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In Sweden, cash is king no more

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Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#41

Post by [deleted] »

ars wrote: post #39
_delirium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the convenience for things like paying rent, taxes, etc., but the main reason I don't use credit cards for small things is how much less convenient it is. Much easier to hand over 50 Kr than go through the routine of: gesture to indicate I'm paying with card / make way over to machine at the end of the bar (waiting if someone else is using it) / insert card / enter pin / pause to confirm it went through. Even i…

The main reason I use credit cards for everything including small things is that it's so much faster and more convenient. Also, I don't carry coins anymore, and I rarely carry bills either (I'm in the US).

[deleted]

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#42

Post by arketyp »

gyardley wrote: post #15

I would have to trust my government a whole lot more than I do to be comfortable with this - and then trust that my government isn't going to change over the course of my lifetime. Surely Swedes buy drugs and cheat on their taxes, just like the rest of us. Even if you don't - why wouldn't you want to ensure you can quietly conduct an illegal transaction, should a currently unforseen need arise in the future? Getting…

This problem is already (partly) solved by exchange in digital gold currency. Pecunix and e-gold are two such services.

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#43

Post by _delirium »

greenyoda wrote: post #38

Cash is remarkably resistant to all the potential problems that could disable credit card transactions. For example, in 2003, much of the northeastern U.S. was affected by a power blackout that lasted over a day in some places, and of course credit card readers require power to operate. The servers that support credit card transactions have backup power (although only for a limited amount of time), but they're also v…

When I lived in Santa Cruz, we had a day-long internet outage due to a fiber-optic cable being cut, which led to most shops not taking CCs, despite there being no trouble with the power. A few mom-and-pop shops did good business by essentially agreeing to take IOUs; they wrote down CC #s on paper and manually ran them later, although afaik that's contrary to most CC companies' policy: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12115324

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#44

Post by veb »

In New Zealand, we use cards for _everything_. Taxis, corner shops, bars...

However, cash still pays a massive part in our economy. Mostly for people who want to remain anonymous with their transactions. Heaps of livelihoods depend on cash; farmers markets etc.

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#45

Post by itmag »

I haven't noticed this at all, except for the public transportation. If anything, there are plenty of businesses that won't accept cards under a certain limit (usually 100 crowns, or about $15).

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#46

Post by pdx »

arketyp wrote: post #42
gyardley wrote: post #15

I would have to trust my government a whole lot more than I do to be comfortable with this - and then trust that my government isn't going to change over the course of my lifetime. Surely Swedes buy drugs and cheat on their taxes, just like the rest of us. Even if you don't - why wouldn't you want to ensure you can quietly conduct an illegal transaction, should a currently unforseen need arise in the future? Getting…

This problem is already (partly) solved by exchange in digital gold currency. Pecunix and e-gold are two such services.

No, they're not.

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#47

Post by te_chris »

veb wrote: post #44

In New Zealand, we use cards for _everything_. Taxis, corner shops, bars... However, cash still pays a massive part in our economy. Mostly for people who want to remain anonymous with their transactions. Heaps of livelihoods depend on cash; farmers markets etc.

Came here to say this. I barely ever use cash here, even for small 1-2 dollar transactions. Cash is an inconvenience. Mobile eftpos is pretty sophisticated here and you'll find that a lot of stalls at places like farmers markets often have eftpos machines. We haven't got a square et al here yet, but once that arrives I can't really see people ever using cash for much of anything.

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#48

Post by Vergle »

jacobr wrote: post #33

Swede here, and as paranoid as the next person. I moved from Gmail due to privacy concerns. I block a lot of tracking domains at DNS level. However, those are trade-offs with very little negative impact in my daily routines. A slightly worse UI for my email is nothing like moving from cards back to cash. It would be like moving from the Internet back to snail mail because email is insecure, or perhaps to Stallman typ…

what email solution do you use? I've been thinking about a change too

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#49

Post by dcosson »

dfc wrote: post #31
mindslight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the 'anonymity' property of bitcoin I keep hearing about? Has there been a fundamental overhaul of the protocol since Satoshi's initial paper?

The parent means pseudonymous. Bitcoin is certainly not anonymous.

True, pseudonymous is the right word. You can start mining bitcoins without disclosing any personally identifiable information (if you obscure your IP address or connect from a public wifi network or something), you could buy bitcoins from someone on craigslist, pay in cash and have them sent to this account, etc. But the minute you make a transaction that links this account to you, all the activity on the account is linked to you. At least that's how I understand it, see [1]

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity#Staying_Anonymous

Re: In Sweden, cash is king no more

#50

Post by patrickgzill »

_delirium wrote: post #43
greenyoda wrote: post #38

Cash is remarkably resistant to all the potential problems that could disable credit card transactions. For example, in 2003, much of the northeastern U.S. was affected by a power blackout that lasted over a day in some places, and of course credit card readers require power to operate. The servers that support credit card transactions have backup power (although only for a limited amount of time), but they're also v…

When I lived in Santa Cruz, we had a day-long internet outage due to a fiber-optic cable being cut, which led to most shops not taking CCs, despite there being no trouble with the power. A few mom-and-pop shops did good business by essentially agreeing to take IOUs; they wrote down CC #s on paper and manually ran them later, although afaik that's contrary to most CC companies' policy: http://www.mercurynews.com/centr…

Actually it is still accepted by CC companies to use the old hand operated machines that have a roller, that takes an impression of the card.
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