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D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

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Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#81

Post by charlie0 »

Spivak wrote: post #67
kxrm wrote: post #19

I live in DC and support this law not just from an accessibility standpoint but also from a privacy standpoint. I am tired of every retail/restaurant establishment building a profile of me.

But like serious question, are you tired enough that you'll actually stop using payment cards? Is it worth the inconvenience and losing 2%ish off the top of everything you buy?

If there are any laws we need to pass is that credit card fees should be disclosed on all receipts and optional. Cash buyers should not get penalized for not using a credit card.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#83

Post by lotsofpulp »

foolswisdom wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't love that I also have a 3% tax going to VISA/Mastercard/Amex/... You don’t. The merchant you are buying from is choosing to pay 3% for credit card payments because they believe incentivizing people to pay with credit cards will result in them earning more (via higher prices or higher margin goods) than incentivizing them to pay with debit/cash. If a merchant wanted to, it would be trivial for them to give y…

Assuming that's correct, that effectively boils down to the same thing? Prices would be somewhat lower if merchants didn't need to consider the ~3% disappearing in the payment processor.

My point is that merchants do not NEED to consider the 3% disappearing. They can post a sign right now telling people “3% discount for using debit”.

The merchants that do not offer lower debit prices choose to pay the extra 3%. It is up to the customer to decide if prices at merchant that gives debit discount or merchant that does not give debit discount are better.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#84

Post by runnr_az »

charlie0 wrote: post #81
Spivak wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But like serious question, are you tired enough that you'll actually stop using payment cards? Is it worth the inconvenience and losing 2%ish off the top of everything you buy?

If there are any laws we need to pass is that credit card fees should be disclosed on all receipts and optional. Cash buyers should not get penalized for not using a credit card.

At least in PHX, I’ve been seeing a lot of businesses with a 2-3% surcharge for cards

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#86

Post by komali2 »

maximilianroos wrote: post #74
kxrm wrote: post #19

I live in DC and support this law not just from an accessibility standpoint but also from a privacy standpoint. I am tired of every retail/restaurant establishment building a profile of me.

...then don't buy things from those businesses? We need a stronger reason than "I want that" to force businesses to give us things — otherwise how do we decide whose preferences we should mandate?

Without State intervention there's nothing stopping businesses colluding to all go cashless. Or... all together do something else that's bad for us. Or monopolizing.

The strong enough reason is "it's better for the people."

It's easy how we decide whose preferences we mandate - we mandate people's preferences, and businesses find ways to make money within those constraints. There's no issue making profit like this, so I'm not sure where the concern is. Profits slightly dented for a second? Oh well.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#87

Post by marcosdumay »

PumpkinSpice wrote: post #12
dools wrote: post #7

Instead of banning cashless businesses because it's discriminatory to the unbanked perhaps they should focus on reducing discrimination in the banking sector and providing a publicly run electronic payment system.

In that position, the government would inevitably try to meddle. Look up Operation Choke Point back in the Obama years, when the government pressured banks to cut off a variety of "undesirable" businesses, such as payday lenders, gun dealers, and so on. Cash serves an important purpose. It is a safety valve in case of such extrajudicial overreach. Yeah, because it's private, it also enables some bad stuff (tax dodgin…

Nearly every democracy on the world manages to put on their constitution that the government won't meddle with private business without due process. And almost all of those manage to follow that rule.

I'm pretty sure the US can do the same if the system is run by the government. That kind of thing only happens there because it's run by private companies.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#88

Post by Ferret7446 »

komali2 wrote: post #86
maximilianroos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...then don't buy things from those businesses? We need a stronger reason than "I want that" to force businesses to give us things — otherwise how do we decide whose preferences we should mandate?

Without State intervention there's nothing stopping businesses colluding to all go cashless. Or... all together do something else that's bad for us. Or monopolizing. The strong enough reason is "it's better for the people." It's easy how we decide whose preferences we mandate - we mandate people's preferences, and businesses find ways to make money within those constraints. There's no issue making profit like this, s…

There is, it's called starting your own business. And the only thing stopping that is... state intervention.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#89

Post by lotsofpulp »

havaloc wrote: post #51
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business can always choose to only accept debit to limit their card transaction costs to near zero.

Debit isn't always cheaper. https://dharmamerchantservices.com/faq/visa-consumer-interch... Scroll down and check out the debit rates. 22 cents a transaction for credit union debit cards isn't cheap.

Agree that it’s still killer for small transactions. Which is why the US federal government should have long ago offered electronic money transfer as a utility where merchant fees were low even for smaller dollar amount purchases.

Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

#90

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rendaw wrote: post #85

In India, even rural farmers have easy cashless mobile payments. In D.C., the capital of the US, nobody has easy cashless mobile payments, and even card payments are too difficult, with the government finally giving up and enshrining cash.

I don't think that is accurate.

India and China use cheap QR code transactions, but a lot of the overhead is taken in by VC money. So I think these companies are hoping to make money on these someday, just not right now.

The USA has a pretty well developed system, and debit and credit cards have been pretty ubiquitous for a few decades now. The issue is that our system is expensive, and no one is subsidizing it for future gains (the gains are today). Debit cards are cheaper, but credit cards have done some marketing to get people to prefer them.

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