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Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

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Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#91

Post by RulerOf »

greyface- wrote: post #57
permo-w wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you suggesting that the serial number of every note you withdraw is registered against your account?

Modern ATM bill acceptors have sensors that can read serial numbers off of bills. I don't know whether it's been publicly stated that this occurs (and don't have any relevant personal knowledge, either), but the capability exists in the field.

I'm not sure if I'd be surprised either way. Either they don't track bills because it costs too much money, or they do track bills because they've found a way to monetize the data.

I scarcely use ATMs at this point because they won't hand out "large" bills. Inflation will be the real driver of cashless adoption, as the absurd number of $20 bills (and eventually, $100 bills) you need to pay for anything these days makes using cash too difficult for the average person.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#92

Post by matsemann »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #64
incone123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a cost to handling cash too. Don't know how it compares to cards but with the latter you don't need to have fleets of armored trucks to move money around and robbers can only steal stock.

This is so much cheaper per dollar than people think. Certainly cheaper than credit card fees once you're over a certain volume, unless you are in a very high-crime area. Even then, thieves will often steal off the shelves instead of out of the cash register because that's a much smaller crime. Small businesses get the short end of the stick on cash management, again, because they may not be.

Eh, my experience is that dealing with cash is much more expensive than people think (to be fair, most people think it's "free" since there are no direct fees). At some places I've worked in the past, it's been like almost the only responsibility of a manager working full time. Making sure everything is in order, watch over workers, training them on all procedures, going to the bank to buy change, counting tills all the time, etc etc. Sooo many man hours going into this.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#93

Post by anony23 »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

Crypto fixes this to some extent, but would require a chain that could handle a large volume of small transactions.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#94

Post by arcticbull »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#95

Post by [deleted] »

908B64B197 wrote: post #45
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

> the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors And the government. In Canada the government suspended the constitution (because that's a thing over there?) because of some peaceful, free-speech protected, protests in the capital and started arbitrary freezing protester's bank accounts. Of course, without any due process (remember, constitutional rights were suspended!).

[deleted]

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#96

Post by tbrake »

lucumo wrote: post #65
3pt14159 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't be tracked If that were true, then criminal elements wouldn't need to severely launder their money. It's a spectrum. Cash can be tracked, each legitimate bill has a unique serial number, and yes, at least at present I haven't heard of private actors outside of those that service law enforcement tracking it, but the reality is that if you withdraw $8k to pay for a motorcycle and hand it to a guy that sells you…

> each legitimate bill has a unique serial number, and yes, at least at present I haven't heard of private actors outside of those that service law enforcement tracking it This isn't quite what you meant, but 20-ish years ago there was some crowd-tracking of Euro-bills. The Euro was pretty new and people were excited about their banknotes showing up in other countries. Some people created a website where you could en…

This reminded me https://www.wheresgeorge.com/ in the USA has been doing it a while as well. Had no idea it was still going strong all these years later.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#97

Post by arcticbull »

908B64B197 wrote: post #45
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

> the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors And the government. In Canada the government suspended the constitution (because that's a thing over there?) because of some peaceful, free-speech protected, protests in the capital and started arbitrary freezing protester's bank accounts. Of course, without any due process (remember, constitutional rights were suspended!).

Yep, and hat tip to the government for a job well done. There's a right and a wrong way to protest, they were given time to choose to do it right. Now that the threat is over and dispersed they're welcome to come back and protest peacefully. For an end to the vaccine mandates, that ended already. Silly sausages.

For reference, the Emergencies Act doesn't 'suspend the constitution' it suspends certain Charter rights for a period of time. [1]

You may be thinking of the 'notwithstanding clause' but that's totally different.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#98

Post by AmenBreak »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

How did businesses manage payments before the Internet and credit cards etc?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#99

Post by palsecam »

lucumo wrote: post #65
3pt14159 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can't be tracked If that were true, then criminal elements wouldn't need to severely launder their money. It's a spectrum. Cash can be tracked, each legitimate bill has a unique serial number, and yes, at least at present I haven't heard of private actors outside of those that service law enforcement tracking it, but the reality is that if you withdraw $8k to pay for a motorcycle and hand it to a guy that sells you…

> each legitimate bill has a unique serial number, and yes, at least at present I haven't heard of private actors outside of those that service law enforcement tracking it This isn't quite what you meant, but 20-ish years ago there was some crowd-tracking of Euro-bills. The Euro was pretty new and people were excited about their banknotes showing up in other countries. Some people created a website where you could en…

Said website: https://EuroBillTracker.com/ Still operational!

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#100

Post by nottorp »

wsgeorge wrote: post #31
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

Indirectly. Uber "accepts" cash in some countries, as do major online retailers in those same markets like Jumia. It's essentially cash on delivery, but it works AFAICT. I've only used my card with Uber a handful of times in 2016.

Uber will happily take card in the app or cash to the driver here. Just select before calling the car.
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