> 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

> 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.