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Cashless Sucks
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- vivekd 3y agoI go cashless for one simple reason, going to the bank to withdraw money and making sure I carry the right change is inconvenient. I think to get the purported freedom cash entails you'd also have to not have a bank account (which governments can freeze) or large illiquid assets which governments can confiscate. I don't think having mediums like money is the solution to government overreach. I think the only possible solution is having a popular distrust of the government - which on a positive note is something that is slowly growing around the world
- CalChris 3y agoI hate ATMs. When I need cash (which is rarely) I get it at the grocery store. I have to use my debit card but it costs me nothing. Thank you, grocery store.
- jonathantf2 3y ago"You will not be able to give money to your kids" is a point I commonly see these conspiracy theorists go on about, and it's complete nonsense. I absolutely hate having cash on me, everyone at work just transfers each other for lunch etc. Cash is very very inconvenient because I have to drive to the next town over to deposit it and make it useful.
- Asraelite 3y agoSo much of the article was pointing out why exactly the author is not one those "conspiracy theorists" and how they hate being associated with them. Did you just skip over that part?
- _8j50 3y agoCash should be a fundamental right. It is more important than the right to bear arms because without cash the payment system can be used to regulate that right to bear arms by proxy as well as speech (see companies being cancelled by credit card processors), religion, and many civil liberties. "Congress shall not pass any law requiring a third-party , record keeping or identity verification for commerce between individuals unless the goods or services in question are specifically and with reasonable cause regulated by established law; the right to accumulate wealth and the presumption of innocence regarding how such wealth was obtained shall not be infringed; neither shall the natural right to share wealth and property with others free of charge be regulated or restricted" That is the amendment I want!
- sschueller 3y agoThose of you complaining about cash being inconvenient. You are feeding an unnecessary middleman taking another piece of the pie and in the end you are paying more for the same thing even if you don't see it right in front of you. What we should have is an electronic cash equivalent operated by the central bank, no tracking of transactions and zero fees as we have with cash.
- paulddraper 3y agoWhat's better than a middleman? An even bigger middleman! :)
- throwaway4783 3y ago[flagged]
- wildrhythms 3y agoThe difference is a central bank middleman is (at least in theory) democratically owned an operated. You have a say in how it's run. Contrast to today's system where the likes of JP Morgan and Wells Fargo can defraud people in broad daylight with zero repercussion.
- paulddraper 3y ago> defraud people in broad daylight with zero repercussion Hmmmmm
- CalChris 3y agoI keep my money at a bank. If I want to spend cash, I have to go to the bank, the ATM, and get it. The bank is indeed an unavoidable middle man. The card just simplifies the transaction.
- joshjob42 3y agoOne could imagine though having universal accounts with the central bank, and no middleman for most transactions. Cashless but banks for checking and basic savings really aren't necessary.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoGood article, and I sort of guess that maybe the author is trying to make people of their own political stripe that they can care about this issue without being "antisemites", which I get. But the whole thing rings a little of "it's not enough to agree with me on an issue, you must do so for the right reasons". Which is a bit counterproductive. A lot of our current political issues are precisely because we've lost the ability to cooperate on shared interests that emerge from differing perspectives. Ironically, exactly the problem the author is facing.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago> But the whole thing rings a little of "it's not enough to agree with me on an issue, you must do so for the right reasons". To be fair, I can come up with pretty some solid reasons why they wouldn't want to make allies out of the "Jews run the banks!"-type crowd.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't do this here.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago[flagged]
- lrvick 3y agoIRL I exclusively use cash, bitcoin, and visa gift cards (purchased with cash). Small vendors very often give me discounts. They hate paying stripe/cc fees and want to encourage more to use cash. The visa gift cards are a last resort. I prefer not to support cashless businesses as they discriminate against the undocumented, unbanked, and privacy conscious. I have been the former two at previous points in my life, and remain the latter. I refuse to disclose my timestamped location and what I purchased for lunch, or at a pharmacy, to Visa or Mastercard, Stripe, and god only knows how many insurance companies, political campaigns, and adtech firms they sell data to.
- CalChris 3y agoIRL I mostly use credit cards. On a recent trip to the UK+Ireland, I exclusively used credit cards behind Apple Pay. Indeed I rarely use an actual credit card and I leave most of them in a sock drawer. It's usually behind Apple Pay. So I was pretty damned annoyed when I got a burger (not particularly good) at the Sports Page deep in Google-ville and they didn't take Apple Pay or presumably Google Pay either. I used to use debit cards (behind Apple Pay) but I didn't get any benefit from them. Now I have the Amex trifecta. I still use cash occasionally. Tomorrow morning, I'll be buying a knee brace that I found on Facebook Marketplace with cash. But my favorite taco truck switched over to Toast and so I switched to using my phone. I don't hit ATMs at all anymore and am training my family not to either. I get cash at the grocery store when I need it. Is this brave new world better than cash? Pretty much it is. It's safer for me and safer for the vendor. If the men in black hats want to know that I frequent Tacos Sinaloa on International late at night, I do. They make a good taco.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoWhich 3 cards are your trifecta? I’m guessing green and gold are two of them?
- toomuchtodo 3y agoNot OP. Gold, Platinum, and Blue Biz Plus. I swapped out the Blue Biz for Fidelity’s credit card, ymmv. Business platinum might also be a better fit if you have your own business, vs personal platinum (for deducting annual fee). https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/american-express/amex-trifecta/ https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/american-express/amex-...
- TrackerFF 3y agoWell, cash is annoying. If you want to experience a time machine IRL, go to any supermarket/store that lacks self-checkouts, in a cash-preferred country. That's how things worked 30-40++ years ago, and you will never want to go back again.
- JohnFen 3y agoThat's how I do it every time I shop. It's perfectly fine.
- wilg 3y agoI agree we should have some kind of private digital cash equivalent. However, I never use cash and I never want to ever again.
- petermcneeley 3y agoPeople mention the "inconvenience" but this not really about physical currency. This is more about the ability to transact value nearly instantly and in a pseudo anonymous way. The best way currently to do this still remains "cash" aka the physical currency. I mean who could really oppose this except for narcs?
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI spent a few years visiting India and the all cash economy (where paytm was only starting to unfold) was not very intuitive. Nobody has change. Nobody wants to give you change, especially when you’re a foreigner. You just have to carry a large roll of 100 rupee notes around everywhere. Things are better there now, Paytm works wonderfully if you can get on to it, and American Express works for me virtually everywhere else.
- shmde 3y agoThats why you geoblocked your site for India ?
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoNot India specifically, but much of the world. I've learned over the years it's better to keep a much more limited web presence if you're sharing details about your personal life (for example, for the hotel people who would google their guests to determine if their room has anything of interest in it)
- Sai_ 3y agoThe geofence notice even says it was even built in Delhi among other locations. C’mon Kyle, shows us what’s behind the choli, dude!
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoRelated: The importance of cash in a technological society (2 weeks ago, 123 pts, 161 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38239286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38239286
- throwaway4783 3y ago[flagged]
- cheema33 3y agoCash is very inconvenient to use. It requires frequent trips to some place to get it. When paying for something, if I get coins back, I have to figure out a way to use them? I don't. Credit cards give me about 2% back on my purchases. I get nothing back with cash. I do carry some cash. But, I pull it out as a matter of last resort. Cashless is winning primarily because of massive massive convenience. You can pretend all day long that cash is just as convenient, and you'd be wrong. Also, govt. actually prefers if you use cash. When something bad happens to your cash, like if it goes up in smoke, govt. gets free money.
- charlie0 3y agoSome countries have no cents, just notes. I hope we get there soon. I hate carrying coins and is one of the main reasons I don't use cash often.
- rugaeiou 3y agoLeftover coins used to bother me. Not any more. I usually use them first on my next transaction and then charge the remaining to my credit card . That way no fees to exchange coins
- redwall_hp 3y agoCash also incentivizes violent crime. Muggings have trended down since people have predominantly stopped carrying cash. It's a win for businesses as well, because payroll for managing tills and the cost of armored couriers is expensive. Cash is a liability. Also, having credit is far preferable to worrying about day to day liquidity. It's not like you can cash stocks out or shift money from savings accounts in minutes if you have an unexpected expense.
- vpastore 3y ago[dead]
- walterbell 3y agoT-Mobile no longer offers Autopay discounts for credit cards. Only debit cards (which have less fraud protection) or directly linking a bank account for ACH. How many data breaches have taken place at US telcos, leaking information for millions of consumers? With FedNow coming online at some US banks, transaction-level data would be visible to the central bank. Connecting mobile phone billing to bank accounts can create a digital identity link between online traffic and legal identity. Such a link can be used for content "personalization", admission control, credit scoring, custom pricing, and more. There is a U.S. regulatory effort to end the fees associated with credit cards which pay for points, airline/hotel miles, etc. Ignoring for a moment that these fees constitute the bulk of airline profits, the end of these fees would further influence the choice of cashless credit payments vs cashless debit/ACH payments. Future payments like CBDCs are unlikely to have the perks of Present credit cards. CBDC downsides have been discussed on HN and elsewhere. It is technically possible to have cashless payment systems which preserve transaction freedom, without artificially conflating payments with digital identity. Even then, there will always be a role for physical payment mechanisms like cash.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- andirk 3y agoCashless is classist. Not everyone has easy access to banking. There's plenty of uses for credit, debit, wire, crypto, but thinking that cash doesn't have its place is short-sighted. Giving some 2-5% of every purchase to some other company for every transaction is not always the best way to do business. As someone heavily invested in Block (SQ) and Bitcoin (BTC), I suggest using cash for small vendors.
- actuallyrizzn 3y ago1/7th of the world can't use most non crypto cashless systems. That's not "better."