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> Pre-paid debit cards One major problem is that all your transactions with that debit card are now linked together. If you buy a cell phone with that card, al

> Pre-paid debit cards One major problem is that all your transactions with that debit card are now linked together. If you buy a cell phone with that card, all your calls, texts, and Internet activity get linked. If you buy a cab ride or bus ticket or subway pass, your travel is now linked. It would be extremely inconvenient and expensive to buy separate debit cards for every transaction. (Expensive because (a) there might be a card purchase fee and (b) you'll end up leaving residual amounts on each card after a single purchase per card.) Furthermore, how would you pay for the pre-paid debit card? With cash of course. But as cash is becoming rarer, it's likely that the only way to buy a pre-paid card will be with a transaction from another card or account, linking it to other digital accounts. So you'll have a small degree of privacy with a pre-paid card, but nothing close to true anonymity. There seems no way out of the surveillance universe as cash is marginalized.

ci5er 7y ago
I find your predictions of the death of non-digital fungible currency to be unlikely, but, who knows! We'll see, I guess.
- jlokier 7y ago
  It's started in a few places. Whether it will end up widespread remains to be seen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 "I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't accepted at the festival anyway). When I could get someone to pay for me directly, transferring the money back to them was hard (since the festival didn't have any ATMs), so I had to go through the whole burdensome SWIFT procedure with getting their bank account number, their full name and address, their bank info, IBAN number of their bank etc, so I could send the money back when I got home to Norway. Utopia my ass."

ci5er 7y ago

I find your predictions of the death of non-digital fungible currency to be unlikely, but, who knows! We'll see, I guess.

jlokier 7y ago
It's started in a few places. Whether it will end up widespread remains to be seen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422422 "I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't accepted at the festival anyway). When I could get someone to pay for me directly, transferring the money back to them was hard (since the festival didn't have any ATMs), so I had to go through the whole burdensome SWIFT procedure with getting their bank account number, their full name and address, their bank info, IBAN number of their bank etc, so I could send the money back when I got home to Norway. Utopia my ass."