Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cash only in Berlin

thecritic.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#51

Post by smoldesu »

Febra33 wrote: post #41
ttepasse wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Critic is a slightly upmarket alt-right publication for establishing more culture war content and contrarianism in the British media landscape. Co-Founded by a strategist of the „European Research Group“, that far right Brexit group in the Tories, and funded by conservative millionaire donors as part of what some describe as pundit welfare strategy - financing enough weird cranks and their media projects to influ…

I could definitely feel the propagandistic nature of this piece of "journalism".

It's not an article being shared in good faith. Look at OP's (sourpuss) submission history, and it's quickly apparent that their main goal is posting controversial bait. Most of their submissions fall far outside the site's guidelines, and their lack of discussion anywhere on the site basically cements them as a troll. Politics be damned, they seem to have no interest in fostering interesting discussion.

I've been flagging these ungratifying stories for a while now. Hopefully it teaches people to treat HN less like a tabloid...

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#52

Post by jeltz »

Towaway69 wrote: post #42
kbrannigan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the comments on this post. If you prefer cash you must be a criminal. An ex girlfriend made me feel bad for paying cash at a restaurant, because people would think we're drug dealers. A legal, government backed way to pay for good and services. Is culturally frowned upon or discouraged. What a world

It's the same wierd argument why they got rid of 500€ note - only criminals use them for drug deals. As if the drug trade slowed because they banned the note. No, the trade will continue as long as there are buyers and stuff for humans to trade.

Assuming the claims is correct: Why should the government waste money on having a bill which is almost only used to make drug deals easier? Better to just remove it out of circulation. Yes, it will not stop drug trade, but why should the government actively help facilitate it?

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#53

Post by nibbleshifter »

pfoof wrote: post #46
nibbleshifter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany its a cultural thing. People just prefer the option of privacy.

There are (or were) places in Berlin that accept Bitcoin.

Still are some places. The well known bitcoin bar in kreuzberg is gone, sadly. Corona killed it off pretty much. They did really good longdrinks for fair prices.

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#54

Post by anonymoose33282 »

Febra33 wrote: post #11

The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out…

The article seemed really disjointed to me as well, as a person who's spent plenty of time both living in Berlin and out of Berlin. Jumps to gentrification, dabbles in "centralized currency", covers some social programs, all to wrap it up with immigration, "kids these days" and slips in the surveillance state before signing off.

Berlin's cash-only culture is definitely a shock to most tourists who come there from the EU and US. Whether it's restaurants that don't advertise "cash only" anywhere, only to surprise you when you pull out your card at the end, to späti that have ridiculous card minimums like 15+ euro. A discussion on that, the reasons for it, and the implications of moving away from it would have been interesting. But instead, we got an utterly confused mess from the author.

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#55

Post by jeltz »

ch4s3 wrote: post #15
numlock86 wrote: post #10

If a merchant, especially in Germany, asks for cash, it's for tax evasion. It's as simple as that. And no, I don't care about your anecdotes how that is not true for your particular case. A small number of exceptions exist of course.

Seems like avoiding credit card fees is a perfectly reasonable explanation, at least in the US where fees exceed 3%. It’s trivial for governments to catch businesses that hold a lot of inventory and are cheating on taxes by more than small amounts.

Not necessarily. Some small business use their cash to buy stolen goods. For example it used to be quite common for restaurants to buy stolen meat using their cash. You can also pay your staff in cash for some of their hours. Both of these are hard to catch unless you actively have people on location tracking the business. Plus removing cash can make other crimes less appealing (like buying stolen meat).

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#56

Post by Febra33 »

itsyaboi wrote: post #44
Febra33 wrote: post #11

The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out…

What a weak interpretation. > The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food…

https://www.kenn-dein-limit.de/alkoholberatung/informationen...

You can definitely buy beer.

> Does this not support the authors point that he had to work hard to find these places?

Just because a tourist is too ignorant to find these places doesn't mean they don't exist. There are plenty of them. They are mostly old-school and don't have big ads outside. Use google maps. There are plenty.

> Private payment processors (like MasterCard and Visa) can for any and no reason refuse their services. Ridiculing and dismissing the author's concern by pulling out the "big scary globalism" straw man is disingenuous.

If you're pushing for cash-only or card-only other than for tax evasion reasons you're pretty much ideologically tainted.

Otherwise, I'm no longer going to discuss this "journalist outlet" that is just a mouthpiece for alt-right propaganda. Especially one that can't differentiate between germanic and german.

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#57

Post by lxgr »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #21
flohofwoe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then people should be free to use cash, but there's no need to lock out people who prefer card payment (I also prefer cash, but mainly because I'm old-fashioned). But if a restaurant has a sign in the door "no card payment due to technical problems" for years, it's probably neither a technical nor a cultural/ideological issue ;)

Card payment involves fees, and buying an ePoS system, etc. There's also the parallel EC Card system in Germany, most ePoS terminals only support normal cards, or EC card. Its easier to just accept cash. Everyone who lives there knows cash is king, and the tourists figure it out within a short span of time.

That used to be true, but most places in Berlin nowadays accept cards. Even some "Spätis" accept them these days!

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#58

Post by Towaway69 »

jeltz wrote: post #52
Towaway69 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same wierd argument why they got rid of 500€ note - only criminals use them for drug deals. As if the drug trade slowed because they banned the note. No, the trade will continue as long as there are buyers and stuff for humans to trade.

Assuming the claims is correct: Why should the government waste money on having a bill which is almost only used to make drug deals easier? Better to just remove it out of circulation. Yes, it will not stop drug trade, but why should the government actively help facilitate it?

And if the claim isn't true? Did anyone in government actually verify it? Did the drug trade stop?

If the claim is true, shouldn't the 100€ note also be taken out circulation? In fact, all notes? Where does one draw the line?

Perhaps money is the root of all evil. Be it digital or plastic or paper.

Drug cartels actually also use stolen artworks as currency. Which would now make an interesting study to see whether art crime actually increased since the 500€ went out of circulation ;)

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#59

Post by jeltz »

vikingerik wrote: post #27
Febra33 wrote: post #11

The author of this article seems to make some very obscure points here. First and foremost: "You have to work pretty hard to find a bar serving traditional Germanic beverages and food." What does the author define as "Germanic" beverages and food? As a german that has lived for some time in Berlin I'm quite sure that there are more than enough places to grab "Germanic" beverages and food at. They just don't stand out…

What Americans think is German is often mostly the Bavarian stereotypes. Pretzels, sausage, lederhosen, Oktoberfest. It's common for Americans to be surprised when they find Berlin or Frankfurt isn't full of that stuff. The same happens in reverse: some Europeans think America is the land of cowboys and guns and fireworks, but that's really more like just Texas, and when they go to New York they're surprised by seein…

Sure, but Bavarian places certainly must be included in "Germanic".

Re: Cash only in Berlin

#60

Post by jFriedensreich »

As someone who just left berlin for good after growing up there, it is repulsive to see a brit mourn the worst and backwards parts of "berlin" just because they are connected in his mind to some romantic roughness. Slowly fading of Cash only mentality, Piss and Smoking everywhere are among the very few positive developments i could see before deciding to leave. (Though it is still nowhere near feeling like a convenient or modern city.) Can we please stop using user tracking as an argument against supporting cashless payment? I have heard this so many times and no one talks about removing the option to pay by cash, just not forcing you to run half a kilometre to a ripoff cash machine in the middle of the night, just stop this.

That aside, i see a stream of friends leaving berlin with me in a relatively short amount of time, everyone has his own reasons but for me it was a mixture of not being affordable anymore, being backwards and inconvenient as well as feeling unfair (i moved to a different country, this is true for all germany) Most importantly i really feel the people changed quite a bit in the last 7 years specifically, not just in my surrounding but also the vibe of people on the streets and shops, everyone feels fake and pretentious, not in the tourist sense but in the sense of looking at instagram profiles of people you dislike.

Post reply on HN