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Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#461

Post by pasttense01 »

fzeroracer wrote: post #247
happytiger wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not. Visa and Mastercard collected $138 billion in service fees in 2021. They are among the most profitable companies in the world. You’re pretending that cash handling is a binary. You need a blend. For example, after extensive testing we are not going to send wire transfers exclusively in gold bricks. Though the loss weighs heavy on me. But you should be very careful in eliminating cash. I assume cash handling…

The fact that you immediately assume that something doesn't exist because you don't encounter it is insanely presumptuous of you. The entire reason why small businesses moved away from cash is because its cheaper even taking into account fees. Food trucks, popups, small merchant kiosks. Not needing to take cash means far less overhead. You're more than welcome to argue the benefits of cash transactions and in most ca…

No, it's not the entire reason. If a store doesn't accept customers' preferred payment methods some of them will switch to competing retailers who do.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#462

Post by lobocinza »

Gare wrote: post #360
caldarons wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe we should start thinking of payment infrastructure as a core public service if we move away from cash? Just like there is an official entity that can "print" cash, we should start doing the same with digital payments (I believe the EU is doing somethig similar). That way you don't have a duopoly taking a cut of every transaction.

This is called CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) and it is being worked on. But there are concerns about state surveillance and misuse.

CBDCs are a pandora box that once opened will not be closed. At best they will use for massive surveillance which is already scary.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#463

Post by pasttense01 »

cubefox wrote: post #235
happytiger wrote: post #148

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…

There are now systems that are far cheaper than credit cards or debit cards. In the US it's called: FedNow. The system enables direct bank transfers in real-time, almost for free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow The support is still very limited, but in India a similar system (UPI) managed to become ubiquitous.

With Visa/Mastercard... debit and credit cards you get some purchase protection. With those direct bank transfer systems you don't.

Have you never done a chargeback on a credit card? With Fednow, UPI etc you can't.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#464

Post by trogdor »

panarky wrote: post #369
gizmo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s such a misrepresentation. The credit card fees exist because customers get benefits like delivery insurance, return insurance, holiday insurance, cashback, free credit, etc. If you just want to transfer bits you can do that for next to no fees (in Europe, where digital payments without consumer protections are common).

> such a misrepresentation Exactly. All the talk about fees misses the point because accepting and securing paper money is also very costly. And the provocateur's stunt in the article also misses the point, because electronic payments for groceries aren't a dystopian tyranny no matter how loud he screams about it. And the crypto skeptics are missing the point when they say you can't buy a coffee with bitcoin, because…

>Try to buy a $20,000 car from a private party on a holiday weekend to see how well that works.

I’m not convinced that spur-of-the-moment, trustless private-party $20,000 transactions are a significant problem.

Every system has edge cases.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#465

Post by hackstack »

xadhominemx wrote: post #405
hackstack wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s just take 95% as a true figure … first of all the 5% you don’t get back is a straight up loss. The rewards you get at the end of the month are fine (eg cash back) but you’ve missed out on earning interest on the money you “get back”

Card network fees (the part credit card users don't get back) are about the same for the European payment systems. For card users on net there is essentially no difference. The interest argument of course is nonsense because the opportunity cost ia outweighed ~50x by the interest benefit you receive from the entire purchase going on credit vs just the 2% interchange.

“Of course”.

Thanks for responding — can you clarify this interest benefit you are talking about?

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#466

Post by tastyfreeze »

kuchenbecker wrote: post #457
tastyfreeze wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people would save more?Savings is how the wealth of a nation is built. Capital breeds investment. The more people with capital the better. The only reason that people invest in the stock market is to maintain wealth. What would you do if you could count on your dollars buying 2% more next year? Would you shove all your dollars in a mattress and forgo buying food so you could save a few more? Or would you keep buyi…

Economies are built on the movement of money not the sum of money. It's truly positive sum where the act of spending money allows someone else to spend money. Highly suggest picking up some econ primers, as its almost universally agreed even mild deflation is destructive.

Economy is the movement of money. That is not a measure of wealth. There can be a lot of money moving around with nearly everybody living pay check to paycheck. People are better off if they can build wealth. It is more stable for society to make it easy to build wealth.

It would take a lot of evidence to convince me that deflation is worse in the long run for human flourishing than inflation. I don't care about the economy as conceived by bankers and economists. If ever more people are flourishing the economy is working.

If a few are getting exorbitantly wealthy, at the expense of everybody else, by being close to the flow of new money, the economy is not working.

We have been at inflation so long there is no painless way out.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#467

Post by ImJamal »

thuuuomas wrote: post #280
beAbU wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, when last did you get a 3-4% discount when paying cash? I remember that from the 90s and 00s. In fact, I have seen some small places ask a 3-4% surcharge for cash payments, because banks don't process cash for free any more.

Every gas station in my area offers a lower cash price.

I'm guessing it could be because when you pay cash you go into the store which causes people to buy stuff and they more than make up the cost.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#468

Post by slau »

varjag wrote: post #416
slau wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10-15 years is also an insanely large amount of time when it comes to digitalisation. 15 years ago IE6 received its final stable release, but it would still go on to be supported for another 8 years. That’s also the same year Chrome was released, but it would take another 4 years before it overtook IE in market share. I used cash semi regularly when I moved to Denmark nearly 10 years ago. I haven’t touched Danish cur…

Put it other way 10 years ago we had Python 3.4, Rust and Windows 8.1 :) What I'm saying is Norway at the time was pretty much where Denmark is now. Even 20 years ago you could go by pretty much cashless except one way bus tickets in certain cities. That said I doubt Denmark has any lower level of social trust than Norway so it's unlikely the cause. As the locals then explained credit card transaction fees were held…

Not sure what you mean with “national clearance network”.

With regards to CC fees, there have been none for (DanKort) cardholders since 2005. I haven’t had a non-DanKort rejected since 2016 or 2017, and the only times that I pay for card fees is when I use the CCs issued to my companies.

Yet somehow, you still can’t buy tickets on the bus with a CC, only cash or apps.

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#469

Post by Remnant44 »

hackstack wrote: post #465
xadhominemx wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Card network fees (the part credit card users don't get back) are about the same for the European payment systems. For card users on net there is essentially no difference. The interest argument of course is nonsense because the opportunity cost ia outweighed ~50x by the interest benefit you receive from the entire purchase going on credit vs just the 2% interchange.

“Of course”. Thanks for responding — can you clarify this interest benefit you are talking about?

You are able to buy now, but not pay until 30 days later, paying no interest unless paid in full. Which means YOU earn interest on your money during that period...

Re: Physical cash is dying–and you don't need to be a conspiracist to worry

#470

Post by [deleted] »

happytiger wrote: post #148

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…

[deleted]
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