4 ms·
How about money? In 1960, you either had to have cash or find a place that took a check to make purchases. Maybe some places took a credit card. Ever have to
by dockd 4y ago
How about money?
In 1960, you either had to have cash or find a place that took a check to make purchases. Maybe some places took a credit card. Ever have to wait in line behind someone that is writing a check? "Productive" won't come to mind.
To get that cash you had to walk into a bank during banking hours. Then we got ATMs and could get our money any time of day. No more cutting out of work to deposit that royalty check.
More places started taking cards as well as cash. I distinctly remember asking businesses if they took cards _before_ making a purchase. We still had holdouts like restaurants that didn't split the check.
Now look at 2010. Pay with cash/check/card. Wait a few more years and you can do this with your phone. Get your meal tab split however you like. Owe someone money? No more writing checks, going to the ATM, just hit up Venmo.
Now, what's the productivity measure in that? I have no idea.
- colechristensen 4y agoHonestly the change is pretty small. Up until at least the mid 90s everywhere took checks. Honestly today interacting with the cash register at CVS takes longer than writing a check. Sure, a 30 second check writing reduced to a 10 second tap to pay can be a little bit of an improvement (except when it doesn't work), but really it's not that much better.
- pixl97 4y agoMay you be the luckiest person on earth if the people in front of you only took 30 seconds.
- listenallyall 4y agoToday's "I have a coupon on my phone but I can't get cell service here" guy is honestly far worse than "slow check-writer" guy.
- pessimizer 4y ago> Now, what's the productivity measure in that? I have no idea. Bordering on nothing, I think, other than that we have the opportunity to make street robbery much less lucrative if we stopped artificially inflating the price of phones, because people don't have to carry cash any more (if they're content with each purchase being recorded and data mined by 20 different companies and their government's intelligence agencies.) Burglary rates have dropped precipitously with cheap big screen tvs and cheap audio players. My dad built his entire young life around putting together his very expensive stereo system, I have a single dirty old bluetooth speaker that sounds nearly as good. Being not worth stealing makes it even better.
- herbst 4y agoOh money... We can't even do international banking properly. There is literally a list of countries I can't do 'normal' wire transfers to or get from without complicated hoops or huge waiting times and fees. There is a huge list of things I can't pay for with credit card. I am not even allowed to open a shop selling dildos without getting a highly specialized and expensive credit card middle man. I had to stop several projects because I couldn't find a payment processor that was accepting low volume clients. Strengthening the monopoly in some niches. If holidays fall weird a wire transaction can take days. 5 days is my recent record. This should be normal in 2022? You can't just send any amount of money to anyone. High amounts can trigger bells and further complicate and lengthen transfers. We have literally lost control about our own money. In many countries it is already illegal to buy something expensive with cash. So the productivity won for a credit card users is wasted somewhere else in this utterly complex system of payments & finances. If not a coder that bangs his head in frustration it is the tax office wasting human hours. We have 'solutions' like Crypto, PayPal, Payeer but all come with their own issues and benefits.