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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

#561
post #531
post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already see that manufacturers have a hard time to come up with new features. Stuff like thinner devices (nobody cares or wants this to a certain degree, compared to a better battery life), 3+ cameras, notches because for some reason you can't integrate speakers behind the display. "AI" stuff that doesn't work when you're offline. I would trade all this shit for a week battery time. So yes, while smartphones…

The notch is for the camera and face scanner. Nothing to do with speakers. Ditching the front facing camera might get you half an hour or so battery life I suppose.

But it spans the entirety of the speaker. If it's only the front camera and sensors the notch could be way smaller.

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

#562
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also that (Asimov? Clarke?) story about a space ship which has its computer knocked out by a meteoroid and can't navigate back to Earth until someone on-board turns out to know how to use an abacus.

"Into the Comet", Arthur C Clarke (1960)

"The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov also has a similar premise. It seems that the idea of forgetting basic mathematics due to computers was quite popular in science fiction at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power

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

#564
post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways in which Japan is more civilized than Sweden is. Speaking as a Swedish native who lived in japan for years

Cash is not one of those things though. Nor is the system of buying metro tickets with cash only and without an option to change language.

There is a big "English" option. Plus other languages as well.

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

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, this is not stated enough. We have to grow up with our relationship with political systems, authoritarianism even dictatorship: it happens because of some population dynamics which we may or may not be currently be participating in or regularly encounter. So sure, the question of why cashless has taken off there is interesting, but maybe more importantly we need to think about the current state, what could b…

Every country in your system would have to use their own currency again because if banknotes are the same and (example) the German Euro is stronger than the French one (that would mean everything on Germany is cheaper than in France), the French would hoard all the Euro banknotes they can get their hands on and buy stuff in Germany. Traveling to Germany is not for everybody but there would be companies doing mass tra…

I'm not sure i understand your scenario: germany arguably has a more powerful economy than france, so DM would have a lower exchange rate towards euro than FF towards euro. So imho things in france would actually be cheaper (as seen from germany). Anyway, for that we have customs (everyone has some sort of customs, this doesn't mean strong borders for people). And more generally i don't want any "US of europe": the ratio between in-country similarity and cross-country similarity is far to high across europe to let down economic sovereignty (different demographics, different cultures, different economies, i mean this is great but it implies some restrictions on what political structure can reasonably work). If we have a unique economic policy, this will just end up simply being the policy of some dominating nation inside EU (and that's currently the case, more or less around a strong germany), and this ends up destabilizing politically all the others. I believe that a well functioning european union should be a federation of states that eases any wanted coordination and not a single federated state enforcing unwanted coordination (which benefits no one but the nation that happens to be in a de facto power position in the federation). A wannabe strong federated state would only exacerbate power positions, thus weakening the power of the group with regard to the outside world[#].

[#] This is a well-known social/evolution dynamic: group selection. Bees suicide when attacking: individually it's a weak behavior, but globally it makes the group more resilient. The balance between cooperation and competition is a balance between individual power and group power. Europe is a group of groups, so the balance is weirder but having too strong cooperation at the top level (eg enforcing a common economic policy) will weaken countries. But only some countries because of non-homogeneity, thus destabilizing everything by lowering local national resilience (to specific local concerns, which do exist). So i believe we have to accept that we need slightly stronger countries to make the european union stick together.

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

#566
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my problem with this comes down to ‘why the fuck are you bothering me with this?!’. We have perfectly valid working payment systems (cash, debit/credit), and for some reason you’ve decided that your festivals proprietary payment system is better? Have to load money, have to retrieve money, and have zero insight into how much I’ve already spent without even more apps or interfaces.

> why the fuck are you bothering me with this? Handling cash is a hassle in many ways: 1. It's slow. Obviously it is not slow in the best case when the customer throws in the exact change, but it is _really_ slow in the probably more typical case when the drunkard is at the counter and starts to dig into the pockets and find out if he has enough coins or when the seventh customer in the row wants to pay his ten cent…

Oh, I agree it is a hassle for the merchant, but the fact that they’re making things more difficult for their customers remains the same.

And especially the ‘takes longer’ argument just shifts the time people are waiting to the charging station, or to their own homes, if they’re charging beforehand.

I think it’s fairly easy to make any change handling easy by making everything cost multiples of $1

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

#567
post #503

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.

You mean like an electric toothbrush with Bluetooth? I’d love to have been in the design meeting where thry decided that was more important than world voltage compatibility. “World voltage are you mad? Who packs a toothbrush when they go travelling? Nope, what the people are clamering for is bluetooth support!”

Lack of world voltage is probably deliberate. Braun/Oral-B toothbrushes are usually cheaper in the US than in other countries (e.g. the UK) that use 220/240V. The UK-bought toothbrushes will work fine in the US.

I've had one US-bought base unit fail and, given the simplicity of the device (just coils for transforming voltage and induction charging) I'm assuming it's due to being plugged in to a 220V outlet for an extended period.

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

#568
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the US or Europe, you'll probably get a better rate by exchanging cash into local currency at your destination.

For me, it’s always been cheapest to use an ATM at my destination, and let my bank do the currency conversion instead of using the rate offered by the ATM. My bank charges me something like max(5€, 1%), which is usually substantially cheaper than all the other options. I think this is more or less the same (or cheaper) for all German banks.

Almost all UK banks charge 2.75% above the visa/mc wholesale rate for overseas transactions. Plus they usually charge 1%-1.5% for overseas ATM transactions.

This is so prevalent that it's common for new banks (or existing banks doing a push for their new current account) to offer commission-free overseas spending. But many of them have pulled the 'perk' after they've gained a large enough customer base. If I recall correctly, at least Halifax, Nationwide and Metro Bank have in the past offered accounts with no commission on overseas card transactions, and then changed the terms to the standard (2.25%-2.75%) after 1-3 years.

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

#569
post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine when you are at home - quick and painless. But try losing your card overseas and see how you feel then... Especially if you have to put a stop on your card... Slow and very painful... Unless you have a spare you'll be asking a friend to use Western Union for bridge finance.

But try losing your card overseas and see how you feel then... Depends on the card. With Amex or Diners Club it’s not a problem.

[deleted]

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

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

sounds like the iphone for the last 5 years
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