281–290 of 357 posts
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The network is still the third party. With cash, or bottle caps, or any physical token, all you need are two people that agree it has value. Possession is the ledger.
The network can still run between those two people alone (if consolidation is solved).
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1. Can your cash do this? [1] A breakdown of spending by my internet bank, by category. 4. In Sweden, and some other European countries (and China?) a lemonade stand works by person-to-person bank transfers, initiated using a mobile phone app. The Swedish one is called Swish, but I link to the Danish one [2] as they have an English explanation. People really do use these apps for things like lemonade stands. I've see…
> 4. In Sweden, and some other European countries (and China?) a lemonade stand works by person-to-person bank transfers, initiated using a mobile phone app. The Swedish one is called Swish, but I link to the Danish one [2] as they have an English explanation. The United States has this via Venmo. But Venmo doesn't replace business transactions, only personal ones.
Venmo falls well short of the transfer apps in most countries.
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> 2 - Cards are an duopoly, layered onto an oligopoly. Cashless gives this system a 2% tax on all spending (+ fraud, which retailers pay for). Not in the European Union where this fee is capped to 0,3%.
Do you have a source for this? I never heard it before.
[1] https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight...
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Yeah I tried to find the rates that Swish charges to businesses but didn't find them (although didn't look to thoroughly either). But can it really be even below the 0,2% of cap for debit cards?
Swish is 1 to 2 SEK (2 being the list price that can be negotiated) per transaction. Then swish has a daily cap of payments you as user can do of 150k SEK (system limit, not a soft cap that the user can remove).
Looks like most people in this comments section are afraid to pass for a luddite if they don't support cashless transactions. But the argument about centralized system watching every payment you make is still valid. Why are people so eager to jump off something and irreversibly lose its good properties (anonymity, decentralization and reliability in case of analogue money) and that just for the sake of minor comfort?…
It's not just "centralized system watching every payment you make", but also a possibility that it could veto your payment. The crude option is when 'undesirable' citizens will not be given credit cards, or if all their cards 'accidentally' stop functioning the same day to teach them a lesson. When no shop sells you food for money, your options are to beg, steal, or starve. A more sophisticated option could be 'intel…
This is confusing. I thought it was just a couple of friends and I that thought that cashless is a horrible idea. Seems like we at least have older people on our side. > Yet Sweden is divided into two camps: the first says "we love the new technology", while the other just can’t be bothered, Skarec says. Also, it is scary that people think like this. Everyone is in such a rush to digitize everything and implement new…
This is an uncanny coincidence. Just today I (being a Swede in the largest city) wanted to deposit some old bills, and found out my primary bank went completely cashless years ago, and my secondary bank never dealt in cash to begin with. This sounded so weird to me so I had to google it while on the phone with the support rep. Turns out it's a big shift where at some point around ten years ago, the government release…
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Smaller resturants prefer cash, because it allows them to evade taxes by underquoting their profits. The same reason that builders quote less for "cash only" prices This is one of the main reasons that governments are pushing for cashless systems, because there is less evetax evasion and increased revenue
It is incredibly rare that a builder would accept physical cash, they will be paid by check or bank transfer. Builders quote less because there is less risk of finance delays, and a greater chance of completing the project for cash buyers than those that depend on a draw and continued credit from a bank.
The builders benefit because they then wont pay any income tax on the job
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Personally it's because I think a cashless state is "evil" in that now all spending is gatekept by someone - usually a government or large business. Plus tracking every dollar you spend is also problematic for me as well. So I spend cash whenever possible simply to "vote" that I am willing to deal with a little more hassle in the name of freedom. I also don't like that some private party has effectively inserted them…
What you just described can be applied to banks just like payment transaction companies. They both exist to make our lives easier and prevent us from having to hoard cash under our mattresses. They also provide a safe means of doing business. We live in a digital age and it’s only going to evolve faster. Money is nothing more than numbers in a system.
Heh, and someone would say that Facebook posts don't say much about you, but I bet really quickly how and where you spend money give a good profile of who you are.
Looks like most people in this comments section are afraid to pass for a luddite if they don't support cashless transactions. But the argument about centralized system watching every payment you make is still valid. Why are people so eager to jump off something and irreversibly lose its good properties (anonymity, decentralization and reliability in case of analogue money) and that just for the sake of minor comfort?…
The problem too is that too many people believe our laws are just and moral. The US economy has become a slave to our ability to invent laws and automated ways to monitor and enforce them. And in a world where you already know 2% of the population is breaking a would be law, from a certain perspective the act of lawmaking is actually profit generation. It's the perfect crime.
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Have you not used a modern contactless payment system before? They're fast enough to be used on the barriers of underground railway systems which see thousands of passengers pass through at peak times. Even the time taken to empty the contents of your wallet into the appropriate slot of a cash system takes longer than those machines, never mind time taken to process the notes and coins, dispense change and allow you…
> Have you not used a modern contactless payment system before? They're fast enough to be used on the barriers of underground railway systems which see thousands of passengers pass through at peak times. That isn't that impressive when you consider the equivalent traffic was handled in cash before electronic payment systems even existed. > Even the time taken to empty the contents of your wallet into the appropriate…