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All positives are accepted. Concerns -- - Cronies of government have captured the technology stack making themselves key players that can control and monetize

All positives are accepted. Concerns -- - Cronies of government have captured the technology stack making themselves key players that can control and monetize this space. - Traceability of all petty transactions -- enabling building of super rich profile of individuals / orgs -- ripe with potential for misuse. - Leaving a trail of your PII like name / UPI ID (which in some cases is your mobilenumber@upiprovider) / last few digits of bank account number etc with all random people you transact with -- like taking a rikshaw ride or buying potatoes in a street-side vegetable market. (99.9% of these are harmless -- but the small fraction can invite intrusion / enable harassment) - Over enthusiastic adoption of digital payments to the exclusion of other options forcing people to use apps. And the newer payment mechanisms -- opening newer avenues for scamming the less savvy / elderly / vulnerable. - Pushing this change to people rather than letting the benefits and convenience naturally lead to adoption -- after the flaws are slowly uncovered and fixed through early adoption by savvy people (see Demonetization of 2016) - This blind worship of technology as a silver bullet that cannot be criticized (or you are labelled a foreign-sponsored detractor / anti-national / india-hater whatever) extends more broadly into adjacent areas like the Aadhaar national ID system, linking of it to all spheres of citizen services from birth to death including voting rights and banking.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> Traceability of all petty transactions -- enabling building of super rich profile of individuals / orgs -- ripe with potential for misuse. How is that any different to what Visa and Mastercard can do? Speaking for myself, *every* purchase I make now, no matter how petty, is made with credit or debit-cards which go through their payment networks. The only exceptions are my house' landscaping (still uses paper cheques), buying weed (all my local dispensaries in WA are cash-only due to the federal bank embargo on the legal cannabis industry), or personal transfers over Zelle/PayPal/Venmo - so I'm sure Mr. Mastercard has compiled quite the dossier on me by now.
- sateesh 3y ago
  Not op, prior to UPI all these transactions were done using cash, credit card penentration in India was quite low.
  - Sai_ 3y ago
    Minor correction - prior to UPI, transaction either happened via cash OR didn’t happen at all. I think the hidden value of UPI is that it makes doing business easier which is of huge value. People sitting on money has never helped any economy…especially at the level that UPI operates - ie enabling petty spending greases the wheels of the economy and lifts people out of poverty. For example, say I want to buy coconut water on a hot day. Earlier, I’d go without if I didn’t have change. Now I use UPI. I benefit from fresh coconut water. The seller benefits from my money going to his bank account. Even GWB told people to go shopping after 9/11 so that the wheels of the economy would keep churning.
    - sateesh 3y ago
      Not necessarily true, most of the petty transactions cater the inelastic demands (like groceries, daily medication etc. ).
      - Sai_ 3y ago
        That’s almost tautological - if it’s a necessity, you will spend. It’s the stuff that was above the bottom of Maslow’s needs pyramid that UPI has enabled.
    - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
      > ie enabling petty spending greases the wheels of the economy and lifts people out of poverty. The lack of "petty spending" is not the reason India has a poverty problem.
      - Sai_ 3y ago
        People unwilling or unable to spend cash leads to fewer businesses being formed. This should be obvious. Therefore, anything which loosens the purse strings should lead to more business activity. More business activity will lead to better resource allocation and hiring, more auxiliary services cropping up to support novel needs. All this will lead to fewer poor people. Now, reverse the arrow. If it were to become harder and harder to spend money, more and more people would fall into poverty.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  I'm sure there are ways for anyone interested to purchase an anonymous UPI account, just as there are ways to purchase an anonymous MasterCard now.
pyeri 3y ago
Almost each and every concern is applicable to VISA/Mastercard system too. UPI is just another alternative who isn't a member of that elite card system club but one who has carved a niche of their own.
- wtmt 3y ago
  > Almost each and every concern is applicable to VISA/Mastercard system too. Not really, when you make a payment using credit or debit cards, your name doesn’t go to the merchant (and doesn’t have to, since you can enter any name online when entering card details). Your phone number also doesn’t go to the merchant from the card number unless you decide to share it. In the case of UPI, the receiver gets the full name and many a times the phone number of the sender since that’s the most common UPI identifier.
sirius87 3y ago
That traceability of transactions contributes to expansion of the tax net. About ~2% of India's population pays income tax and <12% of the population files tax returns. For the longest time, certain professionals such as doctors running neighborhood clinics earned money only in cash, allowing them to skip the tax net or claim to tax agencies that they attend to many patients on a charitable basis. This is changing quickly with patients walking into clinics insisting on paying digitally, pushing doctors to open current accounts and have billing and payment systems.
wtmt 3y ago
I couldn’t have said this better! Thanks for the detailed comment with drawbacks and criticisms.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago

> Traceability of all petty transactions -- enabling building of super rich profile of individuals / orgs -- ripe with potential for misuse. How is that any different to what Visa and Mastercard can do? Speaking for myself, *every* purchase I make now, no matter how petty, is made with credit or debit-cards which go through their payment networks. The only exceptions are my house' landscaping (still uses paper cheques), buying weed (all my local dispensaries in WA are cash-only due to the federal bank embargo on the legal cannabis industry), or personal transfers over Zelle/PayPal/Venmo - so I'm sure Mr. Mastercard has compiled quite the dossier on me by now.

sateesh 3y ago
Not op, prior to UPI all these transactions were done using cash, credit card penentration in India was quite low.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  Minor correction - prior to UPI, transaction either happened via cash OR didn’t happen at all. I think the hidden value of UPI is that it makes doing business easier which is of huge value. People sitting on money has never helped any economy…especially at the level that UPI operates - ie enabling petty spending greases the wheels of the economy and lifts people out of poverty. For example, say I want to buy coconut water on a hot day. Earlier, I’d go without if I didn’t have change. Now I use UPI. I benefit from fresh coconut water. The seller benefits from my money going to his bank account. Even GWB told people to go shopping after 9/11 so that the wheels of the economy would keep churning.
  - sateesh 3y ago
    Not necessarily true, most of the petty transactions cater the inelastic demands (like groceries, daily medication etc. ).
    - Sai_ 3y ago
      That’s almost tautological - if it’s a necessity, you will spend. It’s the stuff that was above the bottom of Maslow’s needs pyramid that UPI has enabled.
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    > ie enabling petty spending greases the wheels of the economy and lifts people out of poverty. The lack of "petty spending" is not the reason India has a poverty problem.
    - Sai_ 3y ago
      People unwilling or unable to spend cash leads to fewer businesses being formed. This should be obvious. Therefore, anything which loosens the purse strings should lead to more business activity. More business activity will lead to better resource allocation and hiring, more auxiliary services cropping up to support novel needs. All this will lead to fewer poor people. Now, reverse the arrow. If it were to become harder and harder to spend money, more and more people would fall into poverty.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
I'm sure there are ways for anyone interested to purchase an anonymous UPI account, just as there are ways to purchase an anonymous MasterCard now.

pyeri 3y ago

Almost each and every concern is applicable to VISA/Mastercard system too. UPI is just another alternative who isn't a member of that elite card system club but one who has carved a niche of their own.

wtmt 3y ago
> Almost each and every concern is applicable to VISA/Mastercard system too. Not really, when you make a payment using credit or debit cards, your name doesn’t go to the merchant (and doesn’t have to, since you can enter any name online when entering card details). Your phone number also doesn’t go to the merchant from the card number unless you decide to share it. In the case of UPI, the receiver gets the full name and many a times the phone number of the sender since that’s the most common UPI identifier.

sirius87 3y ago

That traceability of transactions contributes to expansion of the tax net. About ~2% of India's population pays income tax and <12% of the population files tax returns. For the longest time, certain professionals such as doctors running neighborhood clinics earned money only in cash, allowing them to skip the tax net or claim to tax agencies that they attend to many patients on a charitable basis. This is changing quickly with patients walking into clinics insisting on paying digitally, pushing doctors to open current accounts and have billing and payment systems.

wtmt 3y ago

I couldn’t have said this better! Thanks for the detailed comment with drawbacks and criticisms.