> Obviously the dynamics of this will be per-country, and in a country like Germany which is predominantly cash-based my argument is not true, in a country like

> Obviously the dynamics of this will be per-country, and in a country like Germany which is predominantly cash-based my argument is not true, in a country like Sweden or a city like London it is. What's the difference between these places? Is it cultural? Maybe a little bit. But it's largely due to governments constructing artificial incentives. And why do governments do that? Because they have an incentive to do so. Collect taxes, "stop crime" (which necessarily means tracking subjects), you can use the word "conspiracy" to dismiss it out of hand but this is happening because governments want it, it is not happening organically. Note I'm not talking about the appeal of electronic payment, I'm talking about going cashless.