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San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores
- octocode 8y agoI don't disagree really, but I thought Amazon had a service where you could add to your Amazon wallet using cash?
- tyre 8y agoDon't pay attention to this. It's a political side-show by a Supervisor trying to rally her base. This is in the same vein as the "ban corporate cafeterias" shenanigans last year. It won't fix anything and the politicians yammering about it don't actually care about this. It's all a game. The real solution, of course, isn't saving jobs that don't pay enough money to actually live in the city. It's building housing. But that's politically difficult, so we get this.
- elektor 8y agoThis is not an isolated political stunt. A lot of cities and states are now enacting similar measures.
- awkward 8y agoThe principle they're being banned on is because they're cashless, not because they're automated. The logic is sound - unbanked people exist, including in San Francisco, and without a bank account these stores are inaccessible.
- bmmayer1 8y agoPresumably ticketed restaurants like Lazy Bear are inaccessible to the unbanked also. Should we ban those next?
- dannycastonguay 8y agoThe deontological argument is that there is a rule requiring vendors to accept cash, whereas there isn't a rule limiting the max price they can charge. I, too, find it easier to apply consequentialism, but bureaucracies work well when they have clear rules.
- tyingq 8y agoToll roads as well.
- moorhosj 8y agoAre there toll roads in the US that don't accept cash?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gbear605 8y agoMany toll roads in the US are being switched to automated systems that either scan a device attached to your windshield or license plate, allowing you to either prepay into an account or pay afterward.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Are there toll roads in the US that don't accept cash? One example, FastTrack express lanes in the Bay area (unlike the lanes on bridges, there is no cash-accepting substitute.)
- thinkingkong 8y agoFrom the article it comes down to an equity issue; some people do not have cashless service and that means they cannot shop at an Amazon store. If it's true that 50% of black and latino families go without a bank account, banning cashless stores feels like the equity equivalent of banning plastic straws.
- projektfu 8y agoSo the problem isn't a lack of cashiers but a lack of cash. It seems like the problem could be solved by having a few smartphone-like devices that you can shop on and take to an automated cash machine at the end. Then you'd just need a supervisor to make sure people weren't walking off with the merch, which they probably have anyway.
- ummonk 8y agoCan't they place a machine in the stores where people can deposit cash and get a loaded card to purchase things with? Cash is legal tender and should always be a possible method of purchase at physical locations.
- umvi 8y agoThe whole premise of Amazon stores is to just grab stuff off the shelf and leave. If someone feeds $1 into the machine and gets a loaded card, can they just walk out with $20 worth of merch? With a credit card you just get charged for whatever you took and you pay later.
- izzydata 8y agoThat seems easy enough to me. That isn't any different than an arcade where you put $5 into a machine and they give you tokens for the game machines. Except instead of tokens they would give you a temporary card.
- morningmoon 8y agoAccording to Brown, as many as 50 percent of black and Latino households in San Francisco go without a bank account This stat is hard to believe. Does anybody have a link to the actual study? Most national studies (like the FDIC one) put this number around 5%. My wife works in the restaurant industry, and most all of the illegal immigrants have bank accounts, smart phones, use direct deposit, etc.
- dustcoin 8y agoAccording to the article, the data the city is using is from 2005. It is likely access has increased in the past 14 years.
- morningmoon 8y agoThe article doesn’t link to the study and I can’t find it. “As many as” could mean anywhere from 1 to 50%. Smells like deception, but I could be wrong.
- sct202 8y agoThere's a PDF (https://prosperitynow.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bank%2520on%2520SF%2520case%2520study%2520electronic%2520version%2520FINAL.pdf https://prosperitynow.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bank...) that says that an analysis with those figures was done by Matt Fellowes at the Brookings Institute, which is interesting because it doesn't mention any polling or details, so who knows how those numbers were generated.
- morningmoon 8y agoThanks! Their numbers seem to be far off from the FDIC studies, despite them claiming they corroborate national averages. Looking at the FDIC study from 2009, ~20% of Black/Hispanic households in California were unbanked, and when looking at citizens the number is ~7%.
- lukeschlather 8y ago
- psychometry 8y agoThere are so many unbanked people in the U.S. that I wonder whether local governments should step in to address the problem, because the private market has clearly failed to serve these people.
- saagarjha 8y ago> There are so many unbanked people in the U.S. How many? > local governments should step in to address the problem What do you suggest they do?
- psychometry 8y agohttps://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/ 8.4M unbanked people. A publicly-owned bank might do them a lot of good, especially in areas that are underserved by credit unions.
- anth_anm 8y agoIIRC they were trying to start a public bank in LA but they didn't get the votes.
- elektor 8y agoThey came close. The public banking movement is growing pretty quickly and there is a statewide bill in CA to allow for cities to establish one.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoYou can't open a bank account without a social security number. Pew estimates ~250,000 illegal immigrants in the Bay Area, so that's a big chunk of people right there blocked out of banking by policy. https://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigrants-by-metro-area-table/ https://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigr...
- negamax 8y agoHow about solving this through store credit cards? Put a machine outside Amazon store. Insert cash -> Get loaded card. Sorted!
- 40acres 8y agoThe recent attempts at banning cashless stores is addressing the symptoms without considering the root cause. The two main reasons to ban cashless stores revolve around privacy and access to the un/underbanked. Privacy is a legitimate concern, but what are we doing to solve the crisis of folks who don't have access to a bank? There are some policy papers floating around regarding postal banking and programs of a similar nature, but none of these proposals are getting legislative traction.
- syntaxing 8y agoFWIW, more and more cities are trying to ban cashless stores. Philadelphia became the first city to ban cashless stores citywide earlier this month [1]. Would be interesting to see if NYC and SF both ban them as well. [1] https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-ban-cashless-stores-first-us-city/ https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-ban-cashless-stores...
- marcell 8y agoI’ve been to that store and it’s clearly a test bed, not a real store. There are employees who stand there and answer questions. The ceiling has hundreds of cameras which I assume they plan to use for some sort of AI tracking to determine who took what. For the time being, I’d bet they are mechanical turning it, since there is a 10 minute delay between leaving the store and being charged.
- novalis78 8y agoThis is exactly one of the problems we as a crypto ATM company solve. Allows a lot of unbanked folks to convert the little cash they earn to digital currency or cards. You wouldn’t believe the reasons why people can’t get bank accounts...
- vosper 8y agoI don't see how cryptocurrency solves this - if you exchange your cash for a cryptocurrency then there are even fewer ways to spend it than when it was cash. If you exchange your cash for (say) a Visa gift card or some similar reloadable card then you can use it wherever Visa works, which is many places (a lot of which would also accept cash) including online stores. And if the laws are changing to prevent cashless stores from existing then you can just keep your cash as cash.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hindsightbias 8y agoSo they’re going to shut down Blue Bottle too?
- infecto 8y agoInstead of worrying about a store that gets very little foot traffic lets worry about the homeless encampments, human poop, needles, piss bottles etc. that flood the city. I agree, if there is a huge shift in stores to cashless we have a possible issue at hand if the unbanked are truly that high. BUT I don't see this kind of shift in stores anytime soon. There are a lot bigger problems to tackle in this city that none of city government wants to take on. But sure lets spend time talking about these Amazon stores.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- olalonde 8y agoIs there any limit to what laws cities are authorized pass? I'm surprised this is even legal. If you push the reasoning further, could they also ban ATMs? Banks? Uber, AirBnB, Eat24, any cashless service? To be honest, I feel like this has more to do with protecting local merchants than protecting the unbanked.
- OrgNet 8y agoMakes a lot of sense, you have to accept cash unless you want to give out for free.
- theredbox 8y agoThat's ridiculous. Why should Amazon even care about selling to people that only have cash ?
- RhysU 8y agoThis is dumb. Imagine there's a totally cashless economy that keeps out the unbanked. But then a merchant could price gouge the unbanked. But then there'd be competition for this high margin unbanked business. But then the merchants would compete for the unbanked by lowering their margins. But then equilibrium would be hitting the unbanked up for precisely the inconvenience overhead of dealing with cash. Unless unless unless someone interferes with the market in a regulatory way. Or gets impatient waiting for the inefficiency to right itself. Sheesh.
- mal808 8y agoJust add one cashier.