151–160 of 717 posts
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Same exact process as now, except you have a guaranteed right to appeal.
And your effectively at the same spot again
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How could a website function with cash payments at all?
I don't know. Cash is nearly impossible to use on the internet. The web is a window into what the physical world will look like without cash. Incidents like Pornhub's show us the power a few companies will wield over us when the transition to cashless happens.
When I was in Asia using UberEats and Food Panda, "Cash on Delivery" was the recommended option by most of the locals.
Even if it weren't a terrible, awful idea from a democratic point of view, it's just silly from a logistic point of view. This means you create a single point of failure for your entire society: electricity provision. Got a power shot down? Suddenly nobody can buy anything. Got a war on your territory? Your trade routes will get destroyed 4 times faster. Want to be a reserve currency? Guess what, now you have to do l…
Most stores aren't going to be able to sell you anything with no power, regardless of taking card or cash, because sales need to go into a database via a register, update inventory, etc. Sure a few small family run businesses, maybe restaurants, might be able to take cash, but almost no chains will be able to run and that's most stores in most places.
In Europe, the Visa network went down in 2018. see https://www.wired.com/story/visa-outage-shows-the-fragility-...
In Canada, the Rogers network went down in July 2022 for several hours which caused debit card transactions to fail (after the outage, Interac said it was going to add a SECOND network provider - *facepalm*). Many businesses which relied on the Rogers network for credit card transactions were also affected.
from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-outage-interac-debit...:
"Small business owners were among those hardest hit by the outage, which left them unable to process debit card payments.
Sharif Ahmed, the owner of Plantforsoul plant shop in Toronto's west end, said the outage left him feeling helpless, as he turned away customers who didn't have cash."
My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.
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I swear money handling cost will be reduced by one simple thing that some countries like Canada and Ireland have done (and can be improved): ditch the smaller coin denominations (and maybe add higher denomination coins like $2 like EU and UK have) Anything under 10 cents gets rounded down/up accordingly It doesn't matter. Minting and transporting it, even in your pocket costs more than you'll ever get in dealing a mo…
That's an awful idea. Especially the "down/up" part.
Cash is great. Can't be tracked, credit card companies don't get to discriminate against the poor and create negative feedback loop traps that they can't out of, it's easier to be financially responsible with it. Bit unfortunate too that paying with cash just adds a tax onto the poor since the fees are basically priced into goods sold at stores, typically regardless of whether or not cash is used. But yeah, nice to h…
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The fact that getting mugged is so uncommon these days shows how naive this comment is to the second and third order effects of a cashless society. I think cash should always be an option, but I don’t pretend that cards haven’t dramatically improved our lives.
This might have something to do with an increase in surveillance and criminal record keeping.
In 1985, when I was a child, my father would care around $300 on him effectively at all times. Credit cards were still new, and checks were a limited option, most places you still needed cash. That's the equivalent of $850 today. I rarely carry more than $200 on my person today (less than the cost of a fancy dinner for two in San Francisco). The only reason I'm able to do that is because the vast majority of my transactions settle on a bank card.
You can argue that the change is surveillance, but the stark decrease in untraceable value I carry on my person is clearly an incentive for robbery that has been lost. It's also likely a major reason for the near-elimination of pick-pocketing in western society.
My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.
Also the threat to civil liberties was exposed in Canada when the government saw it fit to freeze people's bank accounts. I believe this is being reviewed and maybe something will come of it so that the gov is not allowed to cavalierly freeze accounts in the future, but you can see how even liberal people are ready to violate people's civil liberties when they see it fit. It's like principles are only followed when t…
They would give the plebs some scraps of coz. It's better to be homeless with some food than being hungry
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Are these really inconveniences? Most of the times I've had trouble paying for stuff were usually at supermarkets or gas stations where the credit card reader would refuse to acknowledge my card. Swiping/inserting/touching, not even cursing worked so without cash on hand I'd have had to surrender my ID to the clerk, take a cab to the closest ATM and return with cash.
I was an early adopter of (debit) card only, using it for everything in 1999. Your experience has never happened to me, as far as I recall. I don’t think I’ve ever had to go to an atm because the reader didn’t work.
Now days they can print you a new card in real time at the branch, but still I will never not have cash, and not have a backup card
I also NEVER use by debit card for anything other than ATM now, credit cards and pay it off every month... I dont even carry my debit card anymore, it is locked in the safe, and a bring it out when I need to get more cash.