Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#201

Post by raxxorrax » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 12:56 PM UTC

type0 wrote: post #116

rlv-dan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay more often with cash today than some years ago, as a statement. Interestingly, if you talk about cash in Sweden the comments you will get tend to be very hostile. It's like talking about meat in a vegan community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

That is pretty interesting. Another one of these bad code of conducts.

> While the original intention was as satire, Kim Orlin Kantardjiev, a Norwegian politician and educational advisor, claims that the Law of Jante is taught in schools as more of a social code to encourage group behaviour.

If real life gets funnier than the original work, satire really gets into problems...

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#202

Post by socialdemocrat » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

I am Norwegian and we seldom use cash as well. I use cash perhaps a couple of times per year. However I am totally against the reliance on electronic payment. Cash should alway be a viable option.

Or at least the electronic payment systems we use need to be more robust. I remember from living in the Netherlands that they had a neat system called Chipknip. It was electronic money. So the machines accepting it did not rely on having a direct connection to a bank at all times.

It think if we are to be cashless we need something like that. It needs to be possible to make payments without having a physical connection to a bank at all times.

A big problem with electronic payment is that we are handing over a huge amount of cash to companies like VISA and Mastercard. I think when all of society operates in this fashion there really is a need for a government supported solution, because this is not merely a question of a "neat" feature you can buy but essential infrastructure in society.

It is reckless to leave such essential infrastructure in the hands of private companies.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#203

Post by Hasnep » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

hexl wrote: post #185

smichel17 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but spending time in Germany has changed my view on coins. See, in the US, coins are kind of useless on their own. You can't pay for anything with only coins, so giving exact change is always an extra step on top of paying with cash. Ugh. But in the EU, they have €1 and €2 coins, and it's difficult to overstate how much this changes the dynamic. It means that for purchase…

He didn't literally mean coins, it's cash what He was talking about.

They made the distinction between coins and paper cash:

> We could get rid of coins, and replace it with an electronic variant and leave paper cash alone.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#204

Post by robert_foss » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

smichel17 wrote: post #166

ksec wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I really hope this trend dies off, a cash-less society is a terrible idea.... Exactly. We could get rid of coins, and replace it with an electronic variant and leave paper cash alone. I am all for contactless payment, but I want the option to use cash. The only thing that guarantees privacy. And this is especially true in places without democracy, as shown in the Hong Kong Protest.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but spending time in Germany has changed my view on coins. See, in the US, coins are kind of useless on their own. You can't pay for anything with only coins, so giving exact change is always an extra step on top of paying with cash. Ugh. But in the EU, they have €1 and €2 coins, and it's difficult to overstate how much this changes the dynamic. It means that for purchase…

Being a Swede, who now lives in Germany I would say that there must be a middle ground between the extreme cash dependency of Germany and the opposite in Sweden.

I have no idea how you do your shopping and end up not getting a pool of useless 1/5 cent coins. People literally laugh you in the face if you try to purchase things with them. Your only option is to give them away or collect them in a jar.

And needing to constantly go to ATMs just to keep notes on you is kind of ridiculous.

However I've also been to card only restaurants in Sweden when the card network was down. There was no plan B, the payment interaction just fell apart.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#205

Post by TurningCanadian » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:03 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #158

kzrdude wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are real problems, too. One day Swedbank had an outage on their payment systems for more than 24 hours, and this is a bank that has a significant part of the country as customers (I'm just guessing, but it's above 10% for sure). People couldn't pay for anything, couldn't buy train tickets (all digital). The outage was so big that the train companies had to let commuters go without tickets, so at least those peo…

This is what really irks me here in the Netherlands too. I'm fine with digital payments (e.g., contactless debit cards) for the bulk of transactions, but cash should be guarded as a valid alternative. The past year I've several times been in a store where digital transactions didn't work for one reason or another (telephone line got cut by roadworks, internet modem crashed, etc.). Fine, I'll just pay with cash in the…

I don't think there's anything inherent to digital transactions that requires a working connection.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#206

Post by AnssiH » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

codr7 wrote: post #80

ecmascript wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that long ago I was on a ferry and their credit card readers didn't work properly. There was long lines for everyone that didn't have cash and as one of the few that always carry cash, I just walked in front of everyone.

Happens all the time, all of a sudden no one can buy food even though the food is still there and people are still willing to pay for it. Basing a society on such a shaky foundation is just stupid, period. The people in power who let this to happen should never be allowed to make an important decision again.

> The people in power who let this to happen should never be allowed to make an important decision again.

Out of interest, do you have some ideas on specific measures that could/should have been implemented to stop this development towards less cash?

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#207

Post by anthony_barker » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #204

smichel17 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but spending time in Germany has changed my view on coins. See, in the US, coins are kind of useless on their own. You can't pay for anything with only coins, so giving exact change is always an extra step on top of paying with cash. Ugh. But in the EU, they have €1 and €2 coins, and it's difficult to overstate how much this changes the dynamic. It means that for purchase…

Being a Swede, who now lives in Germany I would say that there must be a middle ground between the extreme cash dependency of Germany and the opposite in Sweden. I have no idea how you do your shopping and end up not getting a pool of useless 1/5 cent coins. People literally laugh you in the face if you try to purchase things with them. Your only option is to give them away or collect them in a jar. And needing to co…

Japan /Tokyo is super efficient in this. Every metro station allows you to add your pennies to your metro card in an efficient coin counter.

Bakeries in France now have this as well

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#208

Post by kome » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #202

I am Norwegian and we seldom use cash as well. I use cash perhaps a couple of times per year. However I am totally against the reliance on electronic payment. Cash should alway be a viable option. Or at least the electronic payment systems we use need to be more robust. I remember from living in the Netherlands that they had a neat system called Chipknip. It was electronic money. So the machines accepting it did not…

fully agree!

but i push it even further: i'm for electronic cash, but i'm against some american company (visa, mastercard) to know every transaction of mine.

I want public electronic cash. A public, national, non for profit infrastructure that manage cash.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#209

Post by elhudy » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

ACS_Solver wrote: post #179

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. You're engaging in self delusion if you think the almost uniformly cashless payment systems you embrace in Sweden don't already cause this to be the case about you down to the minutest level: with your payments, where you make them, what you buy, when, and a ver…

Unless I'm very wrong about the technical implementation, the data that the bank has is just the store where I shopped (merchant, card terminal) and the amount. They do not have data on what I bought, as in the data that's on the store's receipt. The store, on the other hand, only has the card number and not my name. This is where I see the need for legal protections. The store should not be allowed to keep that rece…

Consumption data (at least in the US) is tracked by two major vendors: Nielsen and IRI. They have all PoS data as it relates to you, and sell that data for $. The store, distributors, and cpg companies themselves all might buy this data.

Usually they sell it aggregated for reporting purposes but that's not to say they can't break it down to get to your granularity.

Re: Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018)

#210

Post by tda » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #204

smichel17 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but spending time in Germany has changed my view on coins. See, in the US, coins are kind of useless on their own. You can't pay for anything with only coins, so giving exact change is always an extra step on top of paying with cash. Ugh. But in the EU, they have €1 and €2 coins, and it's difficult to overstate how much this changes the dynamic. It means that for purchase…

Being a Swede, who now lives in Germany I would say that there must be a middle ground between the extreme cash dependency of Germany and the opposite in Sweden. I have no idea how you do your shopping and end up not getting a pool of useless 1/5 cent coins. People literally laugh you in the face if you try to purchase things with them. Your only option is to give them away or collect them in a jar. And needing to co…

The 1 and 2 cents problem can easily be solved by agreeing to stop using them and round all transactions to the nearest. Think we stopped using 1 and 2 cent coins in the Netherlands more than 15 years ago