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Not paying with cash

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Re: Not paying with cash

#61

Post by seabass-labrax »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #19
cosmotic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, there's no apparent way to pay for a train using an American android phone (or at least I couldn't figure it out last year). One of the two apps refused to install on non-japanese phones, the other installed but refused to run. Had to pay with cash and it was a huge pain. Half the time I inexplicably had to do a fare adjustment, a hugely embarrassing moment blocking the turnstile, especially considering th…

That’s thanks to Android phone manufacturers, which don’t want to pay for a global license for the NFC tech involved. Apple on the other hand does pay for a global license and so iPhones and Apple Watches from anywhere work perfectly with Japanese cash card terminals. I use a digital Suica on my US iPhone during my visits. Supposedly Pixels have the requisite hardware, but Google software locks the functionality to J…

Why should they pay for a licence? Once a technology reaches such ubiquity, there's a strong case for it being part of the technical infrastructure of that society. To me, that means that governments have a responsibility to ensure that the technology is widely available, and arbitrarily locking it behind commercial licences does not help achieve that. To the extent that patents and licensing provide an incentive to develop such technology, it's beholden on governments to foot the R&D bill in some other way.

Re: Not paying with cash

#62

Post by lvspiff »

marssaxman wrote: post #16

I got irritated with the profusion of "no cash accepted" signs a few years back and started making a point of always carrying cash, to use whenever practical. I don't take it to an extreme, but I also don't want to live in a world where every transaction is trackable and all commerce is regulated by Visa, Mastercard, Apple, or Google.

In right there with you. I live in a small town and so whenever spending money at a local small business I try as much as possible to use cash. The shopkeeps who are also the owners are so appreciative as it's essentially a 5-7% "tip". It's difficult for them to keep good change though as people who do spend cash are either $20 or $100 bills which for a few $5-10 items consumes the small bills pretty fast. But in a no sales tax state so makes giving change easier (no coins)

Re: Not paying with cash

#63

Post by dlcarrier »

supportengineer wrote: post #40

If you like to travel, you can essentially travel "for free" by simply doing these two things: 1. Put all of your purchases on the travel rewards card 2. Pay it off in full every month, no exceptions

What do you mean by "for free"? Would you be paying for your travels in full, the next month?

Re: Not paying with cash

#64

Post by zippergz »

dlcarrier wrote: post #60
spankalee wrote: post #31

The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…

Most of the places I buy from charge an extra 3% for credit card transactions, so rewards cards are just giving your money back, but worse.

Curious what part of the world this is in. I can recall a grand total of three places I've seen in my area do this. It's a tiny minority here.

Re: Not paying with cash

#65

Post by bruce511 »

rolph wrote: post #25
marssaxman wrote: post #16

I got irritated with the profusion of "no cash accepted" signs a few years back and started making a point of always carrying cash, to use whenever practical. I don't take it to an extreme, but I also don't want to live in a world where every transaction is trackable and all commerce is regulated by Visa, Mastercard, Apple, or Google.

i think anyone seeing very many piles of merchandise abandoned at checkout would be wise to review such decisions. it would definately be a failure to consider area demographic

Yes, I'm sure it varies by area.

But from a business point if view, cash is super expensive to deal with.

As a side-effect of an acquisition we inherited a small number of customers that paid in cash. Turns out it's expensive to bank that cash, it's a security risk, it's a risk to the person transporting it and so on.

In the general case, if most sales are already by card, the marginal gains of cash transactions are consumed by the cost of dealing with the cash.

I'm not saying stores should be cashless, but it's worth understanding that accepting cash is very much "not free".

Re: Not paying with cash

#66

Post by bombcar »

tossit444 wrote: post #11
doctoboggan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you replicate the anonymity of cash with a card?

Prepaid debit cards usually do not require identification.

Exactly, or if you care about the credit aspect, debit cards alone.

Or if you shop regularly at a given store, reloadable gift cards are a decent substitute.

But cash isn’t terribly scary.

Re: Not paying with cash

#67

Post by veeti »

m463 wrote: post #45
Shank wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe there is a less limited suica card you can get (not a traveler), but I think you need a japanese address. You don’t need a Japanese address. Simply visit any Suica vending machine, change the language to English, and purchase anonymous Suica. There are various preloaded options you can purchase, but typically you cannot recharge e-money via cash.

the vending machine card was the red one, right? I though there was a (blue?) one that japanese citizens could get, sent to their address.

The red is a 30 day card for tourists. The green is valid for many years. You can get both anonymously, but there was a chip shortage a while back which meant only the red cards were widely available.

Re: Not paying with cash

#68

Post by bfg_9k »

zippergz wrote: post #64
dlcarrier wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the places I buy from charge an extra 3% for credit card transactions, so rewards cards are just giving your money back, but worse.

Curious what part of the world this is in. I can recall a grand total of three places I've seen in my area do this. It's a tiny minority here.

Pretty much anywhere in Australia that isn't a big chain

Re: Not paying with cash

#70

Post by dlcarrier »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #13

The paragraph about the inconvenience of cash resonates with me. It’s a pain to manage and easy to lose or get stolen. At least if I drop my wallet full of cards, in a couple of calls any fraudulent transactions will be voided and the cards turned useless, but stolen cash is just gone. That’s not to discount its upsides but its downsides shouldn’t be handwaived away either.

I've never had physical cash get stolen, but multiple times I've had to get new credit card numbers, because mine was revealed in a data breach. Even if I had been robbed, the cash I have on hand is a fraction of a percent of either my credit limit or bank account balance.

I'm only near a few dozen people per day at most, and the chances of one of them trying to rob me are near zero, and the most they could get is a fraction of what they could access through a stolen card number. Meanwhile, there's constant attempts for data breaches at payment processors and those they work with, so my chances of being harmed by a data breach are much higher than by a robbery.

Also, you are paying insurance premiums for those voided transactions. Vendors are chanrged around 3% for card transactions, and they pass that on to the customer, although some only pass it to their card customers, with a surcharge for card transaction.

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