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It sounds like the author lives somewhere upper class. I've never been to a business that can't take cash.
I live in a "not affluent" city, and cashless is common. Many restaurants will not take cash. No hotels take cash. Some gas stations do not take cash. Grocery stores actively encourage cashless payments. etc... Is it more likely that you frequent places which are cash-centric? Coffee shops, independent retailers and the like?
It sounds like the author lives somewhere upper class. I've never been to a business that can't take cash.
There are a few that won't take cash, especially in the more COVID-conscious areas. Nominally it was because during early pandemic people were worried about handling cash with virons on it, or otherwise bringing infected peoples' bodies nearer to cashiers' bodies than strictly necessary. Then many realized that their profits didn't take a hit since card payments are common now and nearly everyone has a card. Now it s…
The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…
No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision.
Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is that most people in their daily lives prefer using cashless forms of paying, both online and offline, and they don't hoard bills under their beds; even when using ATM to get some cash, you are still using the cashless system to do that (your card and your bank account); so how are you going to do that if it's frozen?
Every use of the financial stick to silence dissent and protest makes all the more cogent an argument for cryptocurrency, especially untraceable forms such as Monero. traditional Kissinger style flexes of soft power, while effective in the past as KYC turned the fiat world into a tool of state, only serve to galvanize actors in the crypto sphere.
the astute would argue that KYC ingress and egress control take some steps to extend the stately stick of monetary policy to where it could act similarly. freeze a protestors exchange account and youve accomplished nearly the same thing. However this merely stokes an arms race at the expense of a well funded industry of exchanges that are neither keen on enforcing arbitrary rules of a countries law, nor are they comfortable with the inevitable outcome of such enforcement: exodus and loss of trust. overzealous enforcement, or even the perception of such in this case could result in the collapse of the inroads to crypto altogether at a certain point, with industries simply dealing in crypto entirely as new means to earn $coin emerge at the state and local level, for example, companies that pay in $coin.
It sounds like the author lives somewhere upper class. I've never been to a business that can't take cash.
Or you stay off the toll roads, I guess.
IDK what NY's policy is, but it is rather hard to cross the southern Hudson without toll.
If you're renting a car, and you don't have an EZ Pass, some rental agencies will also charge some pretty ridiculous fees (we were once charged ~$25 for a single toll!), which pretty much forces you down the EZ Pass route, or onto some really odd paths to avoid incurring that charge. (In our case, we didn't even realize we'd driven on a toll road, and actually requested proof of such when the bill came. Sure enough, we had.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in a "not affluent" city, and cashless is common. Many restaurants will not take cash. No hotels take cash. Some gas stations do not take cash. Grocery stores actively encourage cashless payments. etc... Is it more likely that you frequent places which are cash-centric? Coffee shops, independent retailers and the like?
independent vendors use square instead of cash.
The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…
It sounds like the author lives somewhere upper class. I've never been to a business that can't take cash.
It's becoming more and more common here in Sweden. Especially smaller shops and restaurants don't take cash anymore since it's so expensive and annoying (and potentially dangerous) to deal with.
The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…
> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…
The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. In the medium to long term it's simply incompatible with any reasonable definition of freedom. Surveillance is bad enough, but a system that allows governments to arbitrarily "turn off" thousands or millions of people at the push of a button is too powerful to not be abused. Even the mere existence of such a system has a chilling effect. Which I suspect is precisel…
> The simple answer is to reject the cashless society. No, that battle is lost. Cashless is easier and more convenient, it's hard to beat that. We need more constitutional human rights. It's not okay to take or freeze somebody's money/property without any court decision. Edit: some of the answers assume that I'm against cash or that by saying "battle is lost" I mean cash is gone; My point of "cashless winning" is tha…
In a few short years or decades it will be more convenient to simply plug yourself into the wall. What then?
"We" simply accept that the real world is too inconvenient? Too resource intensive, too difficult, too ugly?
You do you, boo, I ain't down for that.