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My local supermarket, in London, had an internet outage yesterday, and couldn't take card payments. Their cash machine was out of action too. They had staff out
by twic 3y ago
My local supermarket, in London, had an internet outage yesterday, and couldn't take card payments. Their cash machine was out of action too. They had staff outside telling everyone as they came in; some carried on in, many went elsewhere. Most people don't carry enough to cash to do meaningful grocery shopping these days.
- jameshart 3y agoDid a food riot start?
- Brian_K_White 3y agoDid this question have a point? It did not.
- jameshart 3y agoTo draw attention to the motte and Bailey nature of this argument. The Bailey: ‘cashless payment is fragile and a single outage would lead to riots in the streets’ The Motte: ‘internet and power outages happen and are annoying’ Evidence for the easily defended motte position does not defend the outrageous Bailey.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoAs suspected, no point. (nothing was validated or invalidated)
- jameshart 3y agoAn instance of one outage not causing a food riot is pretty clear evidence against the proposition that digital payment systems are one outage away from food riots.
- tester457 3y agoThankfully not. But imagine if power was out for several days or weeks, which will happen in the future as natural disasters get worse.
- twic 3y agoNo, but there was a reasonably priced French red wine riot.