y ago

I see the opposite here in the USA in rural areas. People are constantly holding up the lines because of the chip/pin updates or other failures and confusions. With cash it is always just simple and quick. And I know it doesn't matter but when you pay with a credit card or third party payment service you are not paying. Some other entity is.

EADGBE 9y ago
It doesn’t help that card terminal/chip card rollout in the US has been catastrophic.
- sowbug 9y ago
  I live in the U.S. and haven't noticed anything catastrophic about it. Am I living in a bubble?
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    Possibly not for you, but I noticed a long roll-out of switching from stripe to chip. Then, a lot of card readers in major retail stores not "allowing" chip transactions and having to switch. Still even now, most fast-food places disallow chip transactions. Most recently, I have a repeatable bug in Walgreens where my newly issued credit card (old expired) will not run chip transactions. Their system requires me to attempt a chip transaction first (of which I must do three times) before it will allow me to finally swipe (and work). If I attempt to swipe at first it will require a chip transaction (and on, and on, and on...) However I can't completely blame Walgreens on it; they're the only one that's reproducable 100% of the time (3-5x now since card was issued). I've also had to re-do transactions with that card at Target but that's hit-and-miss.

jasonkostempski 9y ago

"but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs." I doubt that's the case, especially since fees are usually percent based. Someone accepting, making change for, and depositing $1000 vs. $1 takes about the same amount of effort, but $1000 charged will cost them much more than $1 charge. Maybe if the fees were flat or something like 0.001%, but they're always much higher.

lorenzhs 9y ago

There's a very detailed Bundesbank report on popularity of means of payment in Germany that was recently updated: https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Topics/2018/2018_02_14_zahlungsverhalten.html https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Topics/2018/2018_02_1... -- the full report (in German only, sorry) is at https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Veroeffentlichungen/Studien/zahlungsverhalten_in_deutschland_2017.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Veroeffentl...

marktangotango 9y ago

It’s the transaction fees, Germans are “thrifty”.

mkesper 9y ago

You're legally obliged to accept cash in Germany so offering any other means of paying must be well worth it (fees, readers etc.).

jacquesm 9y ago

> In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I suspect it is to some extent because it is easier to cook the books when you are receiving a large chunk of your income in cash, much less easy if it flows into your company through your bank account.

EADGBE 9y ago

Agreed, when statistically someone is willing to “overspend” on non-cash, the nominal 2-3% transaction fee seems, well, nominal.

herbst 9y ago

This is on one side for tax avoidance reasons. But on the other side everyone I know working in gastronomy rages about Americans and their aggressive credit card usage, how slow usually the process is (these people are trained with cash, plus nearly anywhere in Europe you round the sum to something easy to give out anyway as a tip). From what I can tell these people simply prefer cash. I just asked and my gf said it's just a lot faster to do it by hand.

ionised 9y ago

It's not all about productivity.