Swedes turn against cashlessness • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#131

Post by tigershark » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #71

optimusrex wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. I understand I need to become more accustomed to the culture that I immigrate too, but that does not mean that there are not more efficient solutions compared to "the way its always been". As for the card reade…

> With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.

How on Earth inserting multiple bills in a small slot, waiting for the change and retrieving all the nice and heavy little coins is faster than just tapping with your phone/card?

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#132

Post by bobthechef » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #99

nv-vn wrote: post #76

Wow. No comments on how crazy this viewpoint is? They're not just talking about eliminating cash, they want to nationalize all private banking. They're arguing that a monopoly of the state is better than a "monopoly" of four different companies, that private firms cannot be trusted to manage financial transactions despite the massive history proving they can, and that the state is somehow going to be able to handle t…

It might have something to do with them being used to having a government that isn't utterly dysfunctional from top to bottom. Such a thing is possible, believe it or not. Their health systems are certainly less complicated and bureaucratic than US systems, despite being public.

Yes, and Sweden's population is 3% of the US's, and the country is very homogenous ethnically. There are other factors I'm sure, but these factors are very important.

In any event, I detect the unmistakable tendency of many in the American Left to view the Nordic countries as something approaching utopia[0].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-the-scandimania...

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#133

Post by Paperweight » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #127

brownbat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The network is still the third party. With cash, or bottle caps, or any physical token, all you need are two people that agree it has value. Possession is the ledger.

The network can still run between those two people alone (if consolidation is solved).

Nature has an elegant solution to the double-spending problem for physical commodities.

If only there was a way to timestamp digital transactions without a write-only ledger...

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#134

Post by rb808 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

nv-vn wrote: post #76

Wow. No comments on how crazy this viewpoint is? They're not just talking about eliminating cash, they want to nationalize all private banking. They're arguing that a monopoly of the state is better than a "monopoly" of four different companies, that private firms cannot be trusted to manage financial transactions despite the massive history proving they can, and that the state is somehow going to be able to handle t…

You should read it again- it says "secure public control over the payments system", not to nationalize the banks.

In the USA, the Fed Reserve controls ACH, so not that far different.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#135

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #106

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the new addition of Pay Wave where you can simply tap a card on a sensor, I do not see how paying with cash and then waiting for the teller to sort of the bills and provide the right change can be faster. Have you seen the automated checkouts a lot of stores are installing? There is no cashier. You scan your items and insert bills in the slot. The change is calculated by a computer and returned immediately.

On the automated checkouts I've seen in my country, there's no possibility to pay by cash. You have to pay by card in order to use the self-checkout.

> On the automated checkouts I've seen in my country, there's no possibility to pay by cash. You have to pay by card in order to use the self-checkout.

And in stores that don't accept credit cards you have to pay cash. What does that have to do with anything? Machines that can rapidly make change for cash purchases are still a thing that exist. Stores whose customers prefer them can install them -- and then not have to pay a percentage to the credit card companies.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#136

Post by tigershark » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #124

notahacker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor

> This still takes more time than touching a wallet to a sensor How? The machines will literally take an entire stack of bills at once, read them and make change in the same time it takes to verify an electronic transaction. You would need a stopwatch with sub-second precision to even tell the difference. Which one is faster is down more to the specific model of payment processing machine than the payment method. And…

It’s at least a 30 seconds difference. You need to read the amount, extract your wallet, check if you have the exact amount of money to avoid filling your wallet with useless coins, 90% of the time you realise that you don’t have it and you start fumbling between your notes to find the correct amount that can give you a reasonable change. At that point you can start to have fun fighting with the machine that won’t accept some of your notes because are too old/crumpled. Even in the unlikely case that it accepts all your notes now you still need to wait for the change and retrieve all of it, with some coin that will invariably be stuck somewhere. Or instead of paying with your sweat and your blood using cash you can simply put your hand in your pocket, retrieve the phone and tap it on the sensor.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#137

Post by bllguo » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #132

fallingfrog wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might have something to do with them being used to having a government that isn't utterly dysfunctional from top to bottom. Such a thing is possible, believe it or not. Their health systems are certainly less complicated and bureaucratic than US systems, despite being public.

Yes, and Sweden's population is 3% of the US's, and the country is very homogenous ethnically. There are other factors I'm sure, but these factors are very important. In any event, I detect the unmistakable tendency of many in the American Left to view the Nordic countries as something approaching utopia[0]. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-the-scandimania...

Yeah, sure, they have it easier because of the demographics. Still, doesn't change the fact that their government is much more functional. You're being overly defensive.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#138

Post by hsson » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

callesgg wrote: post #62

What a click-bait title, swedes as a people has said nothing like this. As a swede i see no indication of it at all. It i more like the exact opposite, most people seam to hate cash and take every opportunity to move away from it.

This is my experience in Sweden as well. The only people I've heard complaining about the move away from cash are older generations (65+) — everyone else loves it. The e-krona initiative could solve the problem of allowing a cashless system while still giving control to the Riksbank [1].

[1] https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/financial-stability/the-financ...

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#139

Post by QasimK » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #112

ciocan42 wrote: post #20

From what I've seen here in London (UK), mostly tourists use cash. Everybody else uses contactless payments. You can pay with contactless cards or apple/android pay on the public transport or on your corner grocery store. And with the new fin-tech banks like Monzo, Starling or Revolut the banking apps are light years ahead of traditional banks.

I requested a contactless card in the US, it took some pleading, but it was the greatest decision. About half the places I shop support Apple and Google pay, and those systems always seem to take the card, but it's far faster than my phone or watch. Way faster than chip, of course. No idea why it didn't take off here, contactless cards have been the best experience for me by a mile. Maybe people have had better luck…

Contactless cards aren’t really any faster than Apple Pay secured by your fingerprint, and in fact are the same speed if you prepare your iPhone - supposing your phone is at least as accessible as your contactless card. I’ve never used the Apple Watch for this.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#140

Post by uniformlyrandom » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

mapgrep wrote: post #122

nv-vn wrote: post #76

Wow. No comments on how crazy this viewpoint is? They're not just talking about eliminating cash, they want to nationalize all private banking. They're arguing that a monopoly of the state is better than a "monopoly" of four different companies, that private firms cannot be trusted to manage financial transactions despite the massive history proving they can, and that the state is somehow going to be able to handle t…

>The state is anti-innovation Let's look at "innovation" in consumer banking: -Debit and credit cards physically show numbers that give full access to the accounts 40 years after modern public key cryptography was invented -A very modest improvement to this system, known as PIN and chip, came to the U.S. recently after years in Europe and Asia; the Wall Street Journal has called this very basic change a "nightmare" m…

> physically show numbers

That is backwards compatibility, not lack of innovation. You have (some) cryptography on the chip.

> Checks physically show numbers

That, again, is backwards compatibility.

> ACH, involves banks FTP-ing massive text files

Yes, that sucks.

> no used standard for peer to peer

Wire transfer?

> Massive data breaches by banks

Massive data breaches by everyone, this is not a bank problem - this is an industry-wide problem.

> response to endemic fraud is to revoke cards

What is your point here? Would you prefer to revoke a certificate instead? But we already established that pesky concept of backwards compatibility and real world.