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Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

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Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#311

Post by megaremote »

shellkr wrote: post #264
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

Ok... so you went to a festival without money? How would you have solved this without Swish? As you said there was no ATMs. Card readers are expensive and not really viable for most booths. They are also kind of a monopoly. You don't have to use SWIFT... you can do Paypal, Western union etc.. too. For Swedes.. Swish is god send. I lost my credit card once at a train and had no cash. I was at a hospital out of town wi…

They had money, most places did not accept money.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#312

Post by XorNot »

greglindahl wrote: post #294
Spooky23 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite liberating. My family went cash only a couple of years ago. We spend less and tbh there isn’t much downside.

I have some friends who find that they budget much more successfully when they use only cash... they can see exactly what they have left this week or month.

"Because I lack mental discipline a technology must be bad"

This is an argument in the same vein as any number of self-assured blog posts which do the rounds through HN of "Why I stopped using X" and "Y considered harmful".

Power to your friends maybe, but it's not an argument one way or another over the merits of the system - its an argument about things they do personally to ensure self-discipline.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#313

Post by megaremote »

eksemplar wrote: post #123
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

That’s festival payment done wrong, but cashless can be really great at festivals. In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build both your ticket and your cashless payment into the festival bracelet. You use the bracelet to pay everywhere, and you can add money to it a range of payment methods, from using a visa or similar in their app, to visiting one of the cash places where you can use…

How do you get money off the bracelet?

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#314

Post by dunnevens »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #219
kristofferR wrote: post #97

I'm a Norwegian who went to a Swedish music festival last summer. I couldn't pay for a lot of things there, since the booths only accepted Swish (the only relevant Swedish mobile payment solution, it's a de facto monopoly). I couldn't sign up and use Swish on my phone, since it only accepts Swedish bank accounts. I couldn't borrow money from my Swedish friends either, since they didn't have cash (and it mostly wasn't…

That reminds me of Futurama episode where Bender finds a phone booth: "Now I don't need to carry my phone with me all the time!" Progress is sometimes a regress in disguise.

Reminds me of an old scifi story. Someone in a far future or advanced alien society runs across a paper book. "A means of conveying information without needing power and without the risk of surveillance? Excellent!" (paraphrased from memory).

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#315

Post by alkonaut »

kstenerud wrote: post #26
jamesblonde wrote: post #17

As a resident of Sweden, i can only say that this is the future for all western countries. Life is just better without cash. We don't pay the mental tax of always ensuring i have dollar bills on me to tip left, right, and center. Your phone is enough to get you through the day. The govt is still run by the people for the people here, so most people aren't worried about totalitarianism. Most beggars now have signs wit…

So if your phone dies or is lost or stolen, how do you pay for food with no phone? How do you even buy a replacement phone if you have no phone to pay with?

Transactions to businesses are done with cards. Transactions between individuals are done with phones. A few businesses use the phone transfers but one doesn’t use that to buy food. It’s typically done with debit cards like most other places. If my card is lost I actually don’t have any spare cash at home or similar - although it is recommended to keep some.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#316

Post by megaremote »

sizzle wrote: post #291
bamboozled wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best payment experience I’ve had is cash. I pay for what I need and when I leave the festival I can still use my “credits” hassle free anywhere I like.

Until you run out of cash on hand or it gets lost or stolen....

No different to anything getting lost of stolen, and a bracelet is less likely to get lost or stolen.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#317

Post by o-o- »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #301
edoceo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the near monopoly of the payment network is the coercion?

"either use Swish or go without food/water/travel/etc" is coercion by any definition

Food is payed with VISA och Mastercard. Water is payed through the online banking service. Travel with VISA/Mastercard (even local buses accept credit cards). "Etc" is also payed with VISA or Mastercard. Swish is a mere conveniency for transferring money without having to log onto your online banking service. I use it once a month tops.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#318

Post by kadendogthing »

gsich wrote: post #287
felipemnoa wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this with mature technology. There comes a point where a product is perfect, no need to add anymore features. But the manufacturer still wants to continue adding new features so that they can use those as new selling points. Unfortunately the new features end up making the product worse.

Smartphones today.

Really? I think the smart phones we have are pretty brilliant and functional.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#319

Post by Moru »

xrd wrote: post #224
xrd wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, would your colleagues consider using bitcoin or ethereum as a method of exchange? Could you send them that to pay them back and they could pay on your behalf? If not, why? edit: auto complete filled in butcoin, corrected. Not sure how that got in my dictionary!

To the downvoters: care to say why? I read the entire article, read the comment I'm referring to, and have personal experience that the solution I'm proposing works as I'm describing. I'm left with only that everyone must think my question reeks of crypto currency evangelism, and that's a BAD thing here on HN. Is it something else? My grammar or phrasing?

Im just guessing but replacing something that is used by almost everyone here in sweden with something almost noone uses is a bit counter productive. Just start using cash again would be the easiest solution. Swift payments is mostly used to accept payment easy and costfree between private people at fleamarkets and similar since noone carries cash any more.

Re: Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia

#320

Post by vfclists »

pishpash wrote: post #49
clintonb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The development raises some crucial issues regarding the state’s role in the payment market. For hundreds of years, the public has been offered central bank notes and coins. If cash stops working, it would leave all individuals to rely on the private sector alone to get access to money and payment methods. This would be a historical change without precedence. Norway is seeing a similar trend, and the two central ba…

Private entities can be regulated to the same effect on the matter of access.

But are they?
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