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Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

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Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#111

Post by nabla9 »

This is huge systemic risk (the possibility that an event at the company level could trigger severe instability or collapse an entire industry or economy).

When the systems in major Nordic bank (Nordea, Danske Bank) or payment system (Visa, MasterCard) goes down, people can't do anything until it's fixed. These things are rare but they happen. Usually it's just few hours, but if the condition persists even few days it becomes a major problem.

Mobile payment and cards are nice, but cash is good backup system.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#113

Post by mrb »

tjoff wrote: post #53
sparkie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has already been implemented (Bitcoin, Monero etc), and is improving gradually. The control freaks who would not like to tolerate it think they'll be able to tame it, but Bitcoin is like the Hydra - it gets stronger with every unsuccessful attack attempt. It's better for them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist in order to not bring attention to it. When they eventually lift their heads ou…

Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor untraceable. Replacing cash with bitcoin would be a nightmare.

Other cryptos are fully anonymous & untraceable. For example zcash uses zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to conceal all elements of a transaction (sender, receiver, amount.)

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#114

Post by StavrosK »

patd wrote: post #110
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

Aren't you asking a bit too much info for a simple SEPA transfer ? The IBAN should be all you really need, the rest are nice to have.

True, but that doesn't weaken his point.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#115

Post by StavrosK »

tridentlead wrote: post #108
mrb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any time » Yes, "permission" is the right vocabulary to use in this instance. In fact, the opposite, being "permissionless", is exactly one of the main selling points of cryptocurrencies: no authority can prevent a user from sending or receiving bitcoins, or ether, etc. This is why cryptocurrencies should be seen as competing with cash, and not wi…

Unless big brother cuts off your connection to the wider web Edit spelling

You don't necessarily need a connection. It can work just as well with a QR code signature that the recipient uses later to broadcast the transaction.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#116

Post by tqwhite »

mrb wrote: post #104
CPLX wrote: post #14

A society without cash is a society in which every person has no choice but to get the permission of someone they don’t know and will never meet each and every time they seek to obtain food, water, shelter, or transportation, and that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any time.

« that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any time » Yes, "permission" is the right vocabulary to use in this instance. In fact, the opposite, being "permissionless", is exactly one of the main selling points of cryptocurrencies: no authority can prevent a user from sending or receiving bitcoins, or ether, etc. This is why cryptocurrencies should be seen as competing with cash, and not wi…

The article says clearly that they are trying to figure out a stored value card. If they do, the only chilling part is if the means of exchanging it was somehow unobtainable.

It's worth remembering that cash is no clear panacea. Germany's inflation made it unworkable. Some countries have arbitrarily changed currency. Its value is based on agreement.

A true e-currency would have different problems. It would not necessarily be bad.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#117

Post by radicalbyte »

tjoff wrote: post #53
sparkie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has already been implemented (Bitcoin, Monero etc), and is improving gradually. The control freaks who would not like to tolerate it think they'll be able to tame it, but Bitcoin is like the Hydra - it gets stronger with every unsuccessful attack attempt. It's better for them to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist in order to not bring attention to it. When they eventually lift their heads ou…

Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor untraceable. Replacing cash with bitcoin would be a nightmare.

Thankfully it's not possible thanks to the wait time :-)

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#118

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

xrd wrote: post #109
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

I'm curious, would your colleagues consider using bitcoin or ethereum as a method of exchange? Could you send them that to pay them back and they could pay on your behalf? If not, why? edit: auto complete filled in butcoin, corrected. Not sure how that got in my dictionary!

Is that more convenient than a bank transfer? Now the other party needs to sign up to a bitcoin exchange.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#119

Post by Numberwang »

tqwhite wrote: post #112

Misleading title alert!!! It says nothing about it's being a utopia or having stopped being one. It is an interesting article about the eventuality of a truly cash-free society and its consequences. Only the title is stupid.

The title matches the comments here in stupidity.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#120

Post by kristofferR »

xrd wrote: post #109
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

I'm curious, would your colleagues consider using bitcoin or ethereum as a method of exchange? Could you send them that to pay them back and they could pay on your behalf? If not, why? edit: auto complete filled in butcoin, corrected. Not sure how that got in my dictionary!

My "music festival colleagues"? :P

Joking aside, sure, crypto would be a great solution if they were already using it. They weren't however, and trying to introduce someone half-drunk and in a party vibe to crypto is not a good idea.

If I had asked them to use crypto afterwards I would just have imposed a lot of extra work on them, which wouldn't be nice considering they did me a service by lending to me and blindly trusting me to send it back.

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