I don't know about Sweden or EU but in The Netherlands cash is legal tender. If a shop does not clearly communicate cash isn't accepted, you can consider your transaction finalized. Its the problem of the business; not the customer.
Swedes turn against cashlessness
51–60 of 357 posts
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#52As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I understand there is a slight charge to the vendor when charging to a credit or bank card, but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs.
I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems
I am deeply comfortable with the idea that I have the option to keep my spending habits private, and not subject to data mining. I also like the idea of not being tracked all the time, and I like the idea of general anonymity. I don't like the idea that my options are being removed form me, with no discernible benefit to me. You like paying by card? Excellent, go right ahead. I like to have the option, sometimes cash, sometimes electronic.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are you buying that you have to enter the amount into the POS to open the drawer but not to start the card transaction? You can't consider the time it takes to enter the amount only in the case that suits you. If you have to enter the amount for cash, you have to enter it for the card as well.
You have to enter the amount the person is actually delivering... If the total is 18.45€, I'll probably be paying with a 20€, which the cashier has to input. Now that I think of it, I guess not all POSs require that (the cashier does the calculation for the change in their head), but in my experience they aren't common.
Oh, what people do over here is "count up" to the amount. So if you give them 20€ for 18.45€, they go "5 cents to 18.50, 50 to 19, 1 euro and that's 20, here you go". That's a pretty fast method.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe there are other factors than obsession with the speed and "productivity" effect of the money-transfer part of a transaction. Your meal and beer entering your mouth probably took 100x as long as the difference between counting change and swiping a card. So why not puree them together? And damn anyone who thinks it was important to keep them separate; incomprehensible.
I think that's an unnecessarily hostile viewpoint. Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient". I don't think anyone would argue that since cars are bigger than cell phones, that we should make our cell phones as big as cars (it's incomprehensible to think that cars and cell phones should be different sizes)…
> Basically your argument boils down to "some things take longer to do than other things, so there's no point in making things easier/faster/more efficient".
The argument is Amdahl's Law. Making something twice as fast which itself constitutes only 4% of the total latency doesn't make the whole task twice as fast, it only makes it 2% faster. Which absolutely does change how much you're willing to compromise in order to make that happen.
> I don't think anyone would argue that since humans can only walk ~3mph, that airplanes should be limited to the same speed (it's incomprehensible to think that airplanes and humans should travel at different speeds). So why should we use a slower and less efficient payment method just because humans walk slower than an airplane flies?
Because walking and flying are alternatives to each other rather than two components of the same task.
Consider why most people don't commute by air travel. Even if a plane would actually get you to work sooner, it isn't enough of an improvement to be worth the cost. You would still have to get to and from the airport, which creates a minimum latency no matter how fast the plane flies, and air travel is simply more expensive than driving.
Which is why high frequency traders pay electronically and not with cash, and why people traveling long distances fly. But people buying hamburgers may prefer to pay cash in a store they walked to because it's two blocks from where they live.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd argue that this is good for the economy. Economies are strong when money is changing hands a lot. If people hoard all their pennies, then money isn't changing hands, business isn't growing, and the economy stagnates.
Pointlessly spending more money than necessary probably isn't good for your health as an individual though, and arguably the push to get more people to spend more money more often isn't good for a society. It might be good for their economy, but economy ≠ society. If you really just want to inflate the amount of money being spent, there's always room for more rent-seekers and debt collectors.
Also, it may be "good for the economy" if "good" is "more money being spent". But that's too valueless for my taste. A stupid utility function. If you by "economy" mean as a metric for other utility in the society, then, spending money on stupid stuff, is just akin to digging holes and then filling them again.
Only that, the holes are very elaborate. (Like perfumes or stupid shit like a metric crap ton of TVs nobody uses anyway because we are busy staring at a much smaller screen in our palm.)
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#56From what I've seen here in London (UK), mostly tourists use cash. Everybody else uses contactless payments. You can pay with contactless cards or apple/android pay on the public transport or on your corner grocery store. And with the new fin-tech banks like Monzo, Starling or Revolut the banking apps are light years ahead of traditional banks.
I was quite an early user of Revolut and I do feel like they're gradually ruining their service at the moment. I would actually say that my bank (NatWest) has a better mobile experience than them right now. Revolut seem to spend all their time coming up with new marketing schemes to shill cheap partnership products, like phone insurance or health insurance, rather than improving their core product. Their interface seems to hide a lot of the useful features, and the language is often confusing or just wrong ("Device Insurance" is actually "Phone Insurance", as you can't insure anything without an IMEI number).
I've moved most of my travel purchasing over to TransferWise's new card. It's lacking a few features but it feels less...dodgy, frankly.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#57Note that apart from privacy issues and technical problems (Puerto Rico blackout, anybody?) numerous studies indicate that people spend less money when using cash instead of credit cards. That's one reason for the big push by the banks, shops, restaurants, and media to "go cashless".
I'd argue that this is good for the economy. Economies are strong when money is changing hands a lot. If people hoard all their pennies, then money isn't changing hands, business isn't growing, and the economy stagnates.
>I'd argue that this is good for the economy. Economies are strong when money is changing hands a lot.
That's an axiom, not a fact.
Or rather, it only becomes a fact when people want X and Y and Z out of the economy (e.g. constant growth) over other values (e.g. avoiding environmental externalities, non-shopping-related quality of life, stability, equality).
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first two points involve the way the citizens "feel" and not is actually most productive. As for the preparedness of a nation to handle a cashless economy during a time of war, wouldn't a electronic ledger be must safer and reliable than if the government say just started printing more money leading to inflation problems. This has happens numerous times throughout times of history during war and could be avoided…
More reliable? We are not living in a world where every roof is covered with solar panels. Our network is not a wireless mesh. During a war power plants will get bombed. Network and power cables will get bombed. Roads, railroads and bridges will get bombed, so power plants wouldn't even get fuel.
Heck, if they wanted to be really surgical, they could just bomb the power lines entering the power plants. The effect would be total shock and aw but much easier to reconnect afterwards when they have the new puppet regime in place.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#59From what I've seen here in London (UK), mostly tourists use cash. Everybody else uses contactless payments. You can pay with contactless cards or apple/android pay on the public transport or on your corner grocery store. And with the new fin-tech banks like Monzo, Starling or Revolut the banking apps are light years ahead of traditional banks.
But there is a jump from there to saying "cash should be eliminated". It's like saying that, because Amazon is light-years ahead of traditional retail, all traditional shops should be made illegal.
Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness
#60I don't know about Sweden or EU but in The Netherlands cash is legal tender. If a shop does not clearly communicate cash isn't accepted, you can consider your transaction finalized. Its the problem of the business; not the customer.
It should be noted that in the UK, legal tender has a very narrow definition - it applies only to paying a debt at a court. It doesn't apply to your local shops. This is a common misconception.