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I feel like it would be easy to just mandate stores to have to allow for cash transactions. It seems simple to enforce too, just walk into a store and try and b

I feel like it would be easy to just mandate stores to have to allow for cash transactions. It seems simple to enforce too, just walk into a store and try and by something with cash. If not, report/fine. As a Canadian, I also feel like there are so many more pressing issues right now, like housing, employment, inflation, immigration. Does this cash/cashless issue somehow affect one of these things?

vasco 2y ago
They take away your freedom in one area X, and when they want to take away your freedom in another area Y you go, "it's ok, we have bigger problems like X".
- causal 2y ago
  Well said. Not to mention the absurd implication that the housing crisis would somehow be helped by neglecting this issue.
throw0101b 2y ago
> I feel like it would be easy to just mandate stores to have to allow for cash transactions. While cards have fees, cash has overhead too: you need to go to the bank for deposits, make sure you have enough change, worry about people walking in robbing your till (thus traumatizing staff), keeping a balance (to reduce 'shrinkage' from employees). Yes, it is "easy" to mandate it, but that is adding a 'regulatory burden' to business owners.
- sbarre 2y ago
  It's also problematic for the thousands of solo micro-businesses that operate in markets and pop-ups now (i.e. Etsy IRL). Most of them have a phone and a Square dongle, and that's it. Asking all those one-person shops and merchants to start carrying around a float and writing out paper receipts (or having some kind of battery-powered till+printer) is a pretty big burden.
  - Magi604 2y ago
    Stores have been doing this since the dawn of...stores. Or at least when currency was first invented. There are very established processes and practices for this sort of thing. It's a cost of doing business, in the same way people pay for rent etc. for their stores.
    - thethimble 2y ago
      The fact that many such businesses have become cashless suggests that the ROI of accepting cash is not worth the cost/burden. Therefore it’s not a fundamental “cost of doing business” and instead just a mechanism to reach a subset of customers that prefer cash. I agree that mandating businesses to support cash is unnecessary regulatory burden. After all, shouldn’t it be the shopkeeper’s right to do business how they please?
    - brainwad 2y ago
      Right, but now there are more efficient systems (the aforementioned Square dongle). We usually welcome technological progress that reduces costs, why opppose it in this case? The colourful pieces of paper and specially squished lumps of metal have been obsoleted. The solution isn't to force people to keep using cash, it's to make an electronic money system that has the good properties cash has (issued and backed by the government; directly tranferable between payer and payee; mostly anonymous but theoretically traceable in case of massive theft/fraud).
      - djhn 2y ago
        Why oppose? Privacy. Freedom. Democracy. Equality.
        brainwad 2y ago
        TBH I don't see why the market sellers should have to pay for that. Like I said, the solution is to offer a privacy/freedom/etc-preserving electronic payment system that is a real successor to cash, but still has the low costs that make businesses want to go cashless and the convenience that makes consumers want to.
- michael_vo 2y ago
  Yeah totally agree. Every form of payment comes with pros and cons. Maybe one idea is to come up with many alternative payment methods. In Africa I've read everyone pays with a phone number. In USA government gives food bank cards loaded with money. Maybe a system where anyone can load cash onto a card easily through any ATM machine.
standardUser 2y ago
Some US jurisdictions do require businesses accept cash. My company would love to stop taking cash, but because some locations are in those jurisdictions it's easier to just take it everywhere.

vasco 2y ago

They take away your freedom in one area X, and when they want to take away your freedom in another area Y you go, "it's ok, we have bigger problems like X".

causal 2y ago
Well said. Not to mention the absurd implication that the housing crisis would somehow be helped by neglecting this issue.

throw0101b 2y ago

> I feel like it would be easy to just mandate stores to have to allow for cash transactions. While cards have fees, cash has overhead too: you need to go to the bank for deposits, make sure you have enough change, worry about people walking in robbing your till (thus traumatizing staff), keeping a balance (to reduce 'shrinkage' from employees). Yes, it is "easy" to mandate it, but that is adding a 'regulatory burden' to business owners.

sbarre 2y ago
It's also problematic for the thousands of solo micro-businesses that operate in markets and pop-ups now (i.e. Etsy IRL). Most of them have a phone and a Square dongle, and that's it. Asking all those one-person shops and merchants to start carrying around a float and writing out paper receipts (or having some kind of battery-powered till+printer) is a pretty big burden.
- Magi604 2y ago
  Stores have been doing this since the dawn of...stores. Or at least when currency was first invented. There are very established processes and practices for this sort of thing. It's a cost of doing business, in the same way people pay for rent etc. for their stores.
  - thethimble 2y ago
    The fact that many such businesses have become cashless suggests that the ROI of accepting cash is not worth the cost/burden. Therefore it’s not a fundamental “cost of doing business” and instead just a mechanism to reach a subset of customers that prefer cash. I agree that mandating businesses to support cash is unnecessary regulatory burden. After all, shouldn’t it be the shopkeeper’s right to do business how they please?
  - brainwad 2y ago
    Right, but now there are more efficient systems (the aforementioned Square dongle). We usually welcome technological progress that reduces costs, why opppose it in this case? The colourful pieces of paper and specially squished lumps of metal have been obsoleted. The solution isn't to force people to keep using cash, it's to make an electronic money system that has the good properties cash has (issued and backed by the government; directly tranferable between payer and payee; mostly anonymous but theoretically traceable in case of massive theft/fraud).
    - djhn 2y ago
      Why oppose? Privacy. Freedom. Democracy. Equality.
      - brainwad 2y ago
        TBH I don't see why the market sellers should have to pay for that. Like I said, the solution is to offer a privacy/freedom/etc-preserving electronic payment system that is a real successor to cash, but still has the low costs that make businesses want to go cashless and the convenience that makes consumers want to.
michael_vo 2y ago
Yeah totally agree. Every form of payment comes with pros and cons. Maybe one idea is to come up with many alternative payment methods. In Africa I've read everyone pays with a phone number. In USA government gives food bank cards loaded with money. Maybe a system where anyone can load cash onto a card easily through any ATM machine.

standardUser 2y ago

Some US jurisdictions do require businesses accept cash. My company would love to stop taking cash, but because some locations are in those jurisdictions it's easier to just take it everywhere.