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I prefer paying cash. It is also elitist to not accept cash because it means I need a credit card or an expensive phone, neither of which I have on me while jog

by andirk 4y ago

I prefer paying cash. It is also elitist to not accept cash because it means I need a credit card or an expensive phone, neither of which I have on me while jogging. I also don't jog, but you get the point. At my gym I had a keychain bar code that worked great. Now I need my phone, phone charged, brightness up, their stupid app, signed in, open it up, click check-in. It turned a 2 second 1 gram device in to this whole thing. Why?? What a waste of technology and time.

jraph 4y ago
> I also don't jog, but you get the point No, I don't. Carrying a card is way easier than carrying cash while jogging. Thin, smaller, more lightweight. I see one benefit of cash: the privacy.
- andirk 4y ago
  I frequent taco trucks and places that prefer cash and almost no places that don't so I have ~$40 in my gym bag and neither of my 2 heavily used credit cards. I will have maids coming over tomorrow for the first time in a millennia and I will pay them however they prefer and I'm assuming that's cash. Card is amazing, but cash has its place it bothers me to see it sidelined.
kelnos 4y ago
> It is also elitist to not accept cash I think you're ascribing malice to something that is largely a function of cost, safety, and hassle. Yes, credit card fees are not free, but: 1. Managing cash is not free either. At the end of the shift / end of the day, you need employees to count cash and reconcile the amounts with receipts. Cash in excess of what the business wants to keep on hand needs to be transported to the bank and deposited, which costs employee (or manager/owner) time. 2. Businesses that accept cash are bigger targets for (possibly violent) theft. Your minimum wage barista might appreciate not having to worry about someone coming in with a gun and ordering them to empty the register into a bag, if there is nothing to empty into said bag. Transporting cash to the bank is another point where you can get robbed. 3. Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards). Certainly, from the customer's perspective, credit cards are a privacy leak, and require a good credit score or at least a bank with debit cards, and some people don't have access to either. But I think the solution to the latter is to make banking more accessible to people (I think allowing the post office to be a bank to anyone who needs it is a great way to make that happen). Not sure how to solve the privacy leak, though. Even with (unlikely) strong legislation against data collection and sharing/selling, there's always going to be a purchase trail. And your point about jogging (or not-jogging) just doesn't make sense; it's far more convenient to carry a credit card when jogging than to carry cash.
- everforward 4y ago
  > Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards). I'm curious if credit cards actually are worse. I haven't had anyone ask for my ID to use a credit card in a long while. My hypothesis is that stolen credit cards are used online frequently, but rarely in person. Likely because it's easier to steal 10,000 credit card numbers online than in person, and because people are more likely to notice and report a card stolen if it's physically missing.
  - andirk 4y ago
    Letting people in to your store means they can steal stuff. Things that you sell can break. Windows are a hazard in your saloon. I have seen 1 single counterfeit USD in my life and i've worked plenty a register. I have seen innumerable amount of credit card fraud. There's pros and cons to all forms of currency, and not accepting cash does eliminate some of those cons but also its pros.

by andirk 4y ago

jraph 4y ago

> I also don't jog, but you get the point No, I don't. Carrying a card is way easier than carrying cash while jogging. Thin, smaller, more lightweight. I see one benefit of cash: the privacy.

andirk 4y ago
I frequent taco trucks and places that prefer cash and almost no places that don't so I have ~$40 in my gym bag and neither of my 2 heavily used credit cards. I will have maids coming over tomorrow for the first time in a millennia and I will pay them however they prefer and I'm assuming that's cash. Card is amazing, but cash has its place it bothers me to see it sidelined.

kelnos 4y ago

> It is also elitist to not accept cash I think you're ascribing malice to something that is largely a function of cost, safety, and hassle. Yes, credit card fees are not free, but: 1. Managing cash is not free either. At the end of the shift / end of the day, you need employees to count cash and reconcile the amounts with receipts. Cash in excess of what the business wants to keep on hand needs to be transported to the bank and deposited, which costs employee (or manager/owner) time. 2. Businesses that accept cash are bigger targets for (possibly violent) theft. Your minimum wage barista might appreciate not having to worry about someone coming in with a gun and ordering them to empty the register into a bag, if there is nothing to empty into said bag. Transporting cash to the bank is another point where you can get robbed. 3. Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards). Certainly, from the customer's perspective, credit cards are a privacy leak, and require a good credit score or at least a bank with debit cards, and some people don't have access to either. But I think the solution to the latter is to make banking more accessible to people (I think allowing the post office to be a bank to anyone who needs it is a great way to make that happen). Not sure how to solve the privacy leak, though. Even with (unlikely) strong legislation against data collection and sharing/selling, there's always going to be a purchase trail. And your point about jogging (or not-jogging) just doesn't make sense; it's far more convenient to carry a credit card when jogging than to carry cash.

everforward 4y ago
> Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards). I'm curious if credit cards actually are worse. I haven't had anyone ask for my ID to use a credit card in a long while. My hypothesis is that stolen credit cards are used online frequently, but rarely in person. Likely because it's easier to steal 10,000 credit card numbers online than in person, and because people are more likely to notice and report a card stolen if it's physically missing.
- andirk 4y ago
  Letting people in to your store means they can steal stuff. Things that you sell can break. Windows are a hazard in your saloon. I have seen 1 single counterfeit USD in my life and i've worked plenty a register. I have seen innumerable amount of credit card fraud. There's pros and cons to all forms of currency, and not accepting cash does eliminate some of those cons but also its pros.