4 ms·

> You should always be able to pay with cash if you want. Why, other than your privacy? If I own a business, why should I be barred from choosing to not accept

> You should always be able to pay with cash if you want. Why, other than your privacy? If I own a business, why should I be barred from choosing to not accept cash? Paper money is more labor-intensive to handle and opens my employees up to risk of being robbed for that cash or sickened by handling dirty bills. As for people who may not be able to pay electronically, why can I not choose to not have them as customers? If your argument is “because social good and we make those kinds of requirements on businesses all of the time,” I’m open to it but feel it goes much farther than privacy.

onion2k 7y ago
Why, other than your privacy? Businesses that don't accept cash don't make any money when the infrastructure fails. If your revenue is dependent on your PoS device, Wi-Fi, ISP, payment provider, the payment provider's network infrastructure, banking network, and more that's a lot of risk. For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open.
- yellow_postit 7y ago
  Storing carbon copies of credit cards is something still supported for when the network goes down, see “credit card imprinter”
  - onion2k 7y ago
    That depends on where you live.
  - _Microft 7y ago
    Thanks for this bit of information, now the raised print on credit cards finally makes sense.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    So Sweden has gone almost cashless but they still have a manual process relying on embossed numbers? In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now
    - dfawcus 7y ago
      > In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now Nope. The only ones I know of which do not use embossed numbers are Starling Bank, and (for premier customers) RBS and NatWest. All bar one of my cards is embossed. Supposedly as of January last year: "Lloyds, Barclays, Nationwide, HSBC and Santander all say they currently have no plans to introduce such cards." So which ones are you thinking of where the embossed numbers have gone?
- username90 7y ago
  This doesn't appear to be an issue in Sweden though, most people don't even carry cash on them.
  - draugadrotten 7y ago
    It is not unusual with hours or even days out outages on individual banks card services and the shared "swisch" mobile payments. In times of unrest, "grey zone" conflict scenarios, cyberattacks....well you should have something to barter with. For example, on Valentine's day a few million people couldn't pay electronically. That probably translated into a few million lost revenues for flower shops but I have no numbers. https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/swedbank-har-problem-swish-paverkas/ https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/swedbank-har-problem-swish-paverka...
    - alltakendamned 7y ago
      Then Klarna to the rescue :)
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  > For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open. Obviously not if the business is choosing to opt out of cash. I assume they are at least competent enough to know how often they have missed sales due to issues with electronic payments versus the cost of maintaining cash.
maximente 7y ago
two reasons come to mind immediately: - it is low key discrimination of un/underbanked. imagine a "cashless utopia" where the only way you can buy groceries is by either: * paying a "human usage fee" to use the cash line because businesses have axed labor down to the bone * for those of the "efficiency" mindset, who just don't accept cash at all, the only way to get a credit or debit card is paying a bank a nice monthly fee. because, well, your credit score is bad. or something. - it signals that as a business owner you're probably on the take on this whole hoovering up data and using it to your benefit without my consent or profit. you may know me as a loyal customer but i'd prefer to stay out of your MapReduce jobs by using cash, and i'd /especially/ prefer not to be sold or haggled over if you and other bakeries (or software shops) decide to hold church and compare lists to derive insight or other perverted data stuff, as credit cards and banks probably do today. edit: here's a third - what's the environmental impact of having all this tech running (POS terminal, CC database, all the steps in between)? is it >> cash? i don't know the answer here, though. another reason: when you pay in cash, your debt to the merchant is settled, right there. as a merchant accepting say a CC, if you fail to run an authorization check, you eat the cost. but what if the power runs out/comms down/servers overloaded/etc.? things get a lot hairier.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  > what's the environmental impact of having all this tech running (POS terminal, CC database, all the steps in between)? is it >> cash? i don't know the answer here, though. I mean, cash has to be physically transported, and in large enough volumes you'd need an armored vehicle, which I imagine has pretty poor energy efficiency.
lawn 7y ago
It's not really a problem if only your business don't accept them as customers, but what happens when everyone does the same?
dgellow 7y ago
> [it] opens my employees up to risk of being [...] sickened by handling dirty bills. Is that a thing? I used cash my entire life, I never heard of anyone becoming sick because of it.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Depends if you touch your face without washing your hands after touching cash.
luckylion 7y ago
> Why, other than your privacy? Data security is my main issue. Companies have repeatedly shown that they cannot be trusted to keep the data safe, so your private information, credit card details etc end up leaked and sold, your identity gets stolen, you have lots of trouble (financial and legal) and the company says "oopsie, keeping you safe is our top priority. Here's a $20 voucher you can spend at any of our shops". As soon as any credit card transaction comes with a $5000 risk in damages & penalties if you've gotten your 5-year-old-never-updated-with-a-public-IP POS system cracked, the "labor-intensiveness" of paper money vanishes in comparison.

onion2k 7y ago

Why, other than your privacy? Businesses that don't accept cash don't make any money when the infrastructure fails. If your revenue is dependent on your PoS device, Wi-Fi, ISP, payment provider, the payment provider's network infrastructure, banking network, and more that's a lot of risk. For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open.

yellow_postit 7y ago
Storing carbon copies of credit cards is something still supported for when the network goes down, see “credit card imprinter”
- onion2k 7y ago
  That depends on where you live.
- _Microft 7y ago
  Thanks for this bit of information, now the raised print on credit cards finally makes sense.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  So Sweden has gone almost cashless but they still have a manual process relying on embossed numbers? In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now
  - dfawcus 7y ago
    > In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now Nope. The only ones I know of which do not use embossed numbers are Starling Bank, and (for premier customers) RBS and NatWest. All bar one of my cards is embossed. Supposedly as of January last year: "Lloyds, Barclays, Nationwide, HSBC and Santander all say they currently have no plans to introduce such cards." So which ones are you thinking of where the embossed numbers have gone?
username90 7y ago
This doesn't appear to be an issue in Sweden though, most people don't even carry cash on them.
- draugadrotten 7y ago
  It is not unusual with hours or even days out outages on individual banks card services and the shared "swisch" mobile payments. In times of unrest, "grey zone" conflict scenarios, cyberattacks....well you should have something to barter with. For example, on Valentine's day a few million people couldn't pay electronically. That probably translated into a few million lost revenues for flower shops but I have no numbers. https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/swedbank-har-problem-swish-paverkas/ https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/swedbank-har-problem-swish-paverka...
  - alltakendamned 7y ago
    Then Klarna to the rescue :)
lotsofpulp 7y ago
> For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open. Obviously not if the business is choosing to opt out of cash. I assume they are at least competent enough to know how often they have missed sales due to issues with electronic payments versus the cost of maintaining cash.

maximente 7y ago

two reasons come to mind immediately: - it is low key discrimination of un/underbanked. imagine a "cashless utopia" where the only way you can buy groceries is by either: * paying a "human usage fee" to use the cash line because businesses have axed labor down to the bone * for those of the "efficiency" mindset, who just don't accept cash at all, the only way to get a credit or debit card is paying a bank a nice monthly fee. because, well, your credit score is bad. or something. - it signals that as a business owner you're probably on the take on this whole hoovering up data and using it to your benefit without my consent or profit. you may know me as a loyal customer but i'd prefer to stay out of your MapReduce jobs by using cash, and i'd /especially/ prefer not to be sold or haggled over if you and other bakeries (or software shops) decide to hold church and compare lists to derive insight or other perverted data stuff, as credit cards and banks probably do today. edit: here's a third - what's the environmental impact of having all this tech running (POS terminal, CC database, all the steps in between)? is it >> cash? i don't know the answer here, though. another reason: when you pay in cash, your debt to the merchant is settled, right there. as a merchant accepting say a CC, if you fail to run an authorization check, you eat the cost. but what if the power runs out/comms down/servers overloaded/etc.? things get a lot hairier.

bobthepanda 7y ago
> what's the environmental impact of having all this tech running (POS terminal, CC database, all the steps in between)? is it >> cash? i don't know the answer here, though. I mean, cash has to be physically transported, and in large enough volumes you'd need an armored vehicle, which I imagine has pretty poor energy efficiency.

lawn 7y ago

It's not really a problem if only your business don't accept them as customers, but what happens when everyone does the same?

dgellow 7y ago

> [it] opens my employees up to risk of being [...] sickened by handling dirty bills. Is that a thing? I used cash my entire life, I never heard of anyone becoming sick because of it.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Depends if you touch your face without washing your hands after touching cash.

luckylion 7y ago

> Why, other than your privacy? Data security is my main issue. Companies have repeatedly shown that they cannot be trusted to keep the data safe, so your private information, credit card details etc end up leaked and sold, your identity gets stolen, you have lots of trouble (financial and legal) and the company says "oopsie, keeping you safe is our top priority. Here's a $20 voucher you can spend at any of our shops". As soon as any credit card transaction comes with a $5000 risk in damages & penalties if you've gotten your 5-year-old-never-updated-with-a-public-IP POS system cracked, the "labor-intensiveness" of paper money vanishes in comparison.