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

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 717 posts

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

#571

Post by refurb »

kazinator wrote: post #549
arcticbull wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Payment processors must not be arbiters of what is lawful.

Then remove all liability for payment processors.

There are numerous examples of companies doing something legal, that later blows up and they become the scapegoat for letting it happen.

As long as that happens, payment processors are going to protect themselves by avoiding certain industries.

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

#572

Post by fomine3 »

faeriechangling wrote: post #516
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.

Which is the problem that crypto solved for the most part, independence from a few oligopolistic PROCESSORS. While I am still not a "Buying literal digital currency is a sound investment" true believer, I feel recent events are making people keen to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the notion of decentralised crypto as a medium of exchange.

Agree. Crypto is heavily overrated and underrated. Crypto should be exist for some use cases and won't replace most of current transactions.

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

#573

Post by no_time »

qingcharles wrote: post #362

I've just gone several months without access to any electronic money (e.g. debit cards, credit cards, phone etc) and it has been complicated. I've been thrown out of several stores at the checkout because they couldn't or wouldn't take cash. You also lose the ability to take advantage of many special offers that are available only through retailers apps, e.g. McDonald's. You can get the discounts, free items, nor can…

>I've just gone several months without access to any electronic money (e.g. debit cards, credit cards, phone etc) and it has been complicated. I've been thrown out of several stores at the checkout because they couldn't or wouldn't take cash.

What stores? How do they serve kids and old people?

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

#574

Post by zirgs »

anony23 wrote: post #93
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.

I don't want to be associated with illegal activities. Crypto transactions are traceable so I could receive tainted coins from some criminals and become a suspect myself. Cash and traditional banking don't have this problem.

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

#575

Post by JCharante »

rsaesha wrote: post #270
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.

There is an option: a direct payment system provided by the Central Bank to the general public. In Brazil it is called PIX, and was implemented in 2020. Last month it has processed more than 3 million operations. Works 24/7, 0 fees to end users, low cost for business. IMO, going cashless is not an "if", it is a "when". https://www.bcb.gov.br/en/financialstability/pix_en

3 million ops in 1 month, 30 days per month = 100,000 ops per 24 hours (on average) = 4166 ops per hour = 69.4 ops per minute = ~more than 1 op per second. I think we really should have such a system (Vietnam has something like this) but I wouldn't use it as an example just yet.

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

#576

Post by fomine3 »

crazygringo wrote: post #145
shishy wrote: post #10

Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…

Dealing with cash is mainly just super-expensive because it's a massive volume of paper and metal that you have to count and move around every day, and deal with replacing it over time. It's not a big deal for a single individual, but it's a huge deal for businesses. And for banks and for the government. And there's just so much nonsense involved, like a cashier discovering they're $25 short at the end of their shift…

In addition, fraud by cashier and tax avoidance by owner.

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

#577

Post by amelius »

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 would you pay PH in cash? Would you send them an envelope with money?

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

#578

Post by RulerOf »

crazygringo wrote: post #396
hospitalhusband wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chargebacks and processing fees are expensive too.

Processing fees aren't inherently expensively. They're low in Europe, and high in the US only because they go to rewards programs. You're paying 2% more but getting 2% back. Legislation could easily regulate them to eliminate rewards programs and bring them back down low. Chargebacks are supposed to be expensive because they're a deterrent to businesses acting in ways that will lead customers to attempt chargebacks.…

Chargebacks exist because the element of agency in payment is broken in the electronic money systems we've created. When using a card, you don't give merchants your money, you provide them with enough information to take your money away from you.

The UX of those two things is similar enough that nobody really cares, until it bites them in the ass, that is.

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

#579

Post by fomine3 »

danpalmer wrote: post #89
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #67

Even if it weren't a terrible, awful idea from a democratic point of view, it's just silly from a logistic point of view. This means you create a single point of failure for your entire society: electricity provision. Got a power shot down? Suddenly nobody can buy anything. Got a war on your territory? Your trade routes will get destroyed 4 times faster. Want to be a reserve currency? Guess what, now you have to do l…

Most stores aren't going to be able to sell you anything with no power, regardless of taking card or cash, because sales need to go into a database via a register, update inventory, etc. Sure a few small family run businesses, maybe restaurants, might be able to take cash, but almost no chains will be able to run and that's most stores in most places.

On emergency situation like earthquake, it's possible to bypass every system and just exchange items to cash. Maybe write a receipt on memo paper.

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

#580

Post by aflag »

shortcake27 wrote: post #538
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #133

I can't believe how willingly people submitted to going cashless. I was at a trendy rivertown restaurant, went to pay with cash, and the shock on people's faces was unbelievable, like I was some ancient alien. It honestly feels pretty forced, like there's a hyper-fashionable status attached to paying digitally. It's not the first time people lapped up a status marker hawked to them by some globocorp, just like iphone…

I'm cashless for none of the reasons you mentioned. It's simply more convenient. I don't have to constantly visit ATMs to withdraw money or carry my wallet, deal with coins etc. And my spending is tracked automatically. People can have opinions - just because you prefer cash it doesn't mean people who prefer cashless are brainwashed by globocorps.

If there weren't coins I could think about the possibility of using cash. Coins are a deal breaker for me
Post reply on HN