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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

#651

Post by onionisafruit »

throwaway14356 wrote: post #457
onionisafruit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

I would go the other direction. You list the painting on the gov website, they do the transactions and all of the weird taxes, fees & vat around the world, check if is stolen, where it did come from, if it is real etc etc what ever weird shit they want, all you get is the after tax money. No need for accountants nor quadruple book keeping, just do the business.

That sounds like an expensive mess to run. If I’m wrong, then that would be a great service to have available.

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

#652

Post by laratied »

walterbell wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

No one is arguing for a cash-only society. Digital has use cases. Cash has use cases. We can have both.

The idea elected politicians want a cashless society is utterly absurd to me.

It misses the obvious fact that an elected politician needs the privacy of cash for taking bribes.

A cashless society can only work in an authoritarian regime that simply doesn't care if the populace knows about bribes or not.

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

#653

Post by tekknik »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #641
lisasays wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different to cash? Of course there's no difference in regard to the risk of getting physically lost. I was referring risk of carrying a single value store (independent of type). I also have Apple pay on my phone and watch. Not sure how that's less cognitive overhead than a physical wallet, but as you like. From a business point of view, cash-only makes zero sense. Why would a business turn away people who…

Cash only places probably turn away more customers than card only places these days. People just like the convenience, and cash is on its way out.

> People just like the convenience, and cash is on its way out.

My favorite question that many of the people on this site love to ignore, what about natural disasters? Do you believe CC terminals still work when the rest of the infrastructure has failed?

Cash is far from on the way out, you’re being naive.

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

#654

Post by onionisafruit »

tchaffee wrote: post #414
kortilla wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have evidence that a murder is about to occur, you report it to the fucking police. You don’t just remove yourself from the pipeline and hope it doesn’t happen.

Do you accept the payment and profit or can you refuse the transaction? A parent comment claimed we must process all transactions, legal or not.

That was my comment. I intended it to mean the government shouldn’t be deputizing payment processors to do its dirty work. There were some good points in the responses and a few ridiculous scenarios. Even the ridiculous scenarios point out real issues.

In reality I don’t think there is any chance of a law requiring payment processors to process all legal transactions and definitely nothing about illegal transactions. If that were a possibility, I would back off my statement that they should be forced to process illegal transactions.

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

#655

Post by kazinator »

refurb wrote: post #571
kazinator wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Then remove all liability for payment processors.

Yep. If you make me liable on some legal matter involving some third parties that use me as a service, I have no choice but to brush up on law and defend myself the best I can.

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

#656

Post by kazinator »

refurb wrote: post #646
kelnos wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of like a Section 230 for payment processors -- fine by me.

The problem is that the government loves cracking down on crime through the financial system - terrorism, drugs, IP issues, firearms, etc, etc. It's the one tool they've used again and again...because it works. So they'll never give financial institution carte blanche immunity, because they rely on them to choke off the money for illegal activities. And even if they did give immunity, you know they'll turn around a s…

The meta-problem is that both liberal and conservative politicians are on board with with cracking down through the financial system for one reason or another.

If you see comments calling for payment processors to be dumb money pipes free of liability, those are likely coming from libertarians.

:)

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

#657

Post by crazygringo »

RulerOf wrote: post #578
crazygringo wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, chargebacks exist even when you have all of your agency and you paid willingly.

If you order something that then arrives broken and the company refuses a return, you can do a chargeback.

If you had mailed cash or a check you'd have no recourse except the courts.

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

#658

Post by standardUser »

Daz1 wrote: post #558
standardUser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people see laws against victmimless activities to be a direct curtailment of basic human rights. Even in our own lifetime we've seen completely arbitrary changes to which substances and banned or not banned, so we should be extremely wary of future, similarly arbitrary changes (that we can easily get around using cash).

There is no such thing as a 'victimless activity' so your point is moot.

Your point is lame and pedantic.

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

#659

Post by iggldiggl »

medler wrote: post #36
standardUser wrote: post #9

On a recent trip to Europe I didn't take out cash once over 3 weeks across 3 countries. I brought 50 euros with me and that was all I needed! Everything else was just a quick tap of the phone, including every metro system outside of Paris. My only hesitation to getting rid of cash entirely - how will I buy drugs? I don't gamble illegally or pay for sex, but I imagine those services would also struggle in an increasin…

If the only argument against getting rid of cash is that it would make it harder to commit crimes, that sounds like a good reason to get rid of cash. I like cash because I like my privacy but cash making it easier to do crime is an unfortunate side effect, not an end in itself.

Unfortunately it seems that digitalisation often removes a former middle ground and forces a choice between two extremes – like in this case either total privacy, or total surveillance, and there's no choice in-between.

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

#660

Post by walterbell »

laratied wrote: post #652
walterbell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is arguing for a cash-only society. Digital has use cases. Cash has use cases. We can have both.

The idea elected politicians want a cashless society is utterly absurd to me. It misses the obvious fact that an elected politician needs the privacy of cash for taking bribes. A cashless society can only work in an authoritarian regime that simply doesn't care if the populace knows about bribes or not.

Billions of dirty money have passed through existing digital systems, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36119556

Future digital payment systems can have a wide range of transparency, they are unlikely to be limited to public blockchains.

China is rumored to have a do-not-see list which excludes selected elites from detection by ubiquitious surveillance cameras.

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