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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

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.
- Nursie 4y ago
  > Credit cards don't have a PIN They do in most countries.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    In the US, most credit cards don't have PINs and if one does nobody/nothing ever asks for it. Debit cards, however, are downright nazis about PINs.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      That's why I said "in most countries". In most non-US countries credit cards enforce PIN usage the same way as your debit cards appear to.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Well except that debit cards always require PINs in the US and credit cards only sometimes do in eg Europe.
        Nursie 4y ago
        Generally in Europe, when a card is inserted into a terminal for a chip transaction, PIN entry is required. There is no particular delineation between whether it's credit or debit like this. Contactless transactions have a small percentage chance to request PIN, but contact transactions always do it, as all european cards (AFAICT) have put the PIN CVM ahead of the signature CVM, or just dropped the signature CVM entirely, for around 20 years now. I wasn't aware that Chip+Signature cards even exist in europe. Whereas the US is all over the place with different methods for different cards, and mag stripes still in use, sometimes requiring you to enter a PIN alongside that, all largely driven by retailer reticence to update their hardware.
- yardstick 4y ago
  > In many areas electricity outages are a daily occurrence. I’ve lived in 4 continents, never had daily, weekly, or even monthly outages. > Security == privacy. And cash certainly wins availability by a long shot, it can't be blocked by any kind of outage. If you don’t have enough cash in your wallet then you don’t have any availability. If you have a internet outage your debit/credit cards still work offline. Also security does not equal privacy. If you are living in a state where this is true, you have bigger issues with the entire system than ATM skimmers. > Credit cards don't have a PIN, that's a debit card. Everywhere I have lived bar the US has PINs on all card types. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes ubiquitous in the US too.
  - jjav 4y ago
    > If you have a internet outage your debit/credit cards still work offline. Not when the store is offline. The convenience store just up the street from here every now and then goes cash-only whenever their connectivity is down.
JohnFen 4y ago
> Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern This is definitely not true in my part of the US. Internet outages are not common, but they're also not rare. I see it happen 3 or 4 times per month.

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.

Nursie 4y ago
> Credit cards don't have a PIN They do in most countries.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  In the US, most credit cards don't have PINs and if one does nobody/nothing ever asks for it. Debit cards, however, are downright nazis about PINs.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    That's why I said "in most countries". In most non-US countries credit cards enforce PIN usage the same way as your debit cards appear to.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Well except that debit cards always require PINs in the US and credit cards only sometimes do in eg Europe.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        Generally in Europe, when a card is inserted into a terminal for a chip transaction, PIN entry is required. There is no particular delineation between whether it's credit or debit like this. Contactless transactions have a small percentage chance to request PIN, but contact transactions always do it, as all european cards (AFAICT) have put the PIN CVM ahead of the signature CVM, or just dropped the signature CVM entirely, for around 20 years now. I wasn't aware that Chip+Signature cards even exist in europe. Whereas the US is all over the place with different methods for different cards, and mag stripes still in use, sometimes requiring you to enter a PIN alongside that, all largely driven by retailer reticence to update their hardware.
yardstick 4y ago
> In many areas electricity outages are a daily occurrence. I’ve lived in 4 continents, never had daily, weekly, or even monthly outages. > Security == privacy. And cash certainly wins availability by a long shot, it can't be blocked by any kind of outage. If you don’t have enough cash in your wallet then you don’t have any availability. If you have a internet outage your debit/credit cards still work offline. Also security does not equal privacy. If you are living in a state where this is true, you have bigger issues with the entire system than ATM skimmers. > Credit cards don't have a PIN, that's a debit card. Everywhere I have lived bar the US has PINs on all card types. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes ubiquitous in the US too.
- jjav 4y ago
  > If you have a internet outage your debit/credit cards still work offline. Not when the store is offline. The convenience store just up the street from here every now and then goes cash-only whenever their connectivity is down.

JohnFen 4y ago

> Re internet/electricity outages, this is so rare enough to not be a concern This is definitely not true in my part of the US. Internet outages are not common, but they're also not rare. I see it happen 3 or 4 times per month.