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It's crazy how I never carry cash anymore. I can't even think of the last time I used an ATM. I often just leave the house with my phone and buy stuff with appl

by bryan0 4y ago

It's crazy how I never carry cash anymore. I can't even think of the last time I used an ATM. I often just leave the house with my phone and buy stuff with apple pay. Also how is magnetic strip still a thing? I thought this was replaced with chip and tap years ago...

AngryData 4y ago
Im the exact opposite, I always use cash. The only time I use a card is when im purchasing online. I find it far more convenient and I can pay for and buy things without worrying about peoples card systems being up or skimmers or anything like that.
reaperducer 4y ago
I often just leave the house with my phone and buy stuff with apple pay. I admire your uncomplicated, predictable life. Sometimes I want to buy something from a guy with the ice cream cart at the park. Sometimes I need to tip a valet, a doorman, a hotel maid, or another service worker. Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner. Sometimes I want to buy something from one of the 35 million Americans without a bank account. Sometimes tow truck drivers take cash only. Many of the late-night restaurants and food carts in my city are cash only. Some day I'll go cash-free. But my life is not yet that simple.
- bolasanibk 4y ago
  I agree with a lot of the other things. But for this: >Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner I have seen a lot of them carry Square dongles or accept Venmo payments. I guess they got tired of people telling them they do not have cash.
- phinnaeus 4y ago
  I think it's clear the person you're replying to isn't from the US since they seem unaware of how prevalent even magnetic swiping is in the US (or was when I left before the pandemic, when I visited a few months ago it seems interest in contactless has finally started to catch on).
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    US person here, I can do this too, but in a limited fashion. In fact the donut shop in my circuit used to be cash-only but eventually relented because of the pandemic.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The only thing that has changed in the past couple years is that a few more of the larger gas stations chains have renovated with new chip readers. Most small businesses are switched over. You can still count on old gas pumps and pay parking kiosks using mag stripes.
  - bryan0 4y ago
    I am from the US! Probably living in the Bay Area has influenced my ability to use tap to pay almost everywhere now. Covid definitely accelerated this though. As for parent claiming my life is “uncomplicated” and “predictable” I won’t say they’re wrong. I have a pretty boring yet comfortable life.
  - SllX 4y ago
    Also from the US. The last business I encountered that insisted on swiping cards was this past Spring, a toy vendor in a local mall. Contactless is normal, and my issue is I will sometimes want to pay someone a tip that only takes Venmo which I just don’t have nor want to have. Cash-only is far more prevalent than card swiping, and even that is incredibly rare.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I reluctantly set up Venmo but I really don’t like services directly connected to my bank account.
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        I pay other people with venmo but refuse to accept payment (I'd literally rather just forgive the debt) for exactly that reason. I don't trust paypal, so they do not get access to my account.
- maherbeg 4y ago
  You'd be surprised how often you can ask "do you have a venmo?" and just tip service workers via the QR code.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    Half a decade ago in China it was already common for beggars to carry QR codes for this purpose
  - notch656a 4y ago
    As a double advantage, it ensures the workers tips are 1099-K'd when their venmo hits $600 aggregate and they can't weasel out of the social contract of paying up for muh roads.
    - joshuamorton 4y ago
      This is, as far as I know, only true if you use the business "mode" in venmo. I certainly take in a lot more than $600 in aggregate per year via venmo (passthrough rent), and don't get a 1099-k.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        1) That makes sense because the $600 threshold has never existed before. The first time this will ever be reported at this threshold is this year. According to Secretary Yellen the threshold was lowered to $600 because people earning that much are high-income billionares that need held accountable. 2) In non-business "mode" it's still not your choice if the sender tags it as 'goods or service.' 3) Customers and Workers may be wary to potentially violate ToS by defrauding Venmo and/or the IRS by falsely tagging a transaction that there is an easily electronically auditable record of. Venmo ToS explains your account may be terminated and funds 'held' if you do this, and tons of random people sending you money on a regular schedule is easily identifiable as not 'friends and family.' This is far easier to trace than someone spending putting $200 in singles in a drawer at the end of the night and spending $20 x 10 at the grocery store. 4) Your 'pass-through' rent situation is far less falsely identifiable as goods and services income. 2000x people sending $5 over a year is far more identifiable to a computer than the exact same few people sending you $1k a month or whatever. A very large number (high hundreds to thousands) of nodes sending small amounts over the course of the year easily 'sniffs out' someone providing goods/services and can be bet on to be found out by Venmo compliance sooner or later.
- Nursie 4y ago
  In Australia ... > Sometimes I want to buy something from a guy with the ice cream cart at the park. The ice cream van that comes past our house is contactless card-only. > Sometimes I need to tip ... Ugh, tip culture! > Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner She's probably got Square. > Many of the late-night restaurants and food carts in my city are cash only. Where they exist, they're more often card-only here. This is not to say one is superior to the other, but it is very geographically and culturally dependent. If I had to choose to leave the house with either my Apple/Android-pay enabled phone or a pile of cash, the phone would get me a lot further in this country.
bastardoperator 4y ago
Same, to be honest I feel like I haven't seen actual money in years. I'm always surprised how much it changes every time I get close enough or actually handle a bill. To be fair though, after seeing physical Canadian money (got some bills and coins for my son), US money isn't nearly as cool.
- iamben 4y ago
  I had to pay a driver in cash recently. It was the first time I'd used cash since before Covid, and it was crazy to realise that. I think (in the UK), raising the contactless pay limit, and then all the places that just moved to fully cashless over covid accelerated everything. I know it's a priveledged position to say it, but contactless is great and I absolutely don't miss cash and coins.
naet 4y ago
I love using cash. Sometimes I don't when my local ATM is down (which seems to happen so often...), but when I can it feels much better to me. No digital records, no potential for this type of skimmer or other scam, don't have to give up my ATM pin, no worrying about my phone running out of charge, able to give it away freely to anyone in need without setting up a digital transfer, the old taco truck still only takes cash, etc. I will be sad when cash starts to be less accepted. Already there are a (small) number of modern restaurants that don't accept cash in my area.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  > Already there are a (small) number of modern restaurants that don't accept cash in my area. Is that even legal?
  - vkou 4y ago
    Yes, if they are pay up front establishments.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    It isn't in NYC[1]. We have some local businesses that ignore the law, and are (supposedly) being fined daily for continuing to violate it[2]. I'm not sure if the city has managed to collect yet. [1]: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3763665&GUID=7800AFC9-D8B1-41FD-9C31-172565712686 https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3... [2]: https://nypost.com/2021/12/04/nyc-businesses-told-to-pay-up-after-not-accepting-cash/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/04/nyc-businesses-told-to-pay-up-...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - naet 4y ago
    It must be in my area, and it seems to be legal at the federal level in the USA. "There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise." https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm It may be illegal to refuse cash as payment for an existing debt but businesses are free to choose how (and with whom) they conduct business, including which forms of payment they accept.
dijonman2 4y ago
Cash is king. Always tip and buy in cash, tax is always included.
david_allison 4y ago
Card reader didn't work on the bus yesterday. It would have been nice to have a backup.
- iamben 4y ago
  London buses don't even take cash any more.
  - Tsiklon 4y ago
    They haven’t for 8 years
tialaramex 4y ago
As the article says, some smaller outfits still use card stripe data. The impetus to get retailers to start using the chip was "Liability shift". The payment networks gradually changed the rules (I think in the US pay-at-pump gasoline purchases were last to get this, while big retail stores were earlier) so that the liability if a transaction is latterly discovered to be fraudulent is with the retailer who accepted the dodgy transaction, not the payment network if the retailer didn't use the chip. But I imagine if you're a little store in the country, maybe you do six card transactions per day, almost all of them with customers you know personally who just find the card more convenient, liability shift isn't a huge worry for you, while the cost of a new payment terminal is a significant issue. The actual payment infrastructure doesn't care about any of this. Those old impression machines? Mag stripe? Put the card in manually? Tap your iPhone? In all cases the actual transaction which moves money, "Settlement", just needs the account number to take money from and amount to transfer. These different methods have different "Authorization" behaviour but Authorization is about mitigating risk for the retailer, and the bank, and only very tangentially intended to have any benefit for you to customer, it doesn't move money, and it isn't mandatory.
- kube-system 4y ago
  > Those old impression machines? Good point. Not only do I still have cards with mag stripes, I still have some with embossed numbers. And probably half of the people with credit cards are younger than the date when that was obsoleted.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    A hotel I stayed at actually made an impression from my card in... I'm going to say maybe 2015 (I'm pretty sure this is before Trump, but it's after Marvel started re-publishing Miracleman). Hotel somewhere in the middle of Nottingham. Room nice enough, but no actual card machine.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      That’s wild. Last time I saw one in the US was a family owned gas station around 2000.
pdntspa 4y ago
The chips on my card have a habit of not working, and my bank doesn't give NFC "tap" cards. Mag-stripe has saved my bacon a couple times after the chip wouldnt read. And the fancy Amex tap card barely works -- Apple Pay is more reliable.
- kloch 4y ago
  I'm left handed and had a lot of trouble using tap until I realized my thumb was covering/shorting out the chip. If I hold cards in my right hand tap works great.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
I only get cash out for buying drugs. That's my use case.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Drugs, marketplace/Craigslist stuff, farmers markets and food stalls, all tips unless it’s a restaurant, a lot of my landscapers/contractors etc.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ephil012 4y ago
Carrying cash is more common in NYC due to many small businesses there being cash-only. For instance, halal food carts are cash-only. As a result, there is higher ATM usage in NYC where these ATM skimmers were found.
- gffrd 4y ago
  Best $6 you’ll ever spend.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  Even the halal food trucks are starting to accept credit cards. I know of at least two in Brooklyn that have a reader, however they do require a minimum payment (usually $8 or so).
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
The Dairy Queen I stopped by today used a mag strip reader but it is becoming increasingly uncommon. The local grocery store had to revert to using it twice last year when there was something wrong with the chip approval process. This was on all registers so I don't think it was the readers themselves that were the issue unless perhaps they had received a bad update that was later corrected. But it does seem like the more secure these systems are getting, the less robust they are. Perhaps that's just one of the tradeoffs we have to accept. The college football season started with a game between Nebraska and Illinois in Dublin, Ireland. The beer at the game was free because there was a technical issue with the payment provider. Being a "cashless stadium", they simply had no way of accepting payment.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Gas stations are the worst offenders at not upgrading to chip readers.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > used a mag strip reader My recent cards (and not only mine, I saw that happen with others people cards too) just tell the terminal they can't be used by a mag stripe at all. I assume what the terminal without a smartcard/payless should allow a mag strip read, but I haven't seen them for like... 10 years? But I'm not in the US of A, for that matter.
jjav 4y ago
If your phone breaks or you lost it, if there is no connectivity, if apple decides to cancel your digital existence, then what? And it means everything you buy is associated with you and recorded forever to be sold to endless advertisers (and worse) and the transaction may be blocked by third parties. If you pay cash it works without a depending on anything external (no internet, no electricity), it is not traced, it can't be blocked by third parties. Cash is the optimal payment mechanism for nearly everything. It only is inconvenient for very large payments, but for anything day-to-day, opt for cash.
- yardstick 4y ago
  Cash is only optimal for privacy, not convenience or availability or speed or security. If my credit card is stolen, I get my money back (so long as I reported it in time, and didn’t surrender to them my pin). Not so with cash. Cards take a second or two to process payments on average. Not so wish cash. My bank account / credit card limits always have enough to cover my purchases, whereas my physical wallet might be low/empty and require a trip to the ATM / bank for a withdrawal. Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern. POS can also do offline transactions just fine if you have power but no internet. And a lot of retail and critical infrastructure places have both wired and cellular Internet links for high availability. There is definitely still a place for cash, but it’s not a big thing for a lot of people anymore. The last time I used cash it was because my kid threw up in a taxi and I needed to quickly make it up to the driver. Yes I could have paid card as well, but seeing the physical cash was likely more meaningful to de-escalating the situation.
  - jjav 4y ago
    > Cash is only optimal for privacy, not convenience or availability or speed or security. Security == privacy. And cash certainly wins availability by a long shot, it can't be blocked by any kind of outage. Convenience is arguable I suppose. I'd rather hand over cash than deal with anything electronic that can fail. > If my credit card is stolen, I get my money back (so long as I reported it in time, and didn’t surrender to them my pin) Credit cards don't have a PIN, that's a debit card. But yes, you get the money back from fraud with a credit card, that's true. > Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern. Depends where you live I suppose. In many areas electricity outages are a daily occurrence.

by bryan0 4y ago

AngryData 4y ago

Im the exact opposite, I always use cash. The only time I use a card is when im purchasing online. I find it far more convenient and I can pay for and buy things without worrying about peoples card systems being up or skimmers or anything like that.

reaperducer 4y ago

I often just leave the house with my phone and buy stuff with apple pay. I admire your uncomplicated, predictable life. Sometimes I want to buy something from a guy with the ice cream cart at the park. Sometimes I need to tip a valet, a doorman, a hotel maid, or another service worker. Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner. Sometimes I want to buy something from one of the 35 million Americans without a bank account. Sometimes tow truck drivers take cash only. Many of the late-night restaurants and food carts in my city are cash only. Some day I'll go cash-free. But my life is not yet that simple.

bolasanibk 4y ago
I agree with a lot of the other things. But for this: >Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner I have seen a lot of them carry Square dongles or accept Venmo payments. I guess they got tired of people telling them they do not have cash.
phinnaeus 4y ago
I think it's clear the person you're replying to isn't from the US since they seem unaware of how prevalent even magnetic swiping is in the US (or was when I left before the pandemic, when I visited a few months ago it seems interest in contactless has finally started to catch on).
- pdntspa 4y ago
  US person here, I can do this too, but in a limited fashion. In fact the donut shop in my circuit used to be cash-only but eventually relented because of the pandemic.
- kube-system 4y ago
  The only thing that has changed in the past couple years is that a few more of the larger gas stations chains have renovated with new chip readers. Most small businesses are switched over. You can still count on old gas pumps and pay parking kiosks using mag stripes.
- bryan0 4y ago
  I am from the US! Probably living in the Bay Area has influenced my ability to use tap to pay almost everywhere now. Covid definitely accelerated this though. As for parent claiming my life is “uncomplicated” and “predictable” I won’t say they’re wrong. I have a pretty boring yet comfortable life.
- SllX 4y ago
  Also from the US. The last business I encountered that insisted on swiping cards was this past Spring, a toy vendor in a local mall. Contactless is normal, and my issue is I will sometimes want to pay someone a tip that only takes Venmo which I just don’t have nor want to have. Cash-only is far more prevalent than card swiping, and even that is incredibly rare.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I reluctantly set up Venmo but I really don’t like services directly connected to my bank account.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      I pay other people with venmo but refuse to accept payment (I'd literally rather just forgive the debt) for exactly that reason. I don't trust paypal, so they do not get access to my account.
maherbeg 4y ago
You'd be surprised how often you can ask "do you have a venmo?" and just tip service workers via the QR code.
- Bakary 4y ago
  Half a decade ago in China it was already common for beggars to carry QR codes for this purpose
- notch656a 4y ago
  As a double advantage, it ensures the workers tips are 1099-K'd when their venmo hits $600 aggregate and they can't weasel out of the social contract of paying up for muh roads.
  - joshuamorton 4y ago
    This is, as far as I know, only true if you use the business "mode" in venmo. I certainly take in a lot more than $600 in aggregate per year via venmo (passthrough rent), and don't get a 1099-k.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      1) That makes sense because the $600 threshold has never existed before. The first time this will ever be reported at this threshold is this year. According to Secretary Yellen the threshold was lowered to $600 because people earning that much are high-income billionares that need held accountable. 2) In non-business "mode" it's still not your choice if the sender tags it as 'goods or service.' 3) Customers and Workers may be wary to potentially violate ToS by defrauding Venmo and/or the IRS by falsely tagging a transaction that there is an easily electronically auditable record of. Venmo ToS explains your account may be terminated and funds 'held' if you do this, and tons of random people sending you money on a regular schedule is easily identifiable as not 'friends and family.' This is far easier to trace than someone spending putting $200 in singles in a drawer at the end of the night and spending $20 x 10 at the grocery store. 4) Your 'pass-through' rent situation is far less falsely identifiable as goods and services income. 2000x people sending $5 over a year is far more identifiable to a computer than the exact same few people sending you $1k a month or whatever. A very large number (high hundreds to thousands) of nodes sending small amounts over the course of the year easily 'sniffs out' someone providing goods/services and can be bet on to be found out by Venmo compliance sooner or later.
Nursie 4y ago
In Australia ... > Sometimes I want to buy something from a guy with the ice cream cart at the park. The ice cream van that comes past our house is contactless card-only. > Sometimes I need to tip ... Ugh, tip culture! > Sometimes I want to buy Girl Scout cookies from the girl with the table on the corner She's probably got Square. > Many of the late-night restaurants and food carts in my city are cash only. Where they exist, they're more often card-only here. This is not to say one is superior to the other, but it is very geographically and culturally dependent. If I had to choose to leave the house with either my Apple/Android-pay enabled phone or a pile of cash, the phone would get me a lot further in this country.

bastardoperator 4y ago

Same, to be honest I feel like I haven't seen actual money in years. I'm always surprised how much it changes every time I get close enough or actually handle a bill. To be fair though, after seeing physical Canadian money (got some bills and coins for my son), US money isn't nearly as cool.

iamben 4y ago
I had to pay a driver in cash recently. It was the first time I'd used cash since before Covid, and it was crazy to realise that. I think (in the UK), raising the contactless pay limit, and then all the places that just moved to fully cashless over covid accelerated everything. I know it's a priveledged position to say it, but contactless is great and I absolutely don't miss cash and coins.

naet 4y ago

I love using cash. Sometimes I don't when my local ATM is down (which seems to happen so often...), but when I can it feels much better to me. No digital records, no potential for this type of skimmer or other scam, don't have to give up my ATM pin, no worrying about my phone running out of charge, able to give it away freely to anyone in need without setting up a digital transfer, the old taco truck still only takes cash, etc. I will be sad when cash starts to be less accepted. Already there are a (small) number of modern restaurants that don't accept cash in my area.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
> Already there are a (small) number of modern restaurants that don't accept cash in my area. Is that even legal?
- vkou 4y ago
  Yes, if they are pay up front establishments.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  It isn't in NYC[1]. We have some local businesses that ignore the law, and are (supposedly) being fined daily for continuing to violate it[2]. I'm not sure if the city has managed to collect yet. [1]: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3763665&GUID=7800AFC9-D8B1-41FD-9C31-172565712686 https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3... [2]: https://nypost.com/2021/12/04/nyc-businesses-told-to-pay-up-after-not-accepting-cash/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/04/nyc-businesses-told-to-pay-up-...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- naet 4y ago
  It must be in my area, and it seems to be legal at the federal level in the USA. "There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise." https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm It may be illegal to refuse cash as payment for an existing debt but businesses are free to choose how (and with whom) they conduct business, including which forms of payment they accept.

dijonman2 4y ago

Cash is king. Always tip and buy in cash, tax is always included.

david_allison 4y ago

Card reader didn't work on the bus yesterday. It would have been nice to have a backup.

iamben 4y ago
London buses don't even take cash any more.
- Tsiklon 4y ago
  They haven’t for 8 years

tialaramex 4y ago

As the article says, some smaller outfits still use card stripe data. The impetus to get retailers to start using the chip was "Liability shift". The payment networks gradually changed the rules (I think in the US pay-at-pump gasoline purchases were last to get this, while big retail stores were earlier) so that the liability if a transaction is latterly discovered to be fraudulent is with the retailer who accepted the dodgy transaction, not the payment network if the retailer didn't use the chip. But I imagine if you're a little store in the country, maybe you do six card transactions per day, almost all of them with customers you know personally who just find the card more convenient, liability shift isn't a huge worry for you, while the cost of a new payment terminal is a significant issue. The actual payment infrastructure doesn't care about any of this. Those old impression machines? Mag stripe? Put the card in manually? Tap your iPhone? In all cases the actual transaction which moves money, "Settlement", just needs the account number to take money from and amount to transfer. These different methods have different "Authorization" behaviour but Authorization is about mitigating risk for the retailer, and the bank, and only very tangentially intended to have any benefit for you to customer, it doesn't move money, and it isn't mandatory.

kube-system 4y ago
> Those old impression machines? Good point. Not only do I still have cards with mag stripes, I still have some with embossed numbers. And probably half of the people with credit cards are younger than the date when that was obsoleted.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  A hotel I stayed at actually made an impression from my card in... I'm going to say maybe 2015 (I'm pretty sure this is before Trump, but it's after Marvel started re-publishing Miracleman). Hotel somewhere in the middle of Nottingham. Room nice enough, but no actual card machine.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    That’s wild. Last time I saw one in the US was a family owned gas station around 2000.

pdntspa 4y ago

The chips on my card have a habit of not working, and my bank doesn't give NFC "tap" cards. Mag-stripe has saved my bacon a couple times after the chip wouldnt read. And the fancy Amex tap card barely works -- Apple Pay is more reliable.

kloch 4y ago
I'm left handed and had a lot of trouble using tap until I realized my thumb was covering/shorting out the chip. If I hold cards in my right hand tap works great.

sirsinsalot 4y ago

I only get cash out for buying drugs. That's my use case.

bergenty 4y ago
Drugs, marketplace/Craigslist stuff, farmers markets and food stalls, all tips unless it’s a restaurant, a lot of my landscapers/contractors etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Ephil012 4y ago

Carrying cash is more common in NYC due to many small businesses there being cash-only. For instance, halal food carts are cash-only. As a result, there is higher ATM usage in NYC where these ATM skimmers were found.

gffrd 4y ago
Best $6 you’ll ever spend.
wildrhythms 4y ago
Even the halal food trucks are starting to accept credit cards. I know of at least two in Brooklyn that have a reader, however they do require a minimum payment (usually $8 or so).

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

The Dairy Queen I stopped by today used a mag strip reader but it is becoming increasingly uncommon. The local grocery store had to revert to using it twice last year when there was something wrong with the chip approval process. This was on all registers so I don't think it was the readers themselves that were the issue unless perhaps they had received a bad update that was later corrected. But it does seem like the more secure these systems are getting, the less robust they are. Perhaps that's just one of the tradeoffs we have to accept. The college football season started with a game between Nebraska and Illinois in Dublin, Ireland. The beer at the game was free because there was a technical issue with the payment provider. Being a "cashless stadium", they simply had no way of accepting payment.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Gas stations are the worst offenders at not upgrading to chip readers.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
> used a mag strip reader My recent cards (and not only mine, I saw that happen with others people cards too) just tell the terminal they can't be used by a mag stripe at all. I assume what the terminal without a smartcard/payless should allow a mag strip read, but I haven't seen them for like... 10 years? But I'm not in the US of A, for that matter.

jjav 4y ago

If your phone breaks or you lost it, if there is no connectivity, if apple decides to cancel your digital existence, then what? And it means everything you buy is associated with you and recorded forever to be sold to endless advertisers (and worse) and the transaction may be blocked by third parties. If you pay cash it works without a depending on anything external (no internet, no electricity), it is not traced, it can't be blocked by third parties. Cash is the optimal payment mechanism for nearly everything. It only is inconvenient for very large payments, but for anything day-to-day, opt for cash.

yardstick 4y ago
Cash is only optimal for privacy, not convenience or availability or speed or security. If my credit card is stolen, I get my money back (so long as I reported it in time, and didn’t surrender to them my pin). Not so with cash. Cards take a second or two to process payments on average. Not so wish cash. My bank account / credit card limits always have enough to cover my purchases, whereas my physical wallet might be low/empty and require a trip to the ATM / bank for a withdrawal. Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern. POS can also do offline transactions just fine if you have power but no internet. And a lot of retail and critical infrastructure places have both wired and cellular Internet links for high availability. There is definitely still a place for cash, but it’s not a big thing for a lot of people anymore. The last time I used cash it was because my kid threw up in a taxi and I needed to quickly make it up to the driver. Yes I could have paid card as well, but seeing the physical cash was likely more meaningful to de-escalating the situation.
- jjav 4y ago
  > Cash is only optimal for privacy, not convenience or availability or speed or security. Security == privacy. And cash certainly wins availability by a long shot, it can't be blocked by any kind of outage. Convenience is arguable I suppose. I'd rather hand over cash than deal with anything electronic that can fail. > If my credit card is stolen, I get my money back (so long as I reported it in time, and didn’t surrender to them my pin) Credit cards don't have a PIN, that's a debit card. But yes, you get the money back from fraud with a credit card, that's true. > Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern. Depends where you live I suppose. In many areas electricity outages are a daily occurrence.