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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

#541

Post by gaius »

FabHK wrote: post #372
Nition wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

POTS (plain old telephone service) is really amazing in many ways. Huge reliability, independent of the ordinary power grid, dead simple consistent UI, etc. (I have an IP phone at work, and it's an unintuitive unreliable beast.)

Right. It’s no big deal for anyone if there’s no mobile signal but no dial tone is shocking. Even when there’s a power cut the landlines still work. I have probably only experienced an outage of POTS a couple of times in my life.

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

#542

Post by speedplane »

umichguy wrote: post #538
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.

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.

Removing the headphone jack was a ballsy move, and Apple certainly knew it would irritate many.

But wireless headsets is arguably much better (at least Apple thinks so). So kudos to Apple for having going out on a limb to support something they really believe un.

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

#543

Post by ryanlol »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #516
kadendogthing wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nobody cares or wants this to a certain degree, compared to a better battery life Then why do consumers constantly praise thinner phones, and continue to purchase them? I think you're mistaking what you want and consider a good choice compared to what everyone else actually wants and is willing to support.

Do they? I inhabit a very different bubble then as I've only heard complaints amongst my friends and workmates lately. Even formerly enthusiastic ones. It reminds me of the 80s ghetto blasters fad. Size was the thing. As they got ever bigger they got far worse as there was so much resonant empty plastic and they distorted and rattled madly with volume anywhere over 2. Size and LEDs counted above all. Sound? LOL look…

>Even if I detest all the offerings as too big for any pocket I possess.

What do you wear?

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

#544

Post by speedplane »

felipemnoa wrote: post #243
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.

I've noticed this with mature technology. There comes a point where a product is perfect, no need to add anymore features. But the manufacturer still wants to continue adding new features so that they can use those as new selling points. Unfortunately the new features end up making the product worse.

What product has ever been perfect?

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

#545

Post by gaius »

addicted wrote: post #273
wild_preference wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Festivals I've been to will, say, require deposits of 100 peso increments and then the beers cost 80 pesos. And you can't get your money out. Even if you could get your money back, you're still waiting at lines to recharge the bracelet. It's a joke. With cash, you just come prepared and withdraw at any ATM long before the festival. Bracelets didn't solve any problem except disconnect the money handling event from the…

Why can’t you load the same amount of money on your bracelet before the festival as the cash you would be carrying? If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money. I’ve been to a festival which allowed us to withdraw money freely (I think they had some restrictions such as only 1…

not with the idea of digital money.

If every single actual implementation of an idea is bad then maybe the idea wasn’t such a great one either.

Contactless payments with a regular credit card are as far as this idea needed to go, everything else is either a gimmick or a rip-off attempt.

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

#546

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

anoncake wrote: post #515
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? You can get Swish on the App Store or Google Play for any country, and it works with any phone number, Swedish or not. The only requirements are that you 1) have a Swedish bank account that supports the service (not all banks do), and 2) have Mobilt BankID on your phone. If you possess a Swedish bank account and are in the Swedish Population Register, you should be able to get Mobilt BankID on your phone (which…

> Huh? You can get Swish on the App Store or Google Play for any country, and it works with any phone number, Swedish or not. That sounds like it makes it impossible for any other phone OS to enter the Swedish market.

To a degree. A bigger issue would actually be BankID, which is the secure online authentication service in Sweden, used by banks, government, insurance companies, etc.

But there are still, somehow, banks in Sweden which don't support one or the other. And, well, useful as Swish is, it's not actually obligatory for life in Sweden.

For what it's worth, BankID and Swish also support Windows Phone… for the remainder of 2018, anyway.

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

#547

Post by gaius »

robocat wrote: post #533
dmitriy_ko wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But try losing your card overseas and see how you feel then...

Depends on the card. With Amex or Diners Club it’s not a problem.

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

#548

Post by speedplane »

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 problem with prolonging long battery life, is that most people don’t care.

They are told what to buy from flashy ads and multimillion marketing budgets. Keeping the battery week keeps you tethered to your desk and requires you to think about every night b for bend)did I plug in my phone?)

Low battery drives usage. If you had a large weeklong battery, you might put your phone down every now and again without looking at it... a big no no for big tech.

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

#549

Post by stapled_socks »

Symbiote wrote: post #396
plufz wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atleast 99% of my payments in sweden are with a totally normal credit card, the rest with swish. I only use paper money to give to homeless people, can’t remember when I bought something with bills and coins. I think it’s great, I’m more worried about tax evasion than my government knowing what I buy. I’m more interested in my speech being free than my purchases, even though I can see the problem in non-functioning d…

Just today I went to a concert in Malmø where the bar is cash only. This is a medium sized place. You can withdraw cash by credit card at the ticket desk, to take to the bar and pay for drinks. It's annoying for people like me, occasional visitors from Denmark. I don't know why they don't have the chip and pin terminal at the bar.

People tip a lot more when paying in cash. Also, they can pocket some of the cash payments and avoid taxes.

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

#550

Post by picsao »

kadendogthing wrote: post #318
gsich wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones today.

Really? I think the smart phones we have are pretty brilliant and functional.

Seems you accidently hit the bugbye-button and dropped out midsentence. What good is it if you are a industries shillbilly and still have to use the same crappy hardware as the rest of us.
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