I'm opening a coffeeshop in Chicago and do not plan on accepting cash, just seems easier and safer to me.
D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
91–100 of 508 posts
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another move in the wrong direction. Why should private businesses be selectively shouldering the burden of society? Mandate the USPS (federal government) to offer electronic money accounts to everyone.
This is done several other industries. Hospital emergency departments cannot refuse critical care. Most states mandate carrying car insurance and also have an assigned risk pool of last resort for people who cannot get a policy normally. The benefit of a service mandate on private businesses is that it avoids having to set up a government retail-facing firm. Starting a public option is re-inventing the wheel. Either…
> Hospital emergency departments cannot refuse critical care.
Yes, and the government’s hesitation in properly compensating them (and choosing to avoid owning/operating them) is a major source of myriad problems. The government tasked them with a huge responsibility, gave them insufficient funds, and watched as they flail about teetering on the edge of failure.
>Most states mandate carrying car insurance and also have an assigned risk pool of last resort for people who cannot get a policy normally.
This is not comparable.
> The benefit of a service mandate on private businesses is that it avoids having to set up a government retail-facing firm. Starting a public option is re-inventing the wheel.
The government should have a retail facing firm, we are its customers. And it already does, with locations everywhere. Called USPS. And it already is tasked with identity verification duties for passport issuance. The only thing left is to bolt on the backend of an online bank. Go ahead and just buy a mid size ine one if that makes it easier, they are not very expensive.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That might solve it for the one business “you” start. It doesn’t address the collusion of everyone else, does it?
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not viable nor the responsibility of an individual business.
Businesses have a legal obligation to not discriminate against lots of recognized classes. Those without credit cards should be protected as well, because living in this country should not require you to participate in a debt-based system. If it did, it would be government of banks, not a democracy. Forcing people to have a bank account or a credit card to buy food enforces a monopoly on money.
There is no "forcing". If there is sufficient demand for paying with cash, then someone will start a business that accepts cash and charges more, thus making more profit. More people will start such businesses, driving down the price until the price accurately affects the additional risk plus market demand.
If no such business exists, it is because the cost of the risk/hassle of dealing in cash is too high compared to the low market demand.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#95Earlier 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.
Credit card processing costs in the US are absurd. Interchange fees are around 2% on average vs a cap of 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards in the EU.
But cash handling costs a substantial amount too. We should probably all be paying by debit card and charging extra for cash or credit card.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#96I have no dog in this fight as I rarely deal with cash and do not run a retail business. However from a conceptual point of view I really have a viscerally negative reaction to not accepting cash. It is a societal acceptance of the rent seeking behavior of the credit processing networks. I already have to pay a sales tax to ${TAX_ENTITIES.length} different government entities, I don't love that I also have a 3% tax g…
> 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…
Target also gives you a 5% discount for using their RedCard. It's your typical store-branded loyalty card. Except, instead of giving you "points" on your purchase you get an upfront discount. Target is unique in that they make this option available through a branded debit card for those that don't want or don't qualify for a credit card. But, it's not a discount specifically for paying with cash.
> If a merchant wanted to, it would be trivial for them to give you a 3% discount for paying with debit.
It makes more sense to me for it to be a surcharge for using a credit card, but the last I knew the credit card companies disallow that in their agreements. Discounts get confusing and bump up against weird cases like minimum advertised pricing and potential taxation on the discount.
Debit cards can get a bit weird when they function as credit cards. A customer may use a debit card but swipe it as Visa or Mastercard and the fees the merchant pay will be different, setting up a constant source of frustration at the register.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Card payments are done through a middleman (Visa, MasterCard) and therefore require a surcharge that's going to a private company. They charge much more than it actually costs them, even including chargebacks etc, which is how they're able to offer things like credit card rewards. In my opinion it was justifiable back when it was new and not heavily used, but now that the economy revolves around it it's just parasiti…
So? Taking cash costs money as well: more security, more auditing, more cash transport, higher insurance costs, etc Even better, because of forced cash now every business incurs those costs even if the overwhelming majority of their transactions aren’t in cash. The solution to “discrimination against homeless” is not forcing people to take cash, it’s forcing banks to allow homeless people to open bank accounts.
Forcing banks to allow homeless people to open bank accounts only "works" if someone is going to compensate the banks for all the costs associated with those clients.
Banks only "work" because they can earn interest on deposits. Homeless people will likely not have enough deposits to make it worth serving them, and they will likely also cost more in support and fraud.
If you compensate them too little, banks will do their best to wriggle out of it or make it inconvenient. If you compensate them too much, they will become predatory in opening homeless accounts. In any case, the incentive structure is all wrong once you try to force the free market in the wrong direction. And who's going to be paying? I hope it's not me.
There is no way this would end well.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#98Earlier 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…
Right, no one is rejecting the notion of regulation.
But personal preferences are a bad way to choose regulation — businesses can aggregate preferences much better than the state can.
Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
FedNow is a payment system by the government providing the rails, but we'll have to see how it evolves. Zelle's implementation/rollout, which is a similar product, but owned/operated by the banks/corporations, has been messy. Venmo, and CashApp, however, are fairly popular.
Isn't FedNow more like the NPP in Australia that enables things like Osko and PayID? It's not quite the same as a postal savings system because the customer still holds their primary transaction account with a private bank. If, instead, customers have their primary transaction account with a government run service (the reason it's called a postal savings system is because historically this was the post office) it wou…
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Re: D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like many stores cut down on robbery opportunities by not having a cash register. They don't give change back, they only give store credit if you don't pay in exact change. That way, they can just put each cash payment in an envelope and drop it into a time-locked safe. (I imagine that they would do that, I don't know for sure.)
What state/country is this in? I think it's an interesting approach but I have never seen any store in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) that takes cash but doesn't give change.
I've seen it in Europe, but never in the US.