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Ironically, you are making the argument for a cashless society. If I use my credit card everywhere, I can't be robbed. If someone rips me off, I have a giant b

by dangus 3y ago

Ironically, you are making the argument for a cashless society. If I use my credit card everywhere, I can't be robbed. If someone rips me off, I have a giant bank that will get my money back. I never have to hit up an ATM for anything; I never have to deal with coins and change. I don't even need to have my physical wallet on me to make a transaction. I don’t need to talk to the cashier or wait in line to order and pay for lunch or coffee. Since you mentioned mobsters, if I pay for my lunch with a card, I know that the business owner can’t as easily evade taxes, stealing from coffers that fund the government services I rely upon. What exactly would compel me to want to use cash for anything? What about my life would improve? I would just like to see better data privacy protections surrounding cashless payments, disallowing my card issuer and merchants from abusing and selling information about my transaction history. I would also like to see a low limit placed on transaction fees. Technically, those are really small problems to fix, if we can get some political will around it. Many other non-US countries have probably already fixed those problems.

trealira 3y ago
> What exactly would compel me to want to use cash for anything? What about my life would improve? You can buy things without a third party bank skimming a bit from your purchases. You can buy things even when Chase and Visa outages occur. You can give cash to people without credit cards. Children can manage money without their parents knowing or being able to monitor their spending. Same with people in abusive relationships; the abused party can hide cash under their bed (or somewhere else) more easily than they can hide their bank account from their abusive partner. You can buy things from the black market without being traced. For example, you can set up a lemonade stand without a permit with cash (this is illegal in many US states). You might argue "oh, but that should just be legal; that's not a problem with going cashless inherently." But there will always be stupid laws and regulations like this, and cash is a good way to shield yourself from them.
sneak 3y ago
> If I use my credit card everywhere, I can't be robbed. Except for your card, your PIN, and your $1000 phone. Mugging is still a thing these days. You can also get skimmed, or otherwise defrauded using payment cards. People still get robbed all the time (not the least of which by the payment processors).

by dangus 3y ago

trealira 3y ago

> What exactly would compel me to want to use cash for anything? What about my life would improve? You can buy things without a third party bank skimming a bit from your purchases. You can buy things even when Chase and Visa outages occur. You can give cash to people without credit cards. Children can manage money without their parents knowing or being able to monitor their spending. Same with people in abusive relationships; the abused party can hide cash under their bed (or somewhere else) more easily than they can hide their bank account from their abusive partner. You can buy things from the black market without being traced. For example, you can set up a lemonade stand without a permit with cash (this is illegal in many US states). You might argue "oh, but that should just be legal; that's not a problem with going cashless inherently." But there will always be stupid laws and regulations like this, and cash is a good way to shield yourself from them.

sneak 3y ago

> If I use my credit card everywhere, I can't be robbed. Except for your card, your PIN, and your $1000 phone. Mugging is still a thing these days. You can also get skimmed, or otherwise defrauded using payment cards. People still get robbed all the time (not the least of which by the payment processors).