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What is the cost of a cashless society?

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Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#101

Post by EdwardDiego »

alx__ wrote: post #99
EdwardDiego wrote: post #91

New Zealand has gone largely cashless (and entirely chequeless). Everyone is paid by direct credit to their account. You pay your bills via direct credit / debit. I don't think any bank is charging fees (for customers) for electronic transactions via card, or direct credits/debits. They don't even charge a fee for using another bank's ATM anymore. I am always amazed at how often people in the US mention cheques. NZ r…

> anyone can have a bank account with no fees, no matter how spotty your previous track record. We're still working on that idea :(

Yeah, it was realised that a bank of last resort was needed.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#102

Post by silverpepsi »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #10

Another thing to consider in that credit and debit card processing fees, which in the US are substantial, especially for small merchants that can't use large volume to negotiate a discount. This amounts to a ~3% hidden "tax" on all transactions, the bulk of which goes to one of four enormous corporations.

I thought this for the longest time and couldn't believe how often it was overlooked

Then I ran across an article talking about business owners for whom handling cash (there are many associated costs, safely transporting it, employee theft risk, time counting it, so on)....is actually more costly than the credit card middle man fees so they stopped accepting it.

Surely it varies case by case but still I was a bit flabbergasted

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#103

Post by cmroanirgo »

mcv wrote: post #79
kevincox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give me the choice between being able to buy a loaf of bread and having my payments private I'm feeding myself ten times out of ten. I'm not saying that privacy isn't important but I don't think it is the main problem compared to people being unable to use currency.

But that's the point: people will not be able to buy a loaf of bread if they don't meet with the system's approval. Look, I switched to completely contactless payment through my phone since Covid, and it's so convenient I'm not going back. And it's hard for me to imagine people who don't have access to a bank account or smartphone, but those people do exist, and they may eventually become unable to buy a loaf of brea…

Due to government tactics, a lot of australians are now deliberately using cash a) for the privacy b) as a statement against orwellian mechanisms.

I find it really sad when people are blaise about something that once gone, can't be put back. A social credit system, & everyone talking about it as an inevitable thing, have already bought into the propaganda.

I find it inevitable that with sentiments like that, that i'll be forced to live in a car & eventually the gutter & arrested regularly because of my nuisance factor. All because of the convenience.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#104

Post by silverpepsi »

mcv wrote: post #77
beebmam wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of situations where someone should have their bank account closed. Watch a Kitboga video for an entertaining example.

Outside the US, "accidental US Persons" may not be able to have a bank account. These are people who are not US citizens and have no real ties to the US, but are nevertheless considered to be US Persons by the US, which means they are required to file taxes. The US has no way to enforce that directly of course, but it can require banks who want to do business with the US (which is every bank in the world) to report o…

This kind of abusive extraterritorial law is exactly why the USA needs dissolved / divided into smaller countries. The sooner the better.

The only reason I don't advocate for it constantly is that Russia and China are far more dangerous. But I think the future state of the world needs to be one where country size is limited by international law to assure there's always somewhere for individuals to escape to (nearly impossible for US citizens and persons today, too many countries friendly to its abusive ways) and that wars are regional and never can come to the levels of destruction that you'll see with super powers and World Wars.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#105

Post by dcposch »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #93
AinderS wrote: post #2

According to the article, the main problem of a financial police state where you cannot so much as buy a loaf of bread without permission and surveillance from the payment system, is that not everyone is included.

How is an electronic record of a transaction any worse then being filmed by multiple cameras as you walked in to buy that bread? In my country, a warrant is required to access both sources of data.

It's an exceptionally flexible and convenient method of control.

Earlier this year, donors to the truck convey protest in Canada had their bank accounts frozen. This wasn't a targeted list of "these 37 people have broken a law"--rather, it was a broad mandate to freeze accounts assocated with the protests, operationalized a bit differently by each bank.

In a society where most businesses don't take cash anymore, this turnkey coercive capability becomes more airtight.

The frog will boil slowly. A few years ago, all US payment processors blocked donations to Wikileaks, after they reported on war crimes in Iraq. Today, most people still think of digital money in the same way as physical cash; in reality, every transaction is a request for permission, with fraud heuristics and blocklists that might say yes or no.

Soon, a guy gets DUI, loses the ability to buy alcohol for six months--who would oppose that? Over time, the scope and frequency of financial deplatforminig will expand. Twitter does one-week suspensions for violating their terms of service. Why not your credit card?

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#106

Post by imtringued »

wslh wrote: post #41
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #32

Australia's been cashless for a long time now and has no laws requiring acceptance of cash so a lot of places are cashless only. Even the old lady who has a tea and snack cart at the train station is cashless here. I'll state some benefits: Public transport becomes much better. You tap your card or phone and never bother with the hassle of a ticket ever again. You probably never realized just how much of a barrier th…

In a cashless society there is a lot of information about people in few hands and you never know how this information will be used now or in the future. It can be a democracy or a dictatorship. The corruption is everywhere, the threshold is different.

That is completely incorrect. In cashless payment systems like GNU Taler customers are anonymous while only merchants e.g. recipients of payments are not anonymous to comply with anti money laundering and income transparency for the purpose of taxes.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#107

Post by etamponi »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #95
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #32

Australia's been cashless for a long time now and has no laws requiring acceptance of cash so a lot of places are cashless only. Even the old lady who has a tea and snack cart at the train station is cashless here. I'll state some benefits: Public transport becomes much better. You tap your card or phone and never bother with the hassle of a ticket ever again. You probably never realized just how much of a barrier th…

Australia is not cashless. New notes and coins are minted regularly. I still pay using cash, and increasingly so. Never once, ever, has there been a problem paying with cash, nor do I expect there to be. For those online services that only accept cards, you can buy a gift card from the local post office or a few other locations & use that. What you describe is my dystopian nightmare.

Can you please tell me why it is your dystopian nightmare? I had the opposite feeling.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#108

Post by zdragnar »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #93
AinderS wrote: post #2

According to the article, the main problem of a financial police state where you cannot so much as buy a loaf of bread without permission and surveillance from the payment system, is that not everyone is included.

How is an electronic record of a transaction any worse then being filmed by multiple cameras as you walked in to buy that bread? In my country, a warrant is required to access both sources of data.

Few stores keep video recordings indefinitely. A fair number don't even bother with recording at all, they just make sure cameras are visible to act as a deterrent.

Financial transaction records at banks might as well be forever, though.

One of those is far more powerful than the other, and far more dangerous if it gets leaked to malicious actors.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#109

Post by zizee »

0xy wrote: post #89
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #32

Australia's been cashless for a long time now and has no laws requiring acceptance of cash so a lot of places are cashless only. Even the old lady who has a tea and snack cart at the train station is cashless here. I'll state some benefits: Public transport becomes much better. You tap your card or phone and never bother with the hassle of a ticket ever again. You probably never realized just how much of a barrier th…

Given Australia took the extraordinary step of violating UN Human Rights codes it agreed to when preventing citizens and in some cases foreign residents from leaving the country during the pandemic I'd say they're already on the way. After all, the action was unprecedented, contravened human rights and aligned their response with North Korea and China, the only other countries who have ever had such restrictions. Thi…

> After massive sacrifice, the country is now topping the charts in COVID deaths

You sound so out of touch with what the Australian experience has been.

Australia has had 14k deaths from COVID, vs over 1 million for the US. Percapita that is about 1/5 the deaths of the US. We've also had about 1.5 times the reported cases per capita than the US.

The strategy was to lock down until the population was vaccinated. Once that had happened, it was time to open back up again. Of course we were going to see more deaths.

Yes, the lockdowns were frustrated, yes unfortunate situationsboccurred. But going by the US stats, the response of the Australian government probably saved about 180 thousand lives.

Re: What is the cost of a cashless society?

#110

Post by imtringued »

AinderS wrote: post #2

According to the article, the main problem of a financial police state where you cannot so much as buy a loaf of bread without permission and surveillance from the payment system, is that not everyone is included.

There are anonynous digital payment services. It is very difficult to surveil your loaf of bread transaction history if it isn't recorded and the customer is unknown.
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