[HN Gopher] Reasons to fight cashless contagion
___________________________________________________________________
Reasons to fight cashless contagion
Author : Gigamouse
Score : 136 points
Date : 2023-11-01 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brettscott.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (brettscott.substack.com)
| chasil wrote:
| All over my area, I am beginning to see discounts for paying with
| cash. Hopefully this is sufficient to discourage sufficient
| numbers from going fully cashless.
|
| There are situations where cash cannot be used; hopefully this
| changes in a way that is safe.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I haven't seen any discounts yet. I have started to see some
| shops with signs saying that cash is preferred if possible.
| However, I still see far more shops advertising that they don't
| take cash at all. It's interesting that different businesses
| take different views on this. Some dislike the fees charged by
| card processors, others dislike the hassle of dealing with
| cash.
| chasil wrote:
| All my local restaurants are doing it, but not corporate
| chains.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > However, I still see far more shops advertising that they
| don't take cash at all.
|
| Openly call such shops something like "denunciation shops"
| since they only offer a kind of transaction that leaks
| (denounces) data to the involved banks.
| donkeyd wrote:
| I recently got a 'discount' for paying my car maintenance in
| cash. I got cash right next to the garage just to pay in cash.
| Of course this discount isn't because the owner likes cash,
| it's because he can just grab the cash and not pay taxes, which
| is why I got a discount in the first place.
|
| The paying in cash and not being traced part is directly
| connected to a criminal act. Wonder why governments aren't
| liking cash transactions.
| chasil wrote:
| There is also a fee from the credit providers, which I
| believe is 3% of the transaction.
|
| This fee is avoided with cash.
| jrmg wrote:
| Only if you're keeping the cash and not banking it. Banks
| charge businesses handling fees for cash.
|
| [not to mention fees on the other end - a huge percentage
| on most ATM withdrawals].
| donkeyd wrote:
| In my country, pretty much everything is debit. A debit
| transaction costs maximum about EUR0,25 over here. This
| would've been about 0,1% of the total transaction. A bank
| transfer would've been free. Meanwhile, VAT would've been
| 21% and income tax probably close to 50%.
|
| So I doubt the transaction fee is relevant at all in my
| garage's consideration to offer me a 'discount'. This
| nearly doubles his net income and saves me 21% in VAT, just
| because it's off the books.
| chasil wrote:
| In the U.S., a separate credit card at a different
| institution is _very wise_.
|
| When using a debit card, holds placed for funds (i.e.
| hotel incidentals) impact real cash in your account.
|
| When using a credit card, these holds impact your credit
| line, not your actual funds.
|
| I avoid using my debit card whenever possible, because it
| protects my assets more securely.
| donkeyd wrote:
| Debit is the standard in my country for pretty much
| everything... Holds aren't actually common and even most
| hotels ask you to pay the room in advance for short
| stays. It's a very different world and something like
| credit card debt isn't as prevalent here.
| chasil wrote:
| Disputing a charge on a credit card is also a very
| different experience from using debit.
|
| "In a credit card dispute, the credit card issuer may
| issue a chargeback, which means that the disputed funds
| are taken from your merchant account and returned to the
| cardholder. With debit card disputes, the disputed funds
| are typically frozen in the cardholder's account until
| the dispute is resolved. This means that you may
| experience a cash flow impact with credit card disputes,
| while debit card disputes may have a more immediate
| impact on the customer's access to their funds."
|
| https://www.chargeflow.io/blog/credit-card-dispute-vs-
| debit-...
| donkeyd wrote:
| Yeah, debit disputes hardly every happen. Debit over here
| is only used with a card present that has a chip. Any
| transaction over EUR25 (I think) requires a code.
| Skimming is virtually non existent and 'card not present'
| debit transactions don't exist.
|
| Like I said, it's a very different world when it comes to
| payments over here. Apps like Cash App of Venmo are also
| don't really exist, for example, because banks already
| provide similar functionality in their apps without
| transaction fees.
| lawlessone wrote:
| That Vat . We are in the same place.
| openthc wrote:
| Card Present fees are generally lower (1.5%) than Card-Not-
| Present fees (3%+)
|
| Here's some core-fee details:
| https://gravitypayments.com/support-library/card-brand-
| fees/
|
| And Gravity's general fee range here:
| https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-
| processors/gr...
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| _The paying in cash and not being traced part is directly
| connected to a criminal act. Wonder why governments aren 't
| liking cash transactions._
|
| Well, sure, sometimes. But criminals definitely use other
| methods to mask transactions to one another. For example: It
| used to be somewhat common for a restaurant to steal workers
| tips if the customer paid the tip by card, and I'd be
| surprised if they paid taxes on the tips they stole.
|
| On the other hand: Do you want others to know how much your
| tipped each stripper?
|
| Privacy matters to a point. In general, you should have the
| same sort of privacy you can get when using the toilet: A
| closed door to keep the specific details to yourself, even
| though everyone knows _in general_ the sorts of things that
| happen in there. A few exceptions apply - most folks will
| come to your aid if they think you need help in there, for
| example.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It's because he can just grab the cash and not pay taxes
|
| It won't help him much if he gets audited, though.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Completely agree. While there's nothing wrong with digital
| payments, a society without cash just terrifies me. I don't have
| much to hide, but I don't want every action I take with money to
| be traceable and that data of what I do with my money to be
| available to all sorts of private interests without my express
| written consent. No corporation should get to know if I tip my
| barber, waiter, uber driver, etc... in cash let alone if I decide
| to buy a bag of weed.
|
| I prefer to keep a bit of cash on me for many reasons, and I
| don't think it's appropriate for any organization to tell me 1.
| that I can't; and/or 2. that they have the right to know what I'm
| using it for (or that they have the ability to deny my ability to
| use my capital in whatever ways I desire).
|
| We're not China. As someone who worked with Chinese nationals,
| even some of them who were complete simps for The Party had no
| desire to have all their finances completely digitized and
| tracked.
|
| Modern economies have a need for cash, no matter what big banks
| or credit card companies or FinTech companies think.
| eastbound wrote:
| In 99% cases, cash is used to bypass taxes.
| mfringel wrote:
| [citation needed]
| s_dev wrote:
| I don't believe that but there is some truth or less
| exaggerated percentage of tax evasion that could be quoted.
| Cash is also necessary for buying illegal drugs for example
| which a lot of people do in all strata.
|
| Other factors that are rarely mentioned in these debates
| include that cash must be counted and is far more error prone
| than cashless transactions. Most people counting this cash
| are actually 19 year olds or people who just aren't enthused
| by their job, so plenty of mistakes mean cashless
| transactions have a significant advantage in retail.
| NickC25 wrote:
| It's also necessary for when some states have a super low
| minimum wage for restaurant/bar/food workers (because the
| idea is that you'll make the difference up in tips) - in my
| state (FL) I believe it's something like $2.75 or $3 per
| hour. Tips are taxed, and you'd better believe the owner of
| the establishment takes a cut of those tips, too, if they
| are reported. You tip cash, all that goes straight to the
| workers, most of whom are probably not rolling in the
| dough. It goes quite a long way for those types of folks.
|
| The lower the rung you're on economically, the more use you
| have for cash.
| autoexec wrote:
| This is a good example of one way that cash is useful
| today, but hopefully it's also one that will go away as
| soon as possible. We should keep cash, but end tipping
| and slave wages.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Sure, but that also means that taxes on those businesses are
| burdensome to the point where it's better to not accept
| digital payments or credit cards.
|
| Or people just don't want to pay inflated prices just so a
| payment processing company gets a nice % of every single
| purchase.
|
| As I said in another post in this thread, I myself run a
| small business, and the vast majority of my sales are done
| through digital payments. I have no problem with this, but if
| I was to cut the payment platforms' fee, I could offer much
| better prices without having to take a hit on my margins
| (which themselves are sustainable and healthy, but not
| fantastic). It's not about me bypassing taxes, it's about
| providing a better price to my customers.
| buzzdenver wrote:
| You're paying the same taxes whether customers pay with
| cash or CC, aren't you? What am I missing here?
|
| I've been to a few restaurants that are cash only. Is that
| an option for you?
| NickC25 wrote:
| I'm paying the same taxes, yes, but on top of taxes, I'm
| paying a cut of each (pre-tax) sale to the CC company or
| payment processing platform (Stripe, for example, charges
| 2.3% of each transaction). That cut, while it might seem
| like pennies to a customer (because in a sense, it
| literally is roughly a quarter for a given $10 charge)
| but over time and at scale, those cuts really add up.
|
| If my revenue is say, $1m, that's roughly $23k that a CC
| or payment processor gets right off the bat, so I'm
| paying taxes on the $1mm but the cut takes a nice hit off
| my end profits. That $23k would be infinitely more
| valuable if I could reinvest it in my workforce, my
| product, my team, or myself.
|
| I'm not a restaurant but I am a food service provider. I
| wish I could go cash-only but that would restrict who I
| do business with, which at the stage I'm at, is not
| really an option.
| buzzdenver wrote:
| IMO the crux of the issue is that CC companies can
| legally forbid you from charging a different amount for
| CC vs cash transactions.
| graywh wrote:
| https://www.nationalmerchants.com/is-it-legal-to-
| surcharge-o...
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >If my revenue is say, $1m, that's roughly $23k that a CC
| or payment processor gets right off the bat, so I'm
| paying taxes on the $1mm but the cut takes a nice hit off
| my end profits.
|
| If you are talking U.S. income tax, that is incorrect.
| You are not paying taxes on $1 million, rather you are
| paying taxes on $977K since the payment processing fees
| are tax-deductible.
| petre wrote:
| You could incentivize people to pay cash by giving them a
| 2.3% discount while raising your prices with the same
| amount to cover banking comissions.
| eigenhombre wrote:
| Increasingly (in Chicago) I've been seeing restaurants
| and cafes that are credit card- / debit card-only.
| jbaber wrote:
| I always wonder if processor terms force vendors not to
| offer a separate cash price (or cash discount) or if it's
| just the pain of doing it that makes it not super common. I
| only use points cards because I'm trying to claw back the
| premium for everybody using credit. I'd love to just pay
| less in the first place and do cash everywhere.
| gwright wrote:
| This suggest to me that we should have a more sensible taxing
| system not that we should build a tax system in which the
| government must observe all transactions.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Cash prices in many places are lower, so places like gas
| stations do tons of cash business. I highly doubt Exxon is
| using cash to evade taxes, thus this is a fantastically poor
| take.
| eastbound wrote:
| You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes?
|
| ??
|
| Then why would they encourage to use cash using lower
| prices? It's more costly to handle cash than to pay credit
| card companies.
|
| Also, countless examples of people digging into the cash
| register as part of their position perks, or usual
| management of remote petrol stations. Need to pay
| protection money? Cash. Need to pay a provider? Cash.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| > You doubt Exxon is using cash to evade taxes?
|
| What evidence do you have they are?
| windthrown wrote:
| What is your basis for "It's more costly to handle cash
| than to pay credit card companies."? It seems much more
| likely that they are encouraging cash with lower prices
| to avoid paying the typical ~1-5% transaction costs to
| Visa/MasterCard/Amex rather than a large scale tax
| evasion scheme.
|
| I understand your point about handling cash requiring
| more labor (no self serve, armored trucks, etc) but I'd
| be surprised if the cash sales were less profitable than
| credit cards.
| sifar wrote:
| Physical cash is also the only thing preventing central banks
| from running large negative interest rates since people would
| simply start hoarding cash.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > In 99% cases, cash is used to bypass taxes.
|
| If the government would care that the citizens are very
| honest with their taxes, they would create taxation laws that
| make it incredibly easy to be honest ("a market is controlled
| by incentives"). The mere fact how complicated the German
| taxation laws are should be a clear evidence that this is not
| the case.
| swagempire wrote:
| Tax evasion in what sense? Surely your earnings are your
| earnings. If you are a business you have to drop that cash
| into your bank account at the end of the week or else really
| it's just petti cash and not significant.Then you have to
| declare it at the end of the year -- and it could be subject
| to an audit at anytime.
|
| However buying things at a sex shop for example or how much I
| drink at the local bar on Fridays might be nothing I want my
| bank to know about.
| yungporko wrote:
| i think the comment you're replying to is wrong, but taking
| payment in cash and spending it as cash lets you buy a hell
| of a lot of stuff without being tracked. i've known several
| drug dealers and handymen who have had entire wardrobes,
| all the tech they own, bikes, even cars, all paid for in
| cash that never went anywhere near their bank accounts.
| pretty much the only important thing you can't easily buy
| with cash is a home.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I doubt that the percentage is that high. I use cash quite a
| lot, but taxes isn't even on my list of reasons why.
|
| It's also hard to see how using cash helps much in tax
| avoidance except for perhaps with tipping.
| vasdae wrote:
| Sure, but what's the downside?
| lainga wrote:
| > As someone who worked with Chinese nationals, even some of
| them who were complete simps for The Party had no desire to
| have all their finances completely digitized and tracked.
|
| HA! Reminds me of Bertolt Brecht's postwar life when he
| returned to East Germany. In public, good socialist playwright
| who wrote laudatory letters to the SED, in private, critic of
| Stalinism... the great firewall between the two? The East
| German authorities let him keep a Swiss bank account and
| Austrian citizenship, so he could hold the earnings from his
| plays out of their reach.
| gumballindie wrote:
| > I don't have much to hide
|
| I have everything to hide from corporations. If they want my
| data they have to pay me. Why are governments forcing me to
| feed a database owned by some corporation for free? Every
| product you buy and pay for collects data about you. Now they
| want to know everything i buy from other people and
| corporations too. Guaranteed transaction data will be made
| available to the highest bider. Crazy times.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >in this piece I'll lay out 10 talking points that you can use to
| make even the most ardent card-tapper have second thoughts about
| a totally bank-dominated society.
|
| The writer is starting with the wrong premise: that people who
| prefer a cashless system don't understand these things. They do.
| They just don't care enough to do much about it.
|
| It's not about a lack of understanding, it's about convenience. A
| cashless system tends to be more convenient, and that's why
| people like it.
| NickC25 wrote:
| > _It 's not about a lack of understanding, it's about
| convenience. A cashless system tends to be more convenient, and
| that's why people like it. _
|
| Cashless is definitely more convenient (I'll give you that all
| day, because it absolutely is), and it's great, but there are a
| bunch of economic actors that would prefer to be able to pay in
| cash or accept cash payments, and not all of those actors are
| illicit actors - there are plenty of legitimate businesses that
| would prefer to deal in cash whenever possible. Plenty of
| service people such as waiters, barbers, drivers, etc...benefit
| from cash. I think the lower on the economic rung you go, the
| more useful cash is.
|
| I'm a small biz owner myself, and I accept digital payments
| with no problem, but those same digital payment platforms take
| a nice cut of my margins. I can offer better prices if I don't
| have to fork over 2-5% to a 3rd party that provides little
| value outside of someone being able to pay me by tapping our
| phones together.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| While you claim that there are a whole range of businesses
| keen on getting cash, this is region-specific. You can go to
| e.g. Sweden and find that those small businesses often refuse
| to take your cash no matter how much you plead. As soon as it
| becomes easy for every single person in an economy to take
| digital payments, even if they are just selling strawberries
| by the roadside or whatever, then even the people towards the
| bottom of the economic rung might go cashless.
| dc3k wrote:
| I haven't used cash in a very long time. I haven't carried a
| wallet at all in almost 5 years because every business takes tap
| payments, so I can use my phone to pay. I don't think cash should
| disappear, but I sure am glad there's an alternative because I
| hate carrying it around.
| iteria wrote:
| This is how I feel. I keep cash in a safe at home for
| emergencies like natural disasters, but carrying cash is a
| burden. It's easily stolen and it's unwieldy to work with. The
| presence of cash immediately makes it more dangerous to exist.
| I don't want it to go away because power failure happens, but
| anyone who has ever lived in a sketchy area knows that having a
| lot cash on your person is not the best idea.
| vfclists wrote:
| How many times have something of yours been stolen, more
| specifically how many times has your cash stashed at home
| been stolen?
| chasil wrote:
| In doing so, you are leaving a detailed purchase record with
| your credit provider.
|
| This record is subject to subpoenas in legal actions against
| you.
|
| This record can also be sold for marketing purposes to generate
| personalized advertising for you.
|
| Be aware of this movement of your personal information.
| organsnyder wrote:
| We need stronger privacy laws to stop these activities rather
| than trying to circumvent them ourselves. There are plenty of
| ways to track people (tracking cell phones via bluetooth
| beacons and wifi network pings, for example) even when credit
| cards aren't used.
| chasil wrote:
| The point is that the very design of Bitcoin forces the
| entire transaction history of the medium into every hand
| that uses it (and can be obtained by anyone who wishes to
| examine it).
|
| You can pass all the laws that you want, but that will not
| change unless you redesign it.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > We need stronger privacy laws to stop these activities
| rather than trying to circumvent them ourselves.
|
| This assumes that the government can be trusted to care
| about the citizen's privacy. This is an assumption that at
| least cypherpunks explicitly do not share. Just find some
| case involving terrorism or child abuse (depending on the
| political climate), and new surveillance laws will become
| passed.
| bonton89 wrote:
| I was thinking the other day about how much about me could be
| easily inferred by my credit card purchase history, both good
| and bad. Hitch it up into ML and sort me into good and bad
| buckets for insurance or advertising. It already has been
| happening I'm sure.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Those things are not or should not be the same.
|
| The existence of the record is inevitably linked to the
| ability for it to be used in legal actions or criminal
| investigations.
|
| However, the ability to use that record for literally every
| other purpose, and especially for it to be sold for marketing
| purposes, can be and should be made totally illegal by
| appropriate banking secrecy regulations. If that's not the
| case in USA, well, that should be fixable - there are
| countries in which anyone in the bank doing that would be
| literally a felony.
| dc3k wrote:
| I am well aware of all of this. I just don't care.
|
| > This record is subject to subpoenas in legal actions
| against you.
|
| Don't worry, if I plan on committing any crimes I'll use cash
| to fund them.
| npongratz wrote:
| What's legal and recorded today might be retroactively
| prosecuted as a crime tomorrow.
| vfclists wrote:
| I guess you've never lost your phone or your wallet?
| lawlessone wrote:
| I have. I've also lost cash.
| dc3k wrote:
| I've never lost either, no.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I have no problem with people having the option to pay as you
| do. I just hope that I won't be be forced to do likewise.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I hate myself for trying to be "that guy" but I can't believe the
| author doesn't mention Bitcoin/Monero in an article about digital
| payments in 2023.
|
| The combination of XMR for saving and something like BCH for
| spending is such a dead simple solution to 99% of the world's
| money issues it boggles my mind that it's taken 10 years for us
| to get to where we are now, I thought it would have been 2-3
| years at most.
|
| And still, 10 years in, a near perfect tract record, people are
| still unsure about Bitcoin. What's the issue exactly, people are
| just scared?
|
| I will never understand it. Ive said since 2012, I will either be
| proven to be the biggest idiot in the world if/when crypto get
| regulated or hacked and comes tumbling down, or people will be
| begging to know how I saw it coming when Bitcoin swallows up the
| worlds financial system black hole style. Either way, I'm
| enjoying the show immensely.
| chasil wrote:
| Bitcoin has extreme scalability and privacy problems.
|
| Over the course of 20 minutes, the maximum number of people who
| can engage in transactions is somewhat under 50,000. This is
| obviously unworkable as a global currency; if the user base and
| transaction volumes rise, you might be waiting hours or days
| for a transaction to complete.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
|
| The blockchain also records details of your transactions
| forever, and unless you carefully obfuscate your activity,
| every bitcoin user will have the entire blockchain and your
| entire history on it. Forever.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_and_blockchain
|
| This certainly gives me pause.
| sMarsIntruder wrote:
| No, it doesn't have scalability problem, neither privacy
| issues. I'm tired of saying always the same stuff.
|
| Do. Your. Own. Research.
|
| You already have did it, so that's just bad faith.
| chasil wrote:
| Please enlighten us; how is this statement incorrect?
|
| "The maximum throughput is the maximum rate at which the
| blockchain can confirm transactions. Today, bitcoin's
| maximum throughput is 3.3-7 transactions/sec. This number
| is constrained by the maximum block size and the inter-
| block time."
| msgilligan wrote:
| Google "Lightning Network". It allows for "off-chain"
| transactions that aren't included in the "7 tx/sec"
| limit.
| chasil wrote:
| The Lightning Network is in the Wiki's Stage 2 section:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
| #%2...
|
| "The Lightning Network requires putting a funding
| transaction on the blockchain to open a payment channel."
|
| Now, if we put the whole world on Bitcoin, how long does
| it take to open that channel? Days?
| msgilligan wrote:
| Valid point, but we are decades away from putting the
| whole world on Bitcoin. In those intervening decades
| lightning alternatives and/or derivatives will likely be
| developed that can allow the entire world to use Bitcoin.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Yes, LN is a pretty dead idea from first principals since
| Blockstream hijacked the GitHub repo.
|
| But of course LN makes no sense if you just did what
| Satoshi said and incrementally increase the block size as
| needed, but then of course Blockstream cant sell you
| their SideChain(tm) products.
|
| The whole thing became really convoluted and dumb once
| Adam Back got involved.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Satoshi had the "solution" from day one, just
| incrementally increase the block size as needed, the road
| map BCH has chosen to follow, its really no big deal.
| msgilligan wrote:
| Lightning network (which admittedly has its own set of flaws)
| does a reasonably good job of improving privacy and
| increasing scalability. It's reasonable to assume that
| Lightning and other "layer 2" technologies will continue to
| develop if the Bitcoin user-base continues to grow.
|
| Bitcoin and Lightning solve many of the issues in the article
| and will improve.
|
| As a society we should encourage both the use of physical
| cash and decentralized cryptocurrency as alternatives to the
| centralized banking "cashless" system.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| As far as I can tell LN has been failing 18 months at a
| time for like 5 years now. Its never going to work is what
| people seem to be saying.
|
| Satoshi had the simple solution from day one, it is just to
| incrementally increase the block size as needed, like the
| BCH fork is doing, its really no big deal.
| vfclists wrote:
| Are Bitcoin and Monero decentralized?
|
| Do the server providers take Bitcoin and Monero?
|
| A currency is only as good as the stuff that can be bought with
| it, which is why most petroleum is sold in dollars, not in
| gold, bitcoin, or whatever.
|
| Does your local shopkeeper take Bitcoin for goods?
|
| Do you know how long it takes a Bitcoin transaction to be
| confirmed and completed?
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| It is possible to pay with Bitcoin for a wide variety of
| internet services like VPN/VPS and domain names, although
| rarely possible for the popular providers.
|
| Most local shops do not take Bitcoin, although there are some
| places where it's more recognised. Some specialist online-
| order retailers now take Bitcoin, such as Pimonori for hobby
| electronics materials.
|
| Bitcoin transactions are typically confirmed within a minute,
| compared to hours or days in traditional banking. However,
| Bitcoin does not have credit like traditional banks do, so
| can't provide 'instant' payments.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >BCH
|
| Lol'd BCH will hit the same scaling issues as actual bitcoin if
| it becomes as popular as bitcoin and increasing the blocksizes
| will lead to the very centralization it purports to be against
| while only marginally fixing the scalability.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| With the caveat that my knowledge of Bitcoin is limited, I know
| I can't be bothered to use it because
|
| - Stories about transaction fees that are more than the cost of
| something you would buy with it ($25 at on point)
|
| - Stories about Bitcoin exchanges (if I have that term right)
| where the person in charge just... took everything and ran; and
| anyone with money in it just flat out lost it
|
| - No way to reverse a transaction if you are scammed (vs a
| credit card where you can almost infallibly get a transaction
| reversed)
|
| - Stories of exchanges failing and everyone losing out...
| whereas in a bank, the FDIC handles it for you and you get your
| money back
|
| Now, I may be wrong about some of that... but those are the
| stories I hear. And, given them, why would I even bother to try
| Bitcoin?
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| With Monero, the fees get smaller (sub 0.01 USD) the more
| transactions there are.
|
| Why aren't banks subject to taking the money and running?
| Banks could handle crypto.
|
| Reversable transactions could probably be programmed in
| certain conditions.
|
| Banks/laws/policy/etc.
|
| I wouldn't try Bitcoin either. Monero is a lot better, but
| even then it's just a stepping stone of what could come if
| enough people cared.
| sMarsIntruder wrote:
| It was BTC, not BCH, right? :)
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| BTC: the original Bitcoin, whereas BCH: Bitcoin Cash. Or was
| a disambiguation between the two abbreviations not what you
| were asking for?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| People prefer currency that will be worth roughly the same
| tomorrow that it was today.
|
| Even forgoing all the (very many) other arguments for why
| someone might not be interested in crytpo, it's not a very
| stable currency.
| lawlessone wrote:
| I agree with some of what the author says. Especially about how
| cashless means i can't just give a homeless person spare change.
|
| But having worked at a cash register at for a period in my life
| theres a lot of good reasons businesses do this.
|
| Stores dealing in cash need a float at the register. Where I was
| that was 500 euro. That's 500 euro in coins and lower value notes
| that has to be at every register so that anyone that pays in cash
| can be given the correct change.
|
| A large store near me has about 20 registers, that during very
| busy periods could all be open. So to guarantee they can accept
| cash on a busy day like that means having 10 grand to just park
| in these registers.
|
| That's 10k that's vulnerable to theft either from employees or
| robbers.
|
| Security vans have to be hired to take the days takings to a bank
| and bring lower denominations to the store to fill these floats.
|
| When someone finishes a shift they have to spend time what they
| have, that doesn't take long but it's another cost for the
| company.
|
| It also means insurance costs are higher.
|
| The guy only accepting card payments from his horsebox converted
| to a coffee shop doesn't worry about any of this.
|
| At least where i am *living cash is more expensive than
| electronic
| boomchinolo78 wrote:
| Card is a permanent %2+ tax, how does it compare?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| See my sibling comment, but it is hard to quantify how much
| cash costs because a lot of the costs are indirect or
| infrequent capital costs. Things like employee time, and
| money handling equipment. It will also vary enormously based
| on the scale and nature of the business.
|
| A small coffee shop can get by with a $129 cash drawer hooked
| up to an iPad and a manager spending a few hours per week
| counting money and visiting the bank. A large store like
| Walmart can easily spend $100k+ on all of the equipment for
| cash handling in addition to having to contract with an
| armored car company.
| jfengel wrote:
| Note that "a few hours per week" for the manager costs
| perhaps $30/hour total compensation. That's more than the
| price of that drawer, every week.
|
| Over a year, it's perhaps 4 hours/week x $30/hour x 52
| weeks/year, which comes to over $6,000. That's real money
| for a small coffee shop.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I think a lot of people miss out on how expensive cash is. I
| worked as a cashier at a store, and at a bank branch that
| mostly dealt with commercial customers, and there are a LOT of
| indirect costs associated with cash.
|
| With digital payments you see exactly how much the payments
| cost. Swipe fee + processing fee, and it isn't fun as a
| business owner to see ~3% of your money going to a bank.
|
| With cash, it takes some effort to tally the costs. Cash
| handling equipment: POS, safes, bill counters for larger
| merchants, etc... Then you have to add the amount of time your
| employees spend on cash: counting drawers at the start,
| counting drawers at the end, managers counting money into and
| out of the safe, managers taking cash to the bank, or hiring a
| service to do that, cash goes missing through malice and
| negligence, etc...
| lawlessone wrote:
| Dealing with it a register was a pain to say the least.
| You'll constantly have people demanding change in particular
| notes etc.
|
| You often have to watch out for people insisting they handed
| you a 50 so they can scam you into more change. Or get chewed
| out by someone for the wrong change when really they just
| dropped the note on the way back to their car. None of that
| can happen with a card.
|
| The card payments are nearly atomic, you paid or you didn't.
| In a year doing the work I only once had someone claim a card
| payment took the wrong amount and it was a very dubious
| claim.
|
| For cash i'd often I'd have to call a manager to request more
| cash for the float. Because the older customer base would
| spend their morning queueing outside at an ATM the buy the
| smallest cheapest thing to get change, which they only needed
| to pay another businesses that only dealt in cash.
|
| It goes without saying my views are biased from dealing with
| cash paying people.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I think a lot of people miss out on how expensive cash is.
| I worked as a cashier at a store, and at a bank branch that
| mostly dealt with commercial customers, and there are a LOT
| of indirect costs associated with cash.
|
| Then powerful trade organizations should lobby for
| introducing a system of digital payments that offers at least
| the same level of anonymity as cash.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Why would they lobby for that?
|
| Merchants don't particularly care about the anonymity of
| cash. Most merchants are rather fond of collecting data
| about their customers.
| fwungy wrote:
| Then they can't resell your data.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I've had a theory for many years that incorrect decisions are
| often made simply because the cost or benefit of one option
| is tangible and that of another aren't.
|
| For instance employers underpay employees because the cost of
| paying your employees more is easy to calculate but the cost
| of not doing so (turnover, etc.) is real but hard to
| determine.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Another one in the same vein is bad hiring processes. It is
| somewhat easy to tell when you hired the wrong person. It
| is close to impossible to know if you passed on the right
| person.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Yeah that's why everyone in software just says "no false
| positives". I don't think they really do anything
| differently, but they think they do.
| bwanab wrote:
| And yet, there are lots of businesses that give a discount
| for cash specifically because of that 3% fee. Yes, I know the
| standard trope is that it's so they can avoid taxes and in
| some cases that's surely true. But, for many, if not most
| businesses, there are way too many paper trails for the IRS
| (or whatever the taxman is called in your country) to follow
| that would make that difficult to pull off at any worthwhile
| scale.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| If I had to guess why some businesses do this I would
| speculate on two things:
|
| 1. Like I said, there are a lot of indirect costs with
| cash, and a lot of businesses are just bad at calculating
| these things (a surprising number of business owners are
| REALLY bad with money and valuing time). For example, an
| owner managed business might not value or care about the
| owner having to count and make trips to the bank.
|
| 2. Something in the nature of the business favors cash. For
| example, if your average transaction value is < $5 and you
| are running 100+ swipes per day, the fixed swipe fees of
| $.10-$.30 are going to HURT (think convenience store).
| Another example might be low/no margin stuff like gasoline,
| gas is the loss leader for stations hoping you'll buy a
| snack with a huge margin, so they offer a cash discount
| since it is cheaper for them AND you have to go into the
| store, which increases the chance of an impulse buy.
|
| Someone with average transaction value of > $100 who only
| runs ten transactions a day isn't that worried about losing
| a dollar to swipe fees in exchange for not having to keep
| thousands on premise at the end of the day (think car
| mechanic).
| creer wrote:
| One is the cost they are used to (the cost of managing
| cash), the other is the new outrageous cost (card
| processing fees, cost of the machines, etc)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I think a lot of people miss out on how expensive cash is.
|
| If the expense is that big of a problem, then stores could
| put in a surcharge for using cash. I'd pay it. It would be
| well worth it to avoid having to use cards.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| This would almost certainly cause a substantial public
| backlash that would outweigh the benefit.
| petre wrote:
| It' s the cost of doing business. With cashless you need a
| POS, digital infrastructure, the bank takes a cut, Visa takes
| a cut, no cell service or too many people on a cell means not
| doing business, doubled payments mean headaches for both
| cashiers and customers.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| These are all very good reasons why a business may not want to
| accept cash. Cash adds a lot of overhead and security risks
| that can completely negate any savings gained by not having to
| pay credit card fees.
|
| The problem is that if enough businesses stop accepting cash,
| then it becomes nigh impossible to participate in society if
| you can only pay in cash. Which can be a big problem in the US,
| where not everyone has access to credit cards or free checking
| accounts.
|
| This is why I support regulation that requires businesses to
| accept cash. Yes, it adds overhead. But it also means the most
| vulnerable in our society are actually able to buy things.
| cbdumas wrote:
| An alternative might be regulation ensuring people have
| access to banking services, either privately or by the
| government offering these services directly
| lawlessone wrote:
| I'm biased here, but a basic electronic income seems like a
| solution to me.
| ta_vf7xjd34cc wrote:
| > But it also means the most vulnerable in our society are
| actually able to buy things.
|
| Forcing banks and digital wallet providers to provide users a
| prepaid card/digital balance in exchange for cash is a good
| alternative. This should be a part of the charter/license
| under which such organisations operate.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That doesn't address the issue of all the tracking and data
| collection that comes with using cards, though. That crap
| is why I prefer to use cash.
| ale42 wrote:
| All this about the costs of dealing with cash are true. But
| they're especially true for the big players.
|
| I've seen several shops (including small coffee and ice cream
| places) telling people more or less openly that they prefer
| cash. Because card companies take a margin on every
| transaction, and don't allow them to charge more to compensate.
| Some try to go around the other way (offering e.g. a 5%
| discount to people paying cash - I had this at a restaurant).
| The problem is that the big ones can negotiate lower
| transaction fees with the card companies...
| lawlessone wrote:
| I suspect some of it's a tax thing as it's a lot harder to
| hide income when all your transactions are digital.
|
| hypocrisy on my part but I have probably benefitted from
| paying cash for handiwork done that was only cheap because
| the person might not have paid tax.
| ale42 wrote:
| If you get paid cash and give a receipt/cash ticket, I'm
| not sure you can avoid declaring that revenue to the tax
| authorities. It's enough that one of your customers uses
| that ticket to deduce it as a professional expense from
| their own tax declaration to get potentially caught.
|
| I was hearing that all the time before card payments were a
| common thing (i.e. in the '80s, writing from Europe),
| "didn't get a receipt... they want to avoid taxes"
| creer wrote:
| I don't know about that. I mean there are not many places
| (at least around here) that don't use cash registers.
| Nothing eliminates fraud but just because it's cash doesn't
| make it obvious or foolproof.
|
| At the same time, we often hear of ludicrous ways to try
| and beat the tax authority. I'm sure people try often
| enough.
| c22 wrote:
| There are huge risks to operating any sort of physical retail
| establishment, well beyond managing the change in the tills.
| This doesn't mean the world would be better served if all
| retail happened online. The risks are worth the rewards.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >well beyond managing the change in the tills.
|
| It's not small change though.
|
| Shop lifters are an issue but weight limits the value of what
| they could steal. The shop doesn't have to pay for an armored
| truck to deliver the milk, a regular truck works fine because
| we don't have armed milk robbers.
| c22 wrote:
| There are risks in physical retail far beyond managing the
| shoplifting problem as well. In fact, theft of all sorts is
| only a small portion of the risk-pie here.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| > cashless means i can't just give a homeless person spare
| change.
|
| You could, if there were just more uptake of digital payments
| by individuals. In China, beggars asking to be paid via app has
| been a thing for years now. There are beggars in parts of sub-
| Saharan Africa who use the local very developed mobile-payments
| infrastructure.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >In China, beggars asking to be paid via app has been a thing
| for years now.
|
| This is true -- street beggars in China typically have
| printed and laminated QR codes to make contributions easier.
| pengaru wrote:
| Here in the US most of the stores with that many cashiers are
| grocery stores and have become increasingly automated via "self
| checkout", and they're still perfectly capable of accepting
| cash - it's like an ATM machine, and far more challenging to
| rob with a gun.
|
| The locale I've most encountered the cashless shift has been
| Santa Monica, not at the grocery stores with tons of cashiers,
| but at small restaurants and such where they've embraced
| cashless and in many cases menu-less as well. It's outright
| _hostile_ to find yourself socializing there without a phone
| and just a wad of cash. And it should be made illegal IMNSHO,
| as these are public spaces operating with a business license
| discriminating against those without credit cards and /or
| smartphones. This is private members-only club levels of B.S.
|
| Portland is another locale I've been affected by this BTW.
| creer wrote:
| The costs are just one side of it. A good reason to accept both
| cash and cards is that customers like that. No doubt it would
| be cheaper to stock only one brand of cereals and yet nobody
| does that.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| If this is the argument, though, then it's a good one to let
| the market sort out. If customers have a strong enough
| preference for cash that it outweighs the costs, businesses
| can figure this out and accept cash.
|
| Different stores can have different options in terms of how
| they handle cash. Costco only has one kind of toilet paper.
| Target has 10. There are pluses and minuses that they can
| weigh themselves.
| creer wrote:
| It's one argument but yes and no.
|
| I was thinking it's one argument for the store that has the
| OPTION to go cashless and might not - just so as to serve
| more customers.
|
| But the store is not deciding on its own. For example if
| costs are pushed by outside forces too far one way or the
| other. Say, if the tax authority makes it hell to accept
| cash. Well then the store does not really have the option.
| The decision has been made for them.
| nerdbert wrote:
| I agree with almost all of his points, but it turns out I don't
| agree enough to forego the convenience of doing without cash.
|
| If bitcoin weren't so stupid I'd gladly use that instead of
| highly centralized corporate payment systems.
| boomchinolo78 wrote:
| In the US cash is more convenient for paying dinner. Instead of
| the awkward dance of check -> put card -> bring back -> tip.
| You just pay it with tip, can easily round up or down a bit...
| kalupa wrote:
| it still is wild that they take the card away from the table
| when tap payments exist so extensively, even in the USA.
|
| Here in Canada, the servers often will bring the card reader
| at the same time as they bring over the bill, because the
| assumption is you're likely paying with a card, either credit
| or debit, so why not save the extra trips entirely?
| balderdash wrote:
| I actually prefer it - I hate having the waiter hovering
| over me while i decide the tip + I can continue a
| conversation/finalize my bill at my leisure if my card is
| simply returned awaiting my signature.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes, it is far less intrusive!
| petre wrote:
| In Europe they look the other way so you can type your
| PIN without them looking over your shoulder. Waiters are
| quite professional about this aspect.
| xena wrote:
| Canadian banks send you the reader for free, US banks make
| you pay. The cheapest option wins.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It seems to be rolling out gradually. In Seattle I'd say
| about a quarter of restaurants bring card readers to the
| table and it's ticking up over time.
| crazygringo wrote:
| How is that any different from the "awkward dance" of using
| cash and waiting to get change back? And trying to make sure
| you wind up with bills of the necessary denominations to be
| able to leave the right tip? Not to mention when you realize
| you misplanned and need to visit the ATM while someone stays
| at the table.
|
| No, if we're talking only about convenience, a card wins
| every single time.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > How is that any different from the "awkward dance" of
| using cash and waiting to get change back?
|
| I don't wait for the change to come back. The change is
| part of (or the entirety of, depending) the tip.
| crazygringo wrote:
| My ATM only dispenses 20's. (And 50's.)
|
| What do you do when the bill+tax is 19? And with a normal
| tip would be 22 or 23?
|
| And you don't have anything less than a 20 at the moment?
| Because, you know, that happens?
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't know... that's never really happened to me. I
| generally have a small selection of bills smaller than
| 20s in my wallet.
|
| I guess in those cases I'd wait for change.
| c22 wrote:
| I buy stuff without cash all the time, but if I find myself in
| an establishment that does not accept cash I buy nothing at
| all, and usually loudly remark that it sucks that I can't use
| cash there while I am leaving.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I do the same, except for the loudly complaining part. I just
| won't do business there, and won't return.
| fsflover wrote:
| > If bitcoin weren't so stupid I'd gladly use that instead of
| highly centralized corporate payment systems.
|
| Did you consider Monero or Etherium?
| xena wrote:
| Name five restaurants that take either.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I agree with almost all of his points, but it turns out I
| don't agree enough to forego the convenience of doing without
| cash.
|
| Well, having to check the correctness of the electronic
| transactions (are the correct? Were some of them fraudulent? -
| yes, both happens) all the time, and having to get along with
| the "anti-fraud systems" often involved in electronic
| transactions is in my experience _very inconvenient_. Cash is
| much more convenient in this regard.
|
| P.S. Of course every hacker ("Hacker News") would also
| correctly say that paying electronically without leaking lots
| of private data is hard, and thus very inconvenient. Another
| argument why cash is more convenient.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I just want cash _cards_.
|
| I don't want cash to disappear. I just want dumb grubby pieces of
| paper and heavy grimy coins to go the way of the dodo. With all
| of the logistical and security costs they entail.
|
| Just give me digital cash that can be stored on a card, that
| doesn't require a bank account and isn't tied to anyone's
| identity, and where any cell phone is capable of transferring
| value between cards (and between bank accounts and cards).
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| The card industry has zero incentive to create a card like
| this. Card issuers collect 1.25-3.5% of every payment made with
| a card. A global sales tax paid to a small collection of
| companies. This is fantastically profitable. I suspect if a
| card was created that would mean less revenue for the card
| issuers it would be embraced then extinguished.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Who said anything about a card industry?
|
| Digital cash needs to be implemented by the government with
| zero transaction fees.
|
| This needs to be something run by the government, in the same
| way the government runs printing physical cash.
|
| This has nothing whosoever to do with MC/Visa/etc.
| coding_unit_1 wrote:
| This is already in progress, at least in the UK
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/the-digital-pound
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > This is already in progress, at least in the UK
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/the-digital-pound
|
| Does this enable completely anonymous payments, or is
| this another step towards more surveillance?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Who do you think the government would contract to provide
| card services?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I couldn't care less as long as the government is paying
| for it and it's going to the lowest bidder according to
| its specifications.
|
| Might be MC, might be a bank, might be a startup backed
| by investors.
|
| It doesn't really matter at all. But the point is that it
| doesn't matter if existing card providers like it or not.
| elzbardico wrote:
| And if the government created a network for that, and asked
| for 0.1% fee instead of 1.5%, 3.0%, people would act as if
| this was the beginning of Stalinism.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I get the feeling the commenter you responded to would
| more or less agree. They specifically mentioned zero
| transaction fees.
| elzbardico wrote:
| zero fees is unrealistic, any such system has costs.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| The government generally funds its projects via taxes;
| zero fees is perfectly realistic.
| cowbolt wrote:
| Norway and Denmark have national card schemes (BankAxept and
| Dankort) which are used for virtually all PoS transactions.
| They cost a fraction of the transaction costs that Visa and
| Mastercard charge. These arose by banks agreeing to a
| standardized solution.
|
| Was there ever any attempt to do something similar in the US?
| AaronM wrote:
| Doubtful; the card processors would probably lobby hard
| against it, and given our current state of politics would
| never pass
| tkems wrote:
| I'd love to see a digital option not tied to identities, but I
| think that is never going to happen due to the KYC (know your
| customer) laws in place. I hate bring cryptocurrency into this,
| but even with "distributed" currencies, we are seeing KYC laws
| preventing true, anonymous payments (like Monero not accepted
| at large exchanges).
| livueta wrote:
| IC cards in Japan, like Pasmo and Suica, kind of work like
| this: originally intended for transit passes but also
| accepted at lots of retailers, usually for smaller purchases.
| You buy a card and load it with cash at a machine, no KYC
| required. It's really convenient and I'd happily use such a
| system in daily life in the West.
|
| In theory correlating the card purchase with location or
| camera data would be possible, but even that's a win as it
| moves transaction surveillance from dragnet to bespoke.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| > dumb grubby pieces of paper
|
| This is a flaw of implementation, not of banknotes in and of
| themselves. Some countries moved to plastic banknotes[0]
| already many years ago: Australia, Romania, Vietnam, just to
| name a few. They don't get grotty like e.g. American dollar
| notes. A cool feature is that if you are at the beach and have
| nowhere to leave your valuables, you can just go swimming with
| them inside your pocket.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote
| crazygringo wrote:
| They're cleaner, that doesn't mean they're clean. But they're
| still suffering from all of the rest of the logistical and
| security problems. You need to have change on hand; you need
| to have armored cars; you need to visit ATMs. These are flaws
| of banknotes in and of themselves.
| chii wrote:
| which would've been bitcoin, if it wasnt so volatile and
| unstable.
| danaris wrote:
| I'm skeptical that this would be an improvement over
| credit/debit cards in the ways that matter most to the people
| who are most concerned about this: privacy and anonymity.
|
| Cash is anonymous and (largely) untrackable by its fundamental
| nature. Once you introduce _anything_ digital into the system,
| it becomes easy enough to add a tracking layer that I think it
| very unlikely any such system would remain free of one for
| long, no matter how it started out.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, if it's not tied to a bank account or identity, then
| what's the problem?
|
| It's not like physical cash is untrackable either -- every
| bill has a unique serial number. Just like Bitcoin keeps a
| record of every transaction.
|
| If you want it to be private and anonymous, that's up to you
| to make sure you don't tie anything about your identity when
| you acquire a particular physical card for use/storage. The
| exact same way you have to be careful when acquiring Bitcoin,
| for example.
| danaris wrote:
| Sure; every bill has a serial number--but that serial
| number isn't going to be recorded automatically by every
| single hand it passes through simply as a matter of how the
| technology works.
|
| It's not at all far-fetched to imagine a particular bill
| passing through _dozens_ of hands in multiple states
| without any unique record of it being recorded anywhere.
|
| A cash card, on the other hand, _requires_ some kind of
| connection to a central authority to verify what it has on
| it--otherwise counterfeiting on a grand scale becomes all
| too easy. So every single transaction at least _can_ be
| logged, whether or not it is by default--and there 's no
| way for us as regular users of the technology to tell that
| it's _not_ if the government says it 's not. And given that
| it is a _cash_ card, it will need to be loaded periodically
| if it is to remain useful--either that, or you 'll just
| have to keep buying new ones with physical cash, which
| drastically decreases the convenience factor compared to
| either physical cash _or_ a debit /credit card. It also
| drastically increases your risk footprint if you _are_
| attempting to remain below the radar.
|
| So while anonymity is theoretically possible,
| untrackability is not--and the moment your identity is
| associated with even _one_ use of the card (whether by a
| security camera, or correlation with cell phone location
| data, or loading it from a debit or credit card, or
| whatever else), the entire history of that card is at least
| potentially linkable to you.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _but that serial number isn 't going to be recorded
| automatically by every single hand it passes through_
|
| You'd be surprised. The ATM knows the serial number of
| every bill it dispenses, and all those 20's spent at a
| retailer tend to go straight to the bank where serials
| are again scanned in.
|
| But yeah, if you're trying to hide your activity from the
| government, you're going to need a complicated strategy
| of cards and transfers. This is no different from
| Bitcoin, or trying to spend cash you stole from a bank.
|
| Digital cash is perfectly fine if you don't want to be
| tracked by algorithms trying to build profiles of
| everyone.
|
| If you're trying to hide yourself from the police when
| they're trying to catch you personally... I mean, good
| luck. Even with paper currency.
| vfclists wrote:
| This should put the need for cash into perspective.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66354476.amp
|
| In fact is should put the need for centralized entities for
| controlling all transactions into perspective.
| tkems wrote:
| I recently started seeing advertising related to products that I
| had purchased at a large US supermarket. I did some digging on
| the payment card networks and found that they are sent a lot more
| data that I realized. Level 3 data (the highest and most
| complete) sends product data about what you bought to the payment
| network (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc.). I have no idea what they
| do with this data and who they sell it to. I love the protection
| of using credit cards, but if merchants go cashless, privacy goes
| with it.
| balderdash wrote:
| Could you expand more on this I didn't realize card networks
| actually got itemized data (e.g. $12.35 at the gas station was
| for a pack of cigarettes or some windshield wiper fluid and and
| some beef jerky)
| tkems wrote:
| Sure! I found this documentation from Clover (a payment
| processor like Square):
| https://docs.clover.com/docs/understanding-level-3-data
|
| The Level 3 data isn't sent from all merchants, but I have a
| feeling that larger ones pass along the info.
|
| I also was incorrect above, only Mastercard and Visa support
| level 3 data. However, level 2 data is widely supported and
| can contain some purchase info (Clover lists the SKU of an
| item for example).
| balderdash wrote:
| This is terrifying
| PeterisP wrote:
| They don't get it as a rule, and they didn't get it at all
| for a long time - that is optional data for which there is a
| standard where the terminal can send it if it is configured
| to do so; and some merchants are now sending it - probably
| there's some agreement where they get some financial benefit
| for doing so.
| Tarsul wrote:
| there was recently an article about mastercard and its data
| hoarding/sharing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37636071
| mattmaroon wrote:
| "I'll lay out 10 talking points that you can use to make even the
| most ardent card-tapper have second thoughts about a totally
| bank-dominated society."
|
| 0 of these points gave me second thoughts.
|
| As a merchant, cash sucks. It's slow AF to make change. I have to
| trust my employees not to steal it in a way that I don't with
| credit card. (They can just not ring something up and pocket the
| cash, that's not a thing right credit.)
|
| I have to deal with handling it which in my line means sometimes
| even hiring private security and at least two trips to a bank.
| (None of the bankless or anti-financial stuff applies to
| legitimate businesses.)
|
| It's well worth 2.5% of my sales to never have to handle it
| again. So I don't, and at every big event I do, there are a small
| percentage of people mad about it and one guy who thinks I'm
| violating his constitutional rights and damnit he's going to do
| something about it. (He never does.)
|
| As a consumer it's fragile, easy to lose, easy to not have when I
| need it, and takes up a lot of pocket space. I'm so annoyed when
| I'm required to have cash for something and thank God for square
| and the raft of competitors it inspired for not making me do it
| ever again.
| keiferski wrote:
| Cashless is simply too convenient to be beaten by "you shouldn't
| do this" arguments. Unfortunate but true.
|
| I am not an expert at this by any means, but one idea I've had is
| for smartphones / a "credit chip" to have preloaded cash on to
| it, which is then used to make purchases _without_ sending that
| information back to your bank account.
|
| So, for example: you make a $100 deposit from your bank account
| to your smartphone. You can then make purchases from your
| smartphone, _not_ from your card. The purchasing data stays local
| to your device.
| balderdash wrote:
| This seems like it would need to be independent of the card
| networks as well?
| keiferski wrote:
| The data would need to stay local to your phone, otherwise
| this wouldn't prevent tracking from card networks, etc. You
| could add cash to your phone via a card, but the only record
| would be the raw amount, not what you're spending the money
| on. (In other words, exactly the same as taking cash from an
| ATM.)
| ghaff wrote:
| What happens if your phone breaks?
| keiferski wrote:
| It occurs to me now that what I'm proposing is not
| drastically different from how crypto works. In which
| case, there may be some way to back up the phone
| elsewhere, or maybe not - we don't have a backup for cash
| and if you lose it, too bad. Keep your transfer amounts
| small enough that it won't be a disaster if you lose the
| phone.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Tentatively, I would say that is 'easy'. Easy because the
| necessary smart card technology has existed for decades, and
| because almost every smartphone now retailing includes Near-
| Field Communication features and smart card chips already.
| Although early smart cards had some security flaws (as would be
| expected in the early days of widespread civilian encryption),
| these no longer apply to modern smart cards.
|
| I bought a day pass for the Brussels city transport system at a
| ticket machine last month, and the machine simply loaded and
| dispensed a smart card for me to use immediately on any bus,
| tram or train. This shows that smart cards are not only cheap,
| they can be literally disposable!
|
| Therefore I would say that is 100% a policy issue: all it would
| take is one country or large city to implement digital cash
| _with the legal and functional constructs to ensure anonymous
| transactions_ and your dream would come true.
| piperswe wrote:
| That's essentially how smartphone IC cards work in Japan. You
| can load the virtual card using a credit/debit card, and spend
| it (offline, I think) at train stations and many shops.
|
| You can also get a regular plastic IC card, and load it with
| cash or card. Works the same way, except you can only load it
| at a machine rather than just on the Wallet app on your phone.
| taeric wrote:
| These reasons are... dubious. If anything, many are reasons we
| should stop finding ways to charge for everything. Cash or
| otherwise.
|
| And some of these are, themselves, falling for the odd invisible
| nature of how expensive some things are. Take your bike. How much
| does it cost to keep the roadways maintained so that you can use
| said bike? That isn't a balance. That is you ignoring some costs.
|
| Data surveillance? Even if you are sending in checks for your ISP
| or using cash on delivery for items, they are still just as
| trackable. Modern computation is just too advanced to think going
| back to older payment styles will make a difference.
|
| Exclusion? You can look at our history to see that you fight
| exclusion by fighting exclusion. Luddite holding on to older
| technologies is almost certainly going to be weaponized more to
| exclude folks than moving to cards.
|
| Same for economic censorship. You fight that by building stronger
| protections for people. Not requiring older payment styles. I'm
| also not clear on how "cash" helps here. It can be confiscated
| just as easily. And nobody is going around with enough cash on
| hand that they can ignore literal government level sanctions.
|
| Resiliency has a bit of a point. Is amusing when a store can't
| let you buy things because the register is down. I'd love to see
| that explored more.
|
| The rest of the bullets seem to be the same. Advocating for old
| payment styles is largely less effective than advocating for
| stronger consumer protections. To the point that even things I
| agree are bad, I just don't see "cash" as a good answer there.
| openthc wrote:
| In USA (for example) if we were cashless then then millions of
| tax dollars collected by state governments from cannabis sales
| would not have happened.
|
| This is because 100% of the electronic payment players
| currently block it; and they block it because the federal
| government blocks it.
|
| The only path to legalized cannabis there would have been at
| the federal level; it would have blocked 20+ states with their
| experiments.
| taeric wrote:
| Right, but my argument is that that blocking is the problem?
| And you'd be silly to think that any of the other concerns
| aren't still there for cash buyers. Hell, many of the pot
| shops are now scanning your ID.
|
| I should note that the only path to legalized cannabis is
| still, strictly speaking, at the federal level. It is a
| federally illegal thing. To pretend otherwise is a dangerous
| risk a lot of places are willing to take.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's actually not true.
|
| It may have been at first. But, in my state, you can pay by
| debit card these days, albeit for a small surcharge.
| openthc wrote:
| 100% of of these folks doing card-type payments are playing
| cat and mouse (I know because I'm very involved in this
| industry). Some don't tell their up-stream processors what
| they are doing. Others are constantly shifting their
| processing through various gateways. None of it currently
| runs on the credit-rails. But all the debit-rail processing
| is happening in a dark-grey area. One of these debit-rail
| providers has like four banking parterships per state they
| "work" in -- so when they strike out on one, they can move
| to another. You can observe that in the retail store when
| they say "oh, EBT isn't working today".
|
| And more importantly, in 2014 when the regulated cannabis
| industry started -- electronic only would have blocked it
| -- or created an additional huge hurdle. It's taken eight
| years to get to this crap-tastick hack of workarounds and
| outright lies.
| ufmace wrote:
| This aspect of things really ought to scare everyone a lot
| more. All of the enormous mega-corporations involved in card
| processing are so heavily regulated and so dependent on the
| Federal Government, that it doesn't even take actual laws to
| make them do things. Just get a couple of regulators in place
| to vaguely hint that they might have a hard time at their
| next compliance review if they don't ban thing X that we
| don't like today, and boom, it's gone. Only a few companies
| can even afford to operate in this space, so that's all it
| takes to effectively ban something from the whole financial
| market.
| marssaxman wrote:
| As I have seen "we are a cash-free business" signs begin to
| proliferate, I have begun to carry and use more cash, because I
| don't want to get stuck in a cashless society.
| kardianos wrote:
| I'm still curious if we could have the best of both worlds with
| something like Taler https://taler.net/en/index.html . I don't
| know if it could be a genuine replacement for cash. My concern
| about Taler grew when they demonstrated you could fit in
| purchases that were restricted, ostensibly to give a kid cash
| that prevented them from spending it on adult items. This
| restriction could theoretically be applied to adults who aren't
| "good enough" as well.
| waffletower wrote:
| While I think cash is important, and I think many of the threats
| posed by digital payments infrastructure to low income
| individuals are real, I believe that the fears of surveillance
| capitalism are exaggerated. Google hasn't been able to
| convincingly provide targeted ads that reflect my obvious
| demographic and interest profile, data they definitely have
| available, for years. Amazon is incredibly crude at this as well,
| and Alexa obviously can't recognize our consumer habits at all.
| Square never informs any advertising I am inflicted with,
| otherwise I would be inundated with hoagie ads. People love fear,
| but I think it would be better to focus on reality rather than
| speculation. I hear you about the cost of cash -- it is clearly
| very high -- so high that some major banks are simply closing
| large numbers of branches, and, more to the point, many ATM
| locations. This is happening even in dense urban areas. It is
| increasingly difficult for me to obtain cash, particularly
| without paying a bank fee for the "privilege". We can't simply
| wish that cost away without some government intervention -- and
| good luck with that in many countries.
| couchdive wrote:
| all good points.
|
| But, we are forgetting the unbanked, underbanked, the day
| laborers and migrant farm workers paid cash, the LexisNexis
| tracking leading to unbanked.
|
| Check cashing places are slimming, buts that's more due to entry
| level jobs offering prepaid debit cards as payment of salary. Yum
| Brands I believe does this. But of course, prepaid debit cards
| cant be used everywhere. (Hotels, deposits, some gas pumps, etc)
| msgilligan wrote:
| The article makes some great points, but it is surprising that
| the article doesn't mention Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, or even the
| theoretical possibility of a "digital cash" that mitigates some
| or all of the issues he identifies.
|
| I personally think that Bitcoin and the Lightning Network (with
| forthcoming and as-of-yet-undiscovered improvements) is our best
| long-term alternative to the "unbalanced cashless" society that
| he rightly fears. I admit I could be wrong about Bitcoin, but the
| larger point should be that we, as a society, need to allow for
| options other than what the "banking sector using big tech
| devices" is offering.
|
| Freedom and the market system are about giving people options.
| Cash, Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies should all be available
| to consumers. Our right to use cash should be protected and it
| makes sense for individuals to "vote with their [paper] dollars"
| to help preserve that option and that right. The same applies to
| Bitcoin and other "digital cash" systems.
| dabbz wrote:
| My issue with cashless has nothing to do with privacy, but with
| card companies dictating what can and cannot be transacted by
| with their network.
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