Maybe I'm biased but I much prefer the way the UK has handled this. Card payments are everywhere, contactless payments are everywhere (life changer in London's public transport where touching in and out with your phone/card automatically charges you the correct price meaning that you don't need to deal with tickets) and everyone still has the option to use cash.
Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
101–110 of 338 posts
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#102Cash in the only practical anonymous-when-you-need-it-to-be way to pay still. Don't let it die until we have alternative suitable anonymous and un-blockable-by-cyberattacks (eg. "it must still work while the internet is down") currencies! (Note: no, we don't have yet, all current crypto currencies are "barely working prototypes" at best, all of them have issues that still need ironing out! Bitcoin itself is like a pr…
Who are you quoting here?
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#103Part of why cashless works is the same reason the Swedish welfare state generally works: a trust of government. Contrast this with Germany and its history with...lists; it's best not to have yourself be too traceable. I think the US is somewhere in-between, but at the end of the day, we'll hand over a lot for 2% cashback and avoid paying for journalism at all costs.
That trust is ill-founded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sw...
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why, other than your privacy? Businesses that don't accept cash don't make any money when the infrastructure fails. If your revenue is dependent on your PoS device, Wi-Fi, ISP, payment provider, the payment provider's network infrastructure, banking network, and more that's a lot of risk. For most independent businesses having a working cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better opt…
Storing carbon copies of credit cards is something still supported for when the network goes down, see “credit card imprinter”
So Sweden has gone almost cashless but they still have a manual process relying on embossed numbers?
In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#105I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…
I've lived in Sweden for nearly 10 years, and the whole cashless aspect is really something I've embraced. Cashless payments dominated even 10 years ago, but I've also seen a massive change in the past 2-3 years with places no longer accepting cash. Grocery shops still do, but most restaurants, takeout places and cafes are cashless. On the contrary, I find myself irritated in Germany where cash is required.
The main thing I want to see is stronger privacy laws regarding transactions. There's some hope here with the EU. Data mining of purchase history should be banned outright for instance. That said, even though I'm privacy-concerned, I don't view cashless payments as one of the bigger threats. I refuse to own any store loyalty cards because they give the store an exact list of what I buy, tied to my identity, which is a much bigger privacy threat. My bank does know which grocery store I shop at, but that can be guessed with very high confidence anyway based on my address, which is public.
I'd like to see Sweden at the forefront of developing cashless societies. The national bank is testing the platform a state-backed cryptocurrency. With the right combination of technological and legal mechanisms, that is very much something I would like to see.
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#106Part of why cashless works is the same reason the Swedish welfare state generally works: a trust of government. Contrast this with Germany and its history with...lists; it's best not to have yourself be too traceable. I think the US is somewhere in-between, but at the end of the day, we'll hand over a lot for 2% cashback and avoid paying for journalism at all costs.
That trust is ill-founded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sw...
It's surprising and worrying how many countries merrily jumped on that bandwagon
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#107I'm Swedish and this stuff makes me really worried. Especially since the main way for two people to exchange small amounts of money is through a proprietary app that uses a proprietary ID system (owned by a for-profit company) that only runs on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.
I really hope this trend dies off, a cash-less society is a terrible idea.
I will say, however, that buses not taking cash is perfectly fine. They use NFC/RFID ticket cards which can't identify you. Not being able to buy tickets with cash is a little less fine.
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when you lose your card because you have a problem keeping track of physical objects do you then just go to the bank and they use the card replacing machine to issue you a new one right on the spot? That's pretty cool, I wish we had something like that here in Denmark because wow, I lose my card a lot and I have to go weeks without one. One time I lost my card, ordered a new one, the card arrived but the pin code…
If you really lose your card that often why don't you just order two to begin with? You'd have to take precautions like this even with normal money, since if you misplaced your monthly allowance you'd still be out for several weeks.
Because that’s not possible – you can’t have multiple cards with the same name on the same account.
I know, I’ve tried after I’ve spent the entirety of january without without a card due to losing one (and the bank fucking up the replacement).
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#109I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone. Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the…
I'm quite interested in your setup. You walk around with a feature phone and some bills? Sounds really Zen. I would like to get to that point. How do you navigate without Maps, Uber, etc.? Do your friends know you won't reply to texts? Maybe I'll buy a separate flip phone and leave the smart phone and credit cards at home just in case.
I mean, yes, that seems like how you would do it. If you've lived in your city for a while I don't think you'd really need maps all that often. I still remember printing out routes in the age before GPS!
Also, regarding texts, I carry an iPhone, but I'll answer text messages when it fits in, which can take hours. Don't want my phone to control my life.
Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how do poor people function in a cashless society?
They have bank accounts and debit cards like everyone else? In Sweden everyone can get Visa and Mastercard debit cards so you can even do internet purchases everywhere with them. If you mean how they transfer money between each other, they just use smart phones and Swish. Beggars even ask for money that way.
Swish and its identification system "Bank ID" are both owned and operated by for-profit companies. The clients only run on certain operating systems and they're actively preventing custom clients.
An app on your phone is not an alternative to handing a bill to someone.