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Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

nytimes.com

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Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#91

Post by krageon »

kmlx wrote: post #83
chopin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are just more aware of the associated risks?

no, unfortunately most eastern european societies are completely broken due to USSR influences. it was a wide-held belief in eastern europe that the state knows everything about you and that you should hide your daily life from everyone, as everyone could be a spy working for the government. this is what historically underlines gdpr and the whole privacy movement in europe: a deep-seated mistrust of everything and ev…

How is it broken to assume you need to be privacy conscious, even when it comes to the state?

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#92

Post by lm2s »

Mashimo wrote: post #77
EZ-E wrote: post #14

Looking at what China is doing is gonna give them more ammunition. I used to love digital payment but I'm getting increasingly wary of it. Look what big private companies did with our data, what will happen when they have all your purchase history and when your daily life depends on them approving your transactions? It's too much power. Look at the many horror stories of people getting their money locked out in Paypa…

>Look at the many horror stories of people getting their money locked out in Paypal. But if the bank locks me out of my account I also can't get cash, even if I could buy stuff with it.

Well yes, but you have the option to keep the cash and not using the bank..

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#93

Post by dahfizz »

krageon wrote: post #91
kmlx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, unfortunately most eastern european societies are completely broken due to USSR influences. it was a wide-held belief in eastern europe that the state knows everything about you and that you should hide your daily life from everyone, as everyone could be a spy working for the government. this is what historically underlines gdpr and the whole privacy movement in europe: a deep-seated mistrust of everything and ev…

How is it broken to assume you need to be privacy conscious, even when it comes to the state?

I think what OP describes is closer to 'widespread paranoia crippling the economy' than being 'privacy conscious'

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#94

Post by dahfizz »

ubernostrum wrote: post #57
toxik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that instead of having a discussion about this, my point of view gets downvoted. It's true. Where I live, cash has had more downtime than cards. That is just plain fact.

The problem is that while it may be personally true for you in the country where you live over a short window of time, it's not generally true for the world. Internet outages are more common than demonetizations.

I think it really comes down to what you mean by 'internet outage'. Maybe if you're in a smaller town, the one ISP can have a service outage. Or a large hosting service like aws could have an outage. But those are always going to be limited in scope, both in time and users affected - as far as I know, there has never been a time where the entirety of the internet just went down. On the other hand, demonetizations do happen and they do not have the same limitation of scope - they affect every business and cash using citizen of a country.

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#95

Post by michaelt »

krageon wrote: post #89
michaelt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but is it known they sell the data in the EU?

It would be breathtakingly naive to think this is not done.

But is there _evidence_ ? The sort of evidence that could form the basis of a GDPR complaint?

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#96

Post by jarvelov »

zbrox wrote: post #44
Orphis wrote: post #36

The major issue I see regarding a cash-free society (which I am part of by living in Sweden) is that it puts a big burden on tourists who have to pay a huge amount of fees when using their own cards in a different currency. It is also a bit similar for expats who, under certain conditions, can't apply for a Swedish person number (think SSN) and thus get a fully activated bank account. No bank account? Good luck doing…

I for once love Swedish cashless society and have rarely been inconvenienced by it. People close to me have had issues due to not having a personnummer (thanks Migrationsverket). But then there are things like Revolut for example or Transferwise. This is how we got around it. Although for stuff like rent you're fresh out of luck if it's not second hand. And the fees for foreigners are for converting currency. Those y…

Regarding the receipt, one can always issue handwritten ones. It is a perfectly valid form of receipt, albeit tedious to issue.

I’ve paid with cash in many smaller shops and received handwritten receipts, one time after the receipt printer malfunctioned.

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#97

Post by toxik »

ubernostrum wrote: post #57
toxik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that instead of having a discussion about this, my point of view gets downvoted. It's true. Where I live, cash has had more downtime than cards. That is just plain fact.

The problem is that while it may be personally true for you in the country where you live over a short window of time, it's not generally true for the world. Internet outages are more common than demonetizations.

I am Swedish. This article is about Sweden. It is true of Sweden.

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#98

Post by willvarfar »

kungtotte wrote: post #75
PeterisP wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people live in cities, and the share is continuously growing.

Actually only 41% of Swedes live in cities with >= 50000 inhabitants.

The purpose of giving my anecdotal evidence is to describe the world as seen from my bubble? ;)

Where I am, a town is pretty much anything over 5K people. We jokingly call the nearest large village with 2K people a 'town' too.

And I live in the proper countryside. I don't think that a is relevant factor.

I increasingly use swish in shops too. Just recently Swish QR codes have been plastered to tills everywhere. Its already ubiquitous.

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#99

Post by blablabla007 »

kmlx wrote: post #83
chopin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are just more aware of the associated risks?

no, unfortunately most eastern european societies are completely broken due to USSR influences. it was a wide-held belief in eastern europe that the state knows everything about you and that you should hide your daily life from everyone, as everyone could be a spy working for the government. this is what historically underlines gdpr and the whole privacy movement in europe: a deep-seated mistrust of everything and ev…

[dead]

Re: Sweden’s Push to Get Rid of Cash Has Some Saying, ‘Not So Fast’

#100

Post by zbrox »

jarvelov wrote: post #96
zbrox wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for once love Swedish cashless society and have rarely been inconvenienced by it. People close to me have had issues due to not having a personnummer (thanks Migrationsverket). But then there are things like Revolut for example or Transferwise. This is how we got around it. Although for stuff like rent you're fresh out of luck if it's not second hand. And the fees for foreigners are for converting currency. Those y…

Regarding the receipt, one can always issue handwritten ones. It is a perfectly valid form of receipt, albeit tedious to issue. I’ve paid with cash in many smaller shops and received handwritten receipts, one time after the receipt printer malfunctioned.

Yeah, I know that in Sweden it's for sure ok to give out handwritten receipts but I also know of a couple of countries that have a bit of a higher rate of tax avoidance schemes to not allow it. However even when allowed I doubt people would be eager to do it unless it was an exception and not the rule. We are moving to the new normal.
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