261–270 of 357 posts
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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...
Yes... I wonder how Nature implemented that...
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The bitcoin failure (I think it is) teaches something. People don't really give each other money. It's kind of illegal. Money is supposed to move between people and companies or companies and companies, not between people. There is no demand for Peter-pays-Paul. In Denmark, the MobilePay system is massive , and challenging credit card payments. It is designed entirely for person-to-person payments, and only later add…
Sweden has Swish with over 4 million users. Norway also has a hugely popular p2p payment app called Vipps with 2.7 million users. Disclaimer: I work for Vipps AS
MobilePay passed 3 million users in 2016 (out of ~7 million people). I don't have any updated statistics.
Anyway, with your added numbers, it is quite clear that at least in Scandinavia, person to person transfers are very common.
Good. The cashless drive gives me the creeps. 1 - First, I like cash. It's tactile and gives me a feel for my spending. 2 - Cards are an duopoly, layered onto an oligopoly. Cashless gives this system a 2% tax on all spending (+ fraud, which retailers pay for). 3 - Government control is creepy too. Liberty reasons, privacy reasons, single-point-of failure reasons. Just simple competency reasons. 4 - It advantages big…
The bitcoin failure (I think it is) teaches something. People don't really give each other money. It's kind of illegal. Money is supposed to move between people and companies or companies and companies, not between people. There is no demand for Peter-pays-Paul. That last bit, that's a profound observation. There is some real demand, but not much. More so there is theoretical demand. In theory I want the option to pa…
MobilePay, a person-to-person payment app in Denmark, is a huge deal here. It had 3 million users in 2016 (out of 7 million people!), and its second-priority shop payment feature (that arrived much later) is challenging credit cards. It's used for everything from selling used goods to splitting bills.
Swish, the Swedish equivalent, has 4 million users.
Vipp, the Norwegian equivalent, has 2.7 million users.
Peter-pays-Paul has huge demand here. Bitcoin is just a terrible solution to that problem.
(uggedal provided the Swedish and Norwegian numbers).
Good. The cashless drive gives me the creeps. 1 - First, I like cash. It's tactile and gives me a feel for my spending. 2 - Cards are an duopoly, layered onto an oligopoly. Cashless gives this system a 2% tax on all spending (+ fraud, which retailers pay for). 3 - Government control is creepy too. Liberty reasons, privacy reasons, single-point-of failure reasons. Just simple competency reasons. 4 - It advantages big…
Cashless transactions don’t have to go through the card networks. Here in New Zealand around 2/3rds of all retail transactions are done via cards because many years ago the reserve bank mandated free inter-bank transactions. This means direct bank-to-bank transactions via the local EFTPOS network are free for both parties (with exceptions for some low-use plans, and businesses typically rent the terminals). Also the…
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.
Germans are very paranoid about giving their details to anyone: government, banks, corporations, other people. Paying with cash is viewed as a safer way to pay without any number of Big Brothers watching over your shoulder. (The reason for paranoia is the history of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi )
It is why many parts of the modern/post-war German bureaucracy were intentionally set up inefficient and why we still dislike any "central databases" for anything, from law enforcement to tax collection. Slow, decoupled government systems slow down unwanted usage patterns much more than valid ones, are generally harder to game (try explaining your urgent need for some data to a rural bavarian city hall employee) and easier to monitor/verify for citizens.
Looks like most people in this comments section are afraid to pass for a luddite if they don't support cashless transactions. But the argument about centralized system watching every payment you make is still valid. Why are people so eager to jump off something and irreversibly lose its good properties (anonymity, decentralization and reliability in case of analogue money) and that just for the sake of minor comfort?…
"But I have nothing to hide! I don't want to buy illegal stuff!"
Not right now, maybe. But who decides what's illegal and what's not?
A cashless society is one more step towards turn-key fascism, which is why it has to be opposed.
Also worth noting is that the chairman of the central bank of Sweden basically told the banks to stop whining and continue handling cash.
Looks like most people in this comments section are afraid to pass for a luddite if they don't support cashless transactions. But the argument about centralized system watching every payment you make is still valid. Why are people so eager to jump off something and irreversibly lose its good properties (anonymity, decentralization and reliability in case of analogue money) and that just for the sake of minor comfort?…
Clinging to an old and limited system because more technically advanced options seem hard and chalenging is a luddite attitude, whatever way you turn it. The way forward is not to go back to cash, but to find or build a better alternative.
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Cashless transactions don’t have to go through the card networks. Here in New Zealand around 2/3rds of all retail transactions are done via cards because many years ago the reserve bank mandated free inter-bank transactions. This means direct bank-to-bank transactions via the local EFTPOS network are free for both parties (with exceptions for some low-use plans, and businesses typically rent the terminals). Also the…
blows my mind that people overseas still use cash. Literally the only reason I ever get cash out is to buy weed
Still you don’t really see the vendors at small farmer’s markets with the payclip things like you do in NZ.
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We have a verb in swedish for this: "I'll swish you 50 crowns" "Can you swish me 200?"
In Denmark "I'll MobilePay you 50 crowns" or "can you MobilePay me 200?", at least when speaking English. My Danish isn't good enough to reliably say what it is when speaking Danish. Probably something like "Jeg mobilepayer dig halvtres¹ kroner" The system in Britain (Paym) hasn't really caught on. They might be less keen to verb a noun. ¹ This is why I avoid discussing numbers in Danish.
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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.