331–340 of 628 posts
My problem with cashless and just about everything electronic tech is: What happens when the network/power fails? What's the goto alternative? No one seems to point that out? It should not stop progress but it's important to make contingency plans in case of mass failure. I wonder if salt as money will be fashionable again? :)
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…
Every time people talk about a cashless society, I tell them about stuff like this both abstractly and concretely, and then I just get called a luddite. I think, unfortunately, that people will have to learn this lesson the hard way. I don't own a working smartphone, my last one (like the one before it) failed randomly in the display, and was unjustifiably difficult to RMA (no box provided, no postage, unclear detail…
Even though the situation in Europe in fragmented, it's a lot cheaper for merchants.
How do tourists deal with Sweden? Can you get a temporary Swish account?
In fact, it’s easier now. Before chip and now contactless was ubiquitous like it is now, I got all the krone mixed up. Traveling back and forth from Copenhagen and Malmo with cash was the worst. Couldn’t tell the difference but the locals absolutely could!
Hardly independent.... this is an advert for e-krona a crypto alternative to cash/electronic payments. Strawman.... title is built on a false premise that someone argued Sweden's cashless society was a utopia. Can't believe I clicked on this.
The "advert" was written by the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sweden.
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> Utopia my ass It actually IS a Utopia, by Thomas More's original definition; a society that appears idyllic and perfectly organised on the surface, but is only maintained in that state by everyone doing what they're supposed to do. And that is achieved by enforcing total compliance through surveillance and coercion. The point of the book is that the reader really wouldn't want to live in Utopia once he understands…
I fail to see how Sweden in this case is enforcing the cashless trends through surveillance or coercion.
I would guess some surveillance is involved in terms of audits of banks, but it might not fit the technical definition of surveillance.
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I have some friends who find that they budget much more successfully when they use only cash... they can see exactly what they have left this week or month.
"Because I lack mental discipline a technology must be bad" This is an argument in the same vein as any number of self-assured blog posts which do the rounds through HN of "Why I stopped using X" and "Y considered harmful". Power to your friends maybe, but it's not an argument one way or another over the merits of the system - its an argument about things they do personally to ensure self-discipline.
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…
There will always be other solutions at hand, these guys are doing something about it: https://www.revolut.com Same as swish but no need for Swedish banks nor BankID. I use Swish extensively because it works for giving kids cash remote and at the same time buying a car. If I would stumple on someone who is unable to use it it would be troublesome, but I think most swedes would break their neck to solve it anyhow in t…
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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.
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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.)