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Regarding resilience, and no need for electricity, and network: In Hungary currently it is mandatory to use networked cash registers for cash transactions and

Regarding resilience, and no need for electricity, and network: In Hungary currently it is mandatory to use networked cash registers for cash transactions and centralized digital reporting system for issuing invoices. There are some minor exemptions, for farmer's markets and some similar specific niche very low volume cash transactions. I know about no disaster protocols. (though the Hungarian mindset wouldn't give a damn about law forbidding sales without digital invoice in case of a slightly sustained emergency situation, possibly an outage longer than a day.) So basically even with cash you might need electricity. (until nobody starts to give a damn) I support using cash, for the several reasons outlined in the comments and the article. Yet I think when the trust in government/public services starts to break down (as ignoring laws banning non digitally accounted transactions), the trust in cash might also start to break down (though it takes longer imo)

rescbr 3y ago
If it is like in Brazil, the tax-enabled receipt printers have onboard memory that stores the transactions to send them off-line if the tax agency's servers are down. Something that I've learned when I worked with those devices in the past is that the tax authorities do have strong contingency plans.
- fodkodrasz 3y ago
  That still needs electricity. I still won't be able to go into the store and buy some bottled water, a bucket and some sawdust for a makeshift toilet until the services come back, if the shopkeeper insists that the transaction needs its "electronic papertrail", despite having enough cash at hand, and the store having enough stock of the wares. I don't know about the implementation details of the system, it is working since about 8-10 years ago without any major noteworthy issue/outage apart from some minor hiccups in the initial deployment. It sounds logical that some similar disconnected operation should be available here as well.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    But here's a thing: it still needs electricity, but not Internet. The shop owner might have a battery or a generator that'll keep the register running. Unfortunately, the Internet cannot be stored in buckets full of bits, so if that's down (and that includes simply the servers at the other end being down), there's nothing you can do. Put another way, it's always a good idea to avoid hard dependency on a working Internet connection whenever possible. Be it your "smart" toaster, or your payment methods.

rescbr 3y ago

If it is like in Brazil, the tax-enabled receipt printers have onboard memory that stores the transactions to send them off-line if the tax agency's servers are down. Something that I've learned when I worked with those devices in the past is that the tax authorities do have strong contingency plans.

fodkodrasz 3y ago
That still needs electricity. I still won't be able to go into the store and buy some bottled water, a bucket and some sawdust for a makeshift toilet until the services come back, if the shopkeeper insists that the transaction needs its "electronic papertrail", despite having enough cash at hand, and the store having enough stock of the wares. I don't know about the implementation details of the system, it is working since about 8-10 years ago without any major noteworthy issue/outage apart from some minor hiccups in the initial deployment. It sounds logical that some similar disconnected operation should be available here as well.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  But here's a thing: it still needs electricity, but not Internet. The shop owner might have a battery or a generator that'll keep the register running. Unfortunately, the Internet cannot be stored in buckets full of bits, so if that's down (and that includes simply the servers at the other end being down), there's nothing you can do. Put another way, it's always a good idea to avoid hard dependency on a working Internet connection whenever possible. Be it your "smart" toaster, or your payment methods.