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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

#531

Post by simonh »

gsich wrote: post #414
chrismcb wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart phones today have a long way to go before they come even close to perfect

You can already see that manufacturers have a hard time to come up with new features. Stuff like thinner devices (nobody cares or wants this to a certain degree, compared to a better battery life), 3+ cameras, notches because for some reason you can't integrate speakers behind the display. "AI" stuff that doesn't work when you're offline. I would trade all this shit for a week battery time. So yes, while smartphones…

The notch is for the camera and face scanner. Nothing to do with speakers. Ditching the front facing camera might get you half an hour or so battery life I suppose.

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

#532

Post by dewey »

bamboozled wrote: post #135
eksemplar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s festival payment done wrong, but cashless can be really great at festivals. In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build both your ticket and your cashless payment into the festival bracelet. You use the bracelet to pay everywhere, and you can add money to it a range of payment methods, from using a visa or similar in their app, to visiting one of the cash places where you can use…

The best payment experience I’ve had is cash. I pay for what I need and when I leave the festival I can still use my “credits” hassle free anywhere I like.

Every time I was at a festival there were some problems with ATMs not working, having no cash left etc.

I’d rather have the bracelet solution and don’t have to worry about having 100 coins in my pockets or losing my wallet.

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

#533

Post by robocat »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #433
Aeolun wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it does, you go to the bank and get more cash. If your card gets stolen however, you go to the bank, fill out a ton of forms, pay a fee for losing your card. Wait a few days for your new card to be delivered in the mail. And then, finally can you pay again. In the meanwhile, you are forced to pay with... cash! Which nobody accepts, because not having a debit card is socially unacceptable in our society.

I lost cards many times. Never been asked to pay a fee to get new card. No forms to fill out either. You just call them, tell them you need new card and they send it.

That's fine when you are at home - quick and painless.

But try losing your card overseas and see how you feel then... Especially if you have to put a stop on your card... Slow and very painful...

Unless you have a spare you'll be asking a friend to use Western Union for bridge finance.

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

#534

Post by Freak_NL »

PeterisP wrote: post #384
patd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sweden is not in eurozone, so SEPA credit transfers have limited usage there; the full SEPA process works only for EUR-to-EUR transfers.

It's also free for €-to-€ transfers. I paid for accommodation in Switzerland this summer from the Netherlands, and was glad that the proprietor didn't mind me transferring the deposit in Euros instead of Francs; the cost of sending an amount in Francs to Switzerland is quite high!

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

#535

Post by rebuilder »

tqwhite wrote: post #116
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…

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 necess…

The article doesn't even mention privacy or permissions. I see no reason to think either of those are being considered at all here. I mean, how would a state-issued stored-value card function without being traceable and revokable?

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

#536

Post by jonex »

SilasX wrote: post #161
hk__2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now the biggest problem with using crypto as your day to day money is that you cannot trust the money that you put into crypto to stay at the same value over time Isn’t that a problem you have with any currency?

Existing, non-crypto currencies don’t have that problem, mainly because of inertia: so many people are using it that exchange rates don’t affect ordinary prices denominated in the currency. When a cryptocurrency has such adoption, the volatility problem will go away too.

It isn't just inertia, there's also decades to centuries of developments in currencies with stability being one of the core goals. There are also plenty of examples of the system failing when current best practices weren't followed, even when adoption has been high.

The authorities behind the most popular crypto currencies today doesn't seem to be aiming for stability as a primary goal. The currencies would not be very meaningful as instruments for speculation if they were, which probably is the reason why stable cryptocurrencies aren't as popular.

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

#537

Post by username90 »

adobeeee wrote: post #440
jeofken wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anglophones, please, please, excuse me for replying in my native tounge. The cashless society engages my aversion such that it is hard to say in my second language. Så jävla enig alltså! Fy fan för detta inskränkta, ofria land! Jag avundas norrmän, daner, och finnar för att de slipper Rosenbad. Du, och alla andra skandinaver vet att genomsnittssvensken... har sina svårigheter. Ser fram mot min årliga skridskosemester…

How did you type those knots over a? I'm on windows.

Swedish has three extra letters in its alphabet, åäö, so Swedish keyboard layout has 'å' where american keyboards has '['. You can type them by switching to Swedish layout and pressing [.

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

#538

Post by umichguy »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #219
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…

That reminds me of Futurama episode where Bender finds a phone booth: "Now I don't need to carry my phone with me all the time!" Progress is sometimes a regress in disguise.

Replacing the 3.5mm headphone jack with USB-C or Bluetooth, even when some devices seemingly have space to accommodate them easily. I hate progress for progress sakes.

And audio quality on most Bluetooth headphone/earphones sucks. And now I have to carry a zillion dongles for everything.

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

#539

Post by drkrab »

ballenf wrote: post #477
jacobush wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did?

https://youtu.be/lqDhWTgOAiY Captain is handed a manual when plant life is discovered. Took him a second to stop talking to the book and start using his hands on the pages. It was a pretty quick scene, but humorous. Side note, the Wall-E short is great and one of the best Pixar shorts, imo.

Reminds me of this classic

https://youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ

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

#540

Post by umichguy »

Nition wrote: post #278
dmitriy_ko wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of Futurama episode where Bender finds a phone booth: "Now I don't need to carry my phone with me all the time!" Progress is sometimes a regress in disguise.

Plus a wired landline phone is always charged, with excellent reception.

And it works most of the time, even if the power goes down, there are storms or floods, as long as the wired connection is not down. When NYC lost power in the early oughties, guess which phones were still working? Yep, the pay phones and the landlines. Most of the cell phones were dying or dead. That said, I don't have one but my parents still do.
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