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Swedes turn against cashlessness

theguardian.com

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Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#151

Post by EADGBE »

ghaff wrote: post #113
brownbat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there are several cards marketed to travelers, so zero fees for intl transactions and competitive exchange rates are becoming common. Even so, most tourists may not know their card's terms, and probably couldn't immediately tell you if the cash advance fee would be preferable to the international transaction fee, and so choose poorly.

Yeah. I have a couple cards that don't have [foreign transaction] fees but they're both cards I pay for aimed at frequent travelers. I think I pay a fee with any of my free cards. As you say, I expect a lot of casual tourists just feel more comfortable paying cash--even if that does get into the whole "what the heck is this coin anyway?" [UGGH. Fixed a bunch of confusing typos.]

The exoticism of a foreign currency also probably has something to do with it.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#152

Post by kadenshep »

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...

>but these factors are very important.

No they aren't.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#153

Post by imartin2k »

I live in Sweden. No one I know uses cash. I haven't had the need for nor used cash for years. Even if headlines often are overblown, this feels particularly misleading, as it implies that there would be some bigger trend.

Considering that many people only read headlines, I'd support a movement for becoming more accurate even with headlines.

"In Sweden, some worry about the cashless society" would be way more apt.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#154

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tigershark wrote: post #131
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.

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?

There are machines with slots capable of accepting multiple bills at once.

The coins needed to make any amount of change only weigh about an ounce.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#155

Post by EADGBE »

optimusrex wrote: post #2

As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I understand there is a slight charge to the vendor when charging to a credit or bank card, but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs.

Agreed, when statistically someone is willing to “overspend” on non-cash, the nominal 2-3% transaction fee seems, well, nominal.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#156

Post by harshgupta »

One of the issues that nobody seems to address is when entire societies shift to cashless, there are network operators who are still milking their first mover advantages. A product that is worth x, is now priced at 1.01x to pay for transaction networks. Europe is definitely ahead than US, but there needs to be better regulations around this.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#157

Post by mrb »

kojeovo wrote: post #128
staplers wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cashless transactions require a third party Cryptocurrency.. (miners are decentralized and don't require you to trust them)

Transactions still have to be approved by the network. ATM it's pretty slow. And many coins have one pool with majority of the hash rate --> not so decentralized

«ATM it's pretty slow»

For most cases you don't have to wait for a confirmation. Accepting a typical non-RBF 0-conf transaction is safer than accepting a credit card payment, because it is trivial to reverse a CC charge, but difficult to suppress a 0-conf transaction sitting in the mempool of thousands of Bitcoin nodes.

«many coins have one pool with majority»

It is not the case for most popular coins: BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC...

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#158

Post by EADGBE »

superkuh wrote: post #68
optimusrex wrote: post #2

As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I understand there is a slight charge to the vendor when charging to a credit or bank card, but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs.

I see the opposite here in the USA in rural areas. People are constantly holding up the lines because of the chip/pin updates or other failures and confusions. With cash it is always just simple and quick. And I know it doesn't matter but when you pay with a credit card or third party payment service you are not paying. Some other entity is.

It doesn’t help that card terminal/chip card rollout in the US has been catastrophic.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#159

Post by mcguire »

fvdessen wrote: post #141
mapgrep wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> A very modest improvement to this system, known as PIN and chip, came to the U.S. recently after years in Europe and Asia. Chip and PIN is a private initiative. I don't know why it took off in Europe/Asia and not in the USA, but it has little to do with the state.

That would be mapgrep's point, I believe.

Re: Swedes turn against cashlessness

#160

Post by EADGBE »

jmnicolas wrote: post #4
optimusrex wrote: post #2

As an American, now living in Europe I cannot understand the pushback against cashless systems. In Germany almost every cafe, restaurant, or bar requires you pay with cash. I understand there is a slight charge to the vendor when charging to a credit or bank card, but the amount of time and energy saved by having "exact change" every transaction should increase productivity enough to cover any costs.

Maybe you're not used to pay with cash but for people that are used to it, it's not slower than using plastic. And sometimes it's even faster, when the card or the card reader don't work, the customer is old etc.

Then every cash handler must not be inept when it comes to breaking bills and making change.

Unfortunately, that’s already a trend we’ve been seeing in the US youth for the past 20 years.

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