4 ms·

This is a difficult one because, like the other person that replied to you, I can't agree that cash payment is the only legitimate form of bargain that might be

This is a difficult one because, like the other person that replied to you, I can't agree that cash payment is the only legitimate form of bargain that might be struck for services. I feel like it's an elitist take, because while I can thankfully afford to pay for these services with cash, a lot of people out there can't and that doesn't mean they should be shut out of basic internet services (like email, for example). And once you agree that non-cash payment is legitimate in principle, we're arguing over matters of degree and what is "reasonable". Although I've become more privacy conscious in recent years, I'm not even sure I can agree that the bargain offered by the ad tech companies is objectively unreasonable. What I can conclude is that it is highly opaque, many people are sleepwalking into it without fully considering its ramifications, and I personally am not comfortable with it. Samsung's practice of taking your money, offering you a product and then taking your data as well is a particularly dark pattern because it strays even more from the reasonable expectations of consumers.

southerntofu 5y ago
> because while I can thankfully afford to pay for these services with cash, a lot of people out there can't I don't know where you live, but here in France it's the other way around. You can pay with cash pretty much in any shop, but it's expensive on vendors to provide card payments. And the real problem is millions of people don't have a credit card due to being blacklisted (for debt) or undocumented immigrant. That's why for example Lycamobile/Lebara are the most popular phone service providers among the lower classes in France: you can find SIM cards and "tip-up" cards pretty much everywhere. Of course, this raises the question on how to pay on the Internet with cash as i know a lot of people who can't buy stuff online. For people who want to pay online (and have a bank account), taler.net seems like the most promising R&D in the field of "digital cash". For the rest, i can't see why we couldn't have a tip-up card system like we have for phone providers, but as a generic means to pay for online services with cash.

southerntofu 5y ago

> because while I can thankfully afford to pay for these services with cash, a lot of people out there can't I don't know where you live, but here in France it's the other way around. You can pay with cash pretty much in any shop, but it's expensive on vendors to provide card payments. And the real problem is millions of people don't have a credit card due to being blacklisted (for debt) or undocumented immigrant. That's why for example Lycamobile/Lebara are the most popular phone service providers among the lower classes in France: you can find SIM cards and "tip-up" cards pretty much everywhere. Of course, this raises the question on how to pay on the Internet with cash as i know a lot of people who can't buy stuff online. For people who want to pay online (and have a bank account), taler.net seems like the most promising R&D in the field of "digital cash". For the rest, i can't see why we couldn't have a tip-up card system like we have for phone providers, but as a generic means to pay for online services with cash.