Why we should fear a cashless world • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#51

Post by Ntrails » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

realusername wrote: post #22

scholia wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the plus side, using a card gives you a good list so you can see what you've spent. This makes accounting simpler than using a cash book and accumulating receipts. On the minus side, I use contactless ("wave to pay") all the time now, and find I rarely look to see how much I'm spending on small transactions. Even with larger transactions, it doesn't feel like "real money".

I think it's the opposite for me, using cash makes it way easier to get an idea of how much I spend. I use the ATM three times per month with 100 pounds each so 300 pound/month in normal expenses. With card I would need to to an addition of everything per month.

My credit card bill this month is £500, That seems easier than "i had n trips to the ATM plus I think I had £30 in my wallet from last month and I got £25 from donna for the booze we bought in France over the summer"?

Not only that, I can download a monthly spreadsheet of all my transactions, pivot them into a simple table and so on and so forth. Data out the wazoo. £105 a month on tube fares. £235 a month on lunch. £17 on fuel. Knowing where I spent it is as useful if not more so than how much I spent in total.

Then of course there is the free money I get from spending on a card. It all seems like a no brainer. And I never need to go to an ATM. And most the time I just lean my wallet against a card reader and mosey onwards.

I'm not sold.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#52

Post by gizi » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

nmrm2 wrote: post #20

fennecfoxen wrote: post #14

> We already live in a world that is, as far as the > distribution of wealth is concerned, about as unequal > as it gets. It may even be as unequal as it’s ever been. Sure, if by "a world" you mean "a hyper-prosperous nation like the US or the UK"... and if by "unequal as it's ever been" you mean that third-world countries are taking our jobs and becoming much more prosperous, hitting our middle income brackets - the…

> If you really mean globally, then inequality is in fact falling. No. Inequality is decreasing between nations as the developing world catches up with the west. But inequality within nations -- even developing nations -- is increasing. It's possible for inequality to increase as the the developing world catches up to the west; in fact, that's exactly what's happening. So the old geographical distributions are very s…

> and lessen nation states' ability to combat inequality with policy

Ok, one person is a great programmer making good money and another person is not interested in any of that and makes less money. I do not see any inequality here that needs to be combated with policy. One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less interested.

You cannot turn the losers into winners, but you can certainly alienate the surviving winners and convince them to build their next factory in China instead, or do their next startup from a beach in the Philippines.

Instead of reducing inequality, the outcome will become very biased by profits made in China or the Philippines, and therefore lead to even more inequality. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At the basis, quite a bit of inequality is caused by the fact that some people happen to be smarter. Your policy will obviously not outsmart them. Therefore, if your policy has any effect, it will inevitably be exactly the opposite of what it was meant to be.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#53

Post by carlob » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

Here in Italy the big issue is that many business will just not declare cash transactions. It's pretty common not to be given a receipt when buying a coffee and often when you visit a doctor they'll say: do you want the invoice or a discount?

A couple of friends got married recently and I found out they paid over half of what the owed in cash to get pretty decent discount.

So before we talk privacy and company let's remember that this kind of hidden economy has a huge cost for society and it's very widespread in southern Europe.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#54

Post by dagw » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

gonvaled wrote: post #31

stan_rogers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine being lined up at the equivalent of a cash register with every single person in front of you taking "a minute or so" beyond what a transaction currently requires. Nobody's hiring additional cashiers (or whatever they'd call them) or self-checkout kiosk supervisors (to go along with the extra kiosks) if there isn't any extra money to be had.

You fire one cashier and install 100 self checkout machines. Problem solved!

Where are you going to put the food if you fill up your entire grocery store with 100 checkout machines? Also spending a minute or so waiting for the checkout machine to clear my transaction still sounds like huge pain in the ass.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#55

Post by b2384912 » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #23

mikegioia wrote: post #10

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and…

Or even better on the frivolous spending, the "I don't have enough on me right now" situation. If it's really important, you'll come back. If you need to trim your purchase from the grocery store to match what's in your wallet, the stuff you didn't really need factors in. It makes you MUCH more conscious of how much things cost because you don't want to get to the checkout and be short.

>I don't have enough on me right now

Yeah I remember that situation. I accidentally left my card at home. I didn't have lunch that day and I barely managed to drive home with an almost empty fuel tank.

To me looking at the balance on my phone is far quicker than counting all the damn coins. 1 cent coins are such a huge annoyance that I'd rather throw them into the trash than actually pay with them.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#56

Post by liveify » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:12 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

mikegioia wrote: post #10

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and…

Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to-generation thing.

I'm definitely the same here. Taking cash out at an ATM feels the same as spending it. It's spent money to me.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#57

Post by blowski » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:12 PM UTC

gizi wrote: post #52

nmrm2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really mean globally, then inequality is in fact falling. No. Inequality is decreasing between nations as the developing world catches up with the west. But inequality within nations -- even developing nations -- is increasing. It's possible for inequality to increase as the the developing world catches up to the west; in fact, that's exactly what's happening. So the old geographical distributions are very s…

> and lessen nation states' ability to combat inequality with policy Ok, one person is a great programmer making good money and another person is not interested in any of that and makes less money. I do not see any inequality here that needs to be combated with policy. One possible result of such policy would be that both will turn out to be less interested. You cannot turn the losers into winners, but you can certai…

> At the basis, quite a bit of inequality is caused by the fact that some people happen to be smarter

Quite a bit is also caused by the undue influence rich people have over the policy-making process, helping them to ensure they remain rich by constructing 'glass ceilings'. Saying "well unless we give in to their demands otherwise they'll take our jobs to China" is simply not a good enough response.

As a middle-income web developer in the UK, I have more in common with a middle-income web developer in Bangalore or Shanghai than I do with a multi-millionaire in London or California.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#58

Post by Shivetya » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

I think the primary reason is a loss of privacy and freedom. With a digital currency all your purchases can be tracked. You also lose freedom in that government at any level could suddenly make some products or service illegal, throw in that they could retroactively do so.

Of course there is monetary policy too. Negative interest rates try to force spending to correct bad government policies which usually are the cause of depressed spending. Then combine this with the idea that printing digital currency is as simply as flicking a switch which would rapidly devalue currency in people's accounts.

Simply put, its another attack on privacy and the freedom it entails

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#59

Post by Olscore » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

Olscore wrote: post #24

A good conversation of "why we should fear a cashless world" should at least mention the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel in The Bible. It would be negligent to omit them from discussion like this.

Friends who are replying, my intent is not to stir up debate between Christians or about religion. The Books mentioned are relevant to this topic. They are good reading for anyone interested. Based on the down votes it seems HN would rather not include them while discussing this topic; which is all the more reason to go read them for yourself. They remain significant in our modern culture, e.g., music, books, movies and the lives of billions of people (worldwide.) While 1984 and many other dystopian novels are good for thought experiments...

These Books are relevant both historically and today.

Re: Why we should fear a cashless world

#60

Post by BinaryResult » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #11

adrianN wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash and current forms of electronic payment have the nice feature that the seller gets their money almost immediately. As I understand it, bitcoin transactions take a while to confirm. I wouldn't want to stick around in the shop until some miner got around to my transaction.

Small payments using BitPay require one confirmation, and that typically only takes a minute or so. Their fee (1%, I think) covers reversal risk.

One confirmation on average is approximately 10 minutes. Most small value payments are acceptable with zero confirmation once the payment has been broadcast to the majority of nodes which only takes a few seconds.