151–160 of 498 posts
I believe once we go fully cashless, we'll regret it and wish we could go back. I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring my phone / debit card with me because the register does not accept cash.
Not using cash means someone gets a cut of a processing fee. Every time, with almost no exceptions. I’m not down to have rent seeking companies taking a slice of my hard earned money just so I don’t have to manage a few pieces of paper. You’re generally paying 3-4 percent of every transaction now, as that’s pretty standard for debit cards on businesses, and it doesn’t matter if it’s charged to the card holder or the…
That’s not to say I think cash should go the way of the dodo, but I don’t think there’s that much difference paying g4s to collect your money vs Mastercard.
IMO the benefits of cash are on the consumer, not the business.
I live an hour or so outside of Austin and people still primarily write checks as that's the only acceptable payment method, along with cash. My new wife said, "Wait, why not just use Stripe? I'll tell them." I had to explain to her that one does not simply pull forward a society thirty years into the future. There is an incredible amount of cultural inertia to overcome. So I carry a lot of cash out here.
Aren't cheques even worse for privacy though? Not only your bank knows exactly who you paid and how much, the seller also now has your actual name since it's just written on the cheque - at least when paying by card they get nothing. Maybe I'm getting it wrong - cheques are something I've only seen in films, in my country no bank accepts them since 2020 anymore, they've been completely phased out.
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I really really really would think that Bitcoin fills this exact need. There's a lot wrong with the cryptocurrency world and with Bitcoin specifically. So much wrong, that I'm afraid we closed the one way out of government and corporate-controlled "digital money" and all the risks that comes with. But maybe it never was a good "way out" in the first place: maybe there never was a way out at all. I keep hoping the gri…
Bitcoin is getting better all the time. There are more people focusing purely on payments in the bitcoin space than you think. The lightning network is halfway usable now, and federated mint type systems (like cashu[1]) are very promising. [1]: https://docs.cashu.space
But the community at large, is still crap. Rugpulls, pyramid schemes, bad management, misleading marketing and so on, are more common than not. It's easier to get scammed or grifted than to find a good, solid provider of a service. That's even more true for the cryptocurrency world at large, but even for the "niche" of bitcoin(maximalists) this goes.
I believe once we go fully cashless, we'll regret it and wish we could go back. I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring my phone / debit card with me because the register does not accept cash.
>I can barely enjoy a full day without being required to bring my phone / debit card with me because the register does not accept cash. But how do you get a regular re-supply of your cash to pay the places that take cash? For me, I would have to make a regular trips to the bank ATM machine to withdraw cash. That type of errand is inconvenient which is why I haven't done that in 15 years. It's been so long that I don'…
There are two fallacies I frequently feel the need to debunk in this discussion. - Cash is anonymous - Cash is an "old" or "low" technology. When a serious crime is committed you might be surprised how much the police can do to trace cash. Serial numbers in and out of ATMs and shops are tracked, and frequently your face is captured by cameras in stores, ATMs and vending machines. Modern cash is high technology . Look…
That is not the point. The point is in the contract - e.g., that you are not accepting to untick a "do not track" flag. That circumvention is always possible is not what matters there.
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> Serial numbers in and out of ATMs and shops are tracked Is this true? When I buy something from my local gas station is there a system in place tracking every serial number exchanged on the cash?
Not in the US. There are no laws requiring businesses to do so. Why would employers spend the resources required for such a thing?
- you take out cash from an ATM. The machine is loaded with sequential or logged order of SN that can be matched to withdrawals and times.
- you take that cash immediately to a vending machine or supermarket auto-checkout that takes notes. The machine scans all notes it ingests and can match them to timings and purchase details.
- Even a small shop might have a camera at the till, along with a UV light frequency used to check for forgeries.
Obviously as the time between withdrawal and re-appearing in a system grows the strength of the association gets lower, as notes change hands. But in a serious crime investigation that doesn't matter, it's a good-enough capability to warrant chasing.
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I don't understand, how does this negate any of what I posted?
Perhaps it implies you're particularly fussy, and the system works for 1 billion+ people.
It's strange that governments are not minting more digital currency if the demand for physical currency is falling.
However, that doesn't mean it happens routinely. Most banks probably just send the cash between one another, decided via a clearing house with no central bank middle man. I am only describing the cash handling process here by the way. 99% of the business still operates based on electronic reserves.
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The ATMs I use use the least number of bills for the amount you asked. If they have lower denominations, I sometimes make two withdrawals in order to avoid the larger bills.
I don't think I've ever seen an ATM in the US spit out larger than $20s which is basically the largest denomination you can count on a store taking even though there are $50s and $100s in general circulation. (Which has essentially been the case for many decades.)