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Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

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Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#161

Post by gary_0 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #144
gary_0 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a debit card system in Canada called Interac that should be free, but depending on the bank and account type, the bank will give you a very limited number of transactions per month (like 10 or 20). After that, every time you use your card you get charged a significant fee. Canadians get ridiculously nickel-and-dimed by banks, telecoms, retail, etc, compared to most other countries, which is part of why our co…

This is weird. I've never been charged a fee for using Interac. Sure, there are accounts for which you are discouraged from transacting daily, but this is true in the United States as well, in my experience. No one is being forced to use an inappropriate account type as a daily driver. Most accounts have a minimum balance requirement, which is usually pretty low, to avoid any fees. ATM fees on the other hand are a di…

This is mostly a problem that affects poorer people, I suspect. I know people living paycheck-to-paycheck, who can't leave thousands of dollars lying around in their checking account, who are hesitant to use Interac because of the fees. Also, most people don't go to the trouble to shop around banks looking for a better deal.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#162

Post by gruez »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #100
lupusreal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sleep deprivation is torture under the Geneva Convention. It's rightfully considered a war crime. You don't get to do that to other people. Not in my idea of a civil society.

Get a grip. Honking is honking. Comparing it to "war crimes" like killing civilians makes little sense and is disingenuous[1].

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#163

Post by stanleydrew »

olalonde wrote: post #13
janice1999 wrote: post #6

Governments really need to break the Visa and Mastercard Duopoly. Not mentioned in this article, but certainly related, was the Canadian governments unprecedented step to freeze hundreds of bank accounts of protestors during COVID protests using their Emergencies Act. While I couldn't be more politically removed from the protestors, using a legislative power envisioned for war like conditions to personally ruin prote…

They just need to remove regulations. The reason there's a duopoly is that it's nearly impossible for a startup today to start a similar payment network.

This completely ignores the power of network effects. Even if all regulation were removed tomorrow I doubt the market would accommodate new entrants.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#164

Post by adamiscool8 »

nick_ wrote: post #152
adamiscool8 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dennis: Think about it. She’s out in the middle of nowhere with some dude she barely knows. She looks around her, what does she see? Nothing but open ocean. “Oh, there’s nowhere for me to run, what am I gonna do, say no?” > Mac: Okay…that seems really dark though. > Dennis: No, no, it’s not dark. You’re misunderstanding me, bro. > Mac: I think I am. > Dennis: Yeah, you are. ‘Cause if the girl said no, then the answ…

So no, they didn't.

Sure, and at first the Canadian government didn't force indigenous children into residential schools - it just withheld resources and services and used a monopoly on violence to make resistance untenable. Believing that's acceptable behaviour from your government, is certainly... a position.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#165

Post by portaouflop »

throw0101b wrote: post #74
pasabagi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often pretty hard to do public protest without breaking some kind of law, even if you do everything you're supposed to. I'm not a fan of the truckers (the loud horns were totally infuriating) but the fundamental problem was that the police didn't want to move them on, not that they were breaking the law.

> It's often pretty hard to do public protest without breaking some kind of law, even if you do everything you're supposed to. All movements start small, and if you want to have your movement be a success it involves bringing more and more people over to your point of view / side. One can be disruptive in that you hold a rally or march to raise awareness, and be seen (in numbers) by folks on the street. Marches / par…

> But being disruptive so that you piss people off is a way to not get more people onto your side of your movement. It is a way to inhibit further involvement of the public towards your side.

While I agree to some extent with your comment, I think there is some nuance needed. For a movement to succeed you need to be disruptive and piss some people off. It just depends in what way disruptive and who you piss off.

For example take the women’s rights movements. Were they disruptive and did poss a lot of people off? Hell yeah they did. Did they ultimately succeed and get the public opinion on their side. Also yes.

Another (horrifying) example is the nazi movement. They were extremely disruptive and pissed off a ton of people when they were still an extreme fringe group. Precisely because of that they became very successful.

There are many more examples like that. A protest movement needs to be disruptive to some extent to be successful

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#166

Post by notatoad »

gary_0 wrote: post #136
smnrchrds wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's credit cards work on Visa, MasterCard, or Amex networks. However, debit cards work on a domestic network called Interac. About half of card transactions in Canada are debit card transactions. https://payments.ca/sites/default/files/PaymentsCanada_Canad... page 7 EDIT: In the past few years, many Canadian banks have started issuing dual-network debit cards that bear both Visa and Interac logos (sometimes Mast…

The dual-network cards are Visa/Mastercard "debit" cards, which look like a credit card but sometimes don't work like one. I never had a problem with my dual-network card when physically visiting the States, but for whatever reason, some online payment systems (especially ones in Canada) have trouble with it. And vendors are clueless as to what the problem is when the debit CC number fails to go through. Just recentl…

>some online payment systems (especially ones in Canada) have trouble with it.

it's not really anything technical that they "have trouble with", most gateways launched visa debit as an "opt-in" payment method for existing merchants, so if the merchant did not specifically enable it it never got enabled. newer merchant accounts have it enabled by default, so this should sort of work itself out over time. but yes, i don't understand why they made merchants opt in, it's pretty dumb.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#167

Post by sofixa »

stavros wrote: post #142
sofixa wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm saying. Those are the things that need to be fixed, not cash mandates.

But there can't be any such guarantee, because a centralized system is too easy to take control of. If a government at some point wants to freeze your assets, you're done. With cash, at least you have some options.

By the same logic, if the government wants to murder you, it can, so why live?

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#168

Post by throw0101b »

mandmandam wrote: post #153
throw0101b wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may want to read some MLK - he had some very clear words about the liberal who demands civility in the face of oppression. It is not about acting civilly. It is about messaging. If non-movement people consider you as a bunch of jackasses, do you think they will join your cause, or even have sympathy towards it? You need to communicate your message—words and actions—so that, at the very least, people will have a…

You seem to be trying to conflate blocking a road and honking your horn with violence... In order to defend fucking with non-violent protesters bank accounts directly (and very illegally). Lots of people claimed that anyone who didn't respect lockdowns and wear masks were being "violent" - is that what you're trying to do here? > If you're actually good, then people will have a positive opinion of you and your goals.…

> You seem to be trying to conflate blocking a road and honking your horn with violence... In order to defend fucking with non-violent protesters bank accounts directly (and very illegally).

Do you want your movement to succeed? If yes, then don't piss off the non-members / the general public, and try to get them on your side.

That is what MLK understood and did.

That is what Nelson Mandela did not understand when he was young (when he did acts that caused him to go to jail), but did understand when he was older.

It is also what Ghandi (who also spent in jail) understood.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#169

Post by jahnu »

acadapter wrote: post #20

The bad feeling I get from cashless is "what if some future political conflict will lower the status of my ethnicity to such a low position, so I'll be denied buying food and nobody will care?" or some similar scenario.

Not coming out here for or against cashless, but if things were that bad cash would be the least of my problems.

Re: Canada 'sleepwalking' into cashless society, consumer advocates warn

#170

Post by radford-neal »

ekanes wrote: post #149
cooljacob204 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wiki article you linked specifically says it's for more then war like conditions. "take extraordinary temporary measures to respond to public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies..."

Totally fair. A better criticism of the government's choice might be whether or not the trucker protest constituted a legitimate emergency.

A court has ruled that it did not:

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/a-judge-ruled-trudeau...

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