[gieksosz]

I was genuinely curious to learn what are the arguments to keep cash around (I myself am pretty happy with digital payments). This article was such as tedious read and in the end I am still not well educated on the arguments. mostly that there is a narrative against cash, that it is demonized and that somehow digital money is like casino chips? As far as I know banks and their apps do function based on gov regulations so it is pretty far from chips or uber points.

[jjav]

> As far as I know banks and their apps do function based on gov regulations so it is pretty far from chips or uber points.

Electronic payments depend on a long series of things working correctly, any one of which can block you.

Electricity and internet connectivity are two obvious ones, which do fail.

More subtle, both you and the recipient of the payment must be in good standing with whatever authority (or multiple ones) the payment is flowing through. If either one is blocked for whatever obscure reason, no payment can be made or received. So now you have the denial of service risk of a third party arbiter on whether the payment you're trying to make is fine with them, or risk being blocked.

Cash suffers from none of these problems! It is strictly peer to peer, requires absolutely nothing external to be functioning and has no dependency on any third parties. You have bills in your pocket, you can pay anyone at any time for whatever you want. Completely anonymously and it cannot be blocked. Aside from the small inconvenience of having to carry the bills, cash is the perfect payment mechanism.

[t0bia_s]

Try digitally give money to your kids or homeless people. Or anyone who does not have data, device or even access to electricity (most of people).

[Gigachad]

Gen Z here. My parents just handed me their credit card when I needed to buy things. Also made use of prepaid visa cards that were not attached to a bank account before I got an account of my own.

[sickofparadox]

From one Gen Z to another, I'm glad one of our own claimed that username.

[dinkumthinkum]

Well a real argument people have is concerns about being in a situation of having a Chinese style “social credit system”. Now, iou might say “cash won’t save you” and you might be right but that’s a case for using cash. I think in the US it can be a bigger concern because of rise in punishment (social and otherwise) for wrongthink. We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

[mhh__]

We (west) already have a credit system that cash hedges against — a charity my parents look after woke up one day with no bank account, because the bank had not received a reply to a letter they'd sent to who knows where.

If I were a coffee shop I'd take cash just as an operational hedge against that kind of thing, let alone "the government has banned coffee shops" tail risk.

[Gigachad]

There was a multi hour outage for one of the phone providers in Australia which ended up impacting a lot of card readers. Businesses still accept cash, but the problem is that almost no one carries cash in Australia so it’s no use here.

The real backup seems to be having two card readers on different networks.

[kevin_thibedeau]

We already have social credit for banking in the US as the poor don't get to have bank accounts. In a twisted way this helps maintain support for cash and non-app card payments for businesses and public services that can't shut out the poor.

[dinkumthinkum]

Poor people have bank accounts. That sounds like how some people think 15% of the population is not smart enough to know how to get drivers licenses. Now, some people choose not to have bank accounts because they worry about overdraft fees. But show me any significant amount of poor people that go to the bank for a free checking account and the banks say “No go away you poor, get out of here.” It’s not a thing.

We don’t have anything like a Chinese social credit system yet.

[silverquiet]

> Having a ChexSystems record could make it difficult to get approved for new bank accounts.

https://www.investopedia.com/what-to-know-and-do-if-you-re-l...

[dinkumthinkum]

Ok, go back and reread that. Where does it say “poor people” or people with low income will not get a bank account? It doesn’t say that. Despite what some people, being poor doesn’t mean you don’t have any kind of sense of responsibility. Also, linking to some article doesn’t negate the weight of reality, poor people all over the US have bank accounts and get them every day. Does that mean there’s not a single bank in the YA that turns away customers? No but if it was really so bad that poor people can’t get bank account, direct deposit systems wouldn’t exist in such prevalence and iy would be major news.

This is just like how many people in major news outlets now claim people are hijacking others and stealing their cars because of the high price of automobile and they need to steal the cars to get to their jobs and to the bread store. It’s a leftist caricature but now how the world actually is.

[silverquiet]

I mean, it's why the poor people I know can't get bank accounts; in fact, it's the only reason I know why the system exists. Ever wonder why so many places advertise check cashing services (for a fee obviously), a service that your bank gives you for free? Those payday lender places don't just do predatory loans, they also have things like prepaid debit cards (also for a fee) that those who aren't able to use the banking system (usually because a few overdraft fees get out of hand) can use to interface with modern society. As I said, I've had to navigate friends/family through this, so I've got a pretty practical grasp of the system.

[silverquiet]

If the American Social Credit system (which would already be largely redundant with the private credit system) would give demerits to people with loud exhausts, I'd welcome it in a heartbeat. I can't rightthink or wrongthink with the idiots who do that coming and going all the time.

[dinkumthinkum]

This is why US is in danger of having a Chinese style social credit systems, because many Americans would welcome the punishment of wrongthink.

[mitthrowaway2]

Why would it do that, if the legal system is not already fining them for noise violations?

[bbreier]

> We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

What? I haven't had to go publicly shame my neighbors for not being revolutionary enough, at least that I remember.

[dinkumthinkum]

“Learn.” “Do the work.” “Educate yourself on my unreality.” These are becoming mantra now, even institutionalized. I did say “essentially” and literally the same but such distinctions are quaint until they no longer exist.

[zer00eyz]

Credit cards are very literally a social credit system.

OH did you play by the rules, well then you get "cash back" on your purchase. Oh you didn't play by the rules, well the 3 percent markup that is on everything purchased with credit is going in the pocket of someone else. You should do better and we will give you some of that money back. Thanks for playing and do remember dont be poor.

Im a very pro capitalism type of person, but our credit, and credit card/transaction system is fucked up on a lot of levels.

[dinkumthinkum]

Credit cards are not cash and you are not forced to use them. Nevertheless, I welcome you to research the Chinese social credit system and tell me if that is really the same thing as FICO. FICO is simply about paying debt; I know dirt poor people with fantastic credit scores. This is not the same thing. This is why we are in danger of a social credit system because our culture now equivocate the two already.

[zer00eyz]

>>> This is why we are in danger of a social credit system because our culture now equivocate the two already.

Oddly this is actually NOT true: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2024.2...

For the Chinese, and their recent introduction to capitalism the social credit score is a way of enforcing some Chinese cultural things and a lot of "communist" things (ala "little pinks").

In America social stratification and fiscal stratification are linked. Poor people don't get to go to an ivy without brains, rich kids don't really end up at community colleges do they? If you don't think merchants giving %3 to cc companies and not being able to pass that cost on to customers isn't a bite on everyone who isn't using credit I don't know what to tell you.

[Brian_K_White]

The writing was not great, but, the first paragraph asks a few questions and then says the piece is for you if you answered yes to any of them.

If you are happy with the idea that there doesn't need to be any other form of money than centrally administered digital money, then by definition the piece was not for you. It said so right to you right at the start.

The arguments are unlikely to be convincing to you, or else you already wouldn't need any convincing. To me the arguments are self-evident and obvious, and sort of makes no sense to try to explain them except to a child. It's like asking why one should want to eat food or avoid getting burned by fire.

According to the articles own opening statement of purpose, it wasn't written for someone like you to read and be convinced of something they didn't already think. It was written for someone like me to read so that I can better articulate arguments when conversing with someone like you.

But I rarely ever bother to do that for the reason I just gave.

If someone doesn't recognize the problem, nothing anyone else says will change that, because they were already aware of all the same facts, and the reasoning that proceeds from those facts is too simple to not grasp.

So if given the same facts, someone doesn't think there's a problem, it's because they simply don't agree about the importance or imacts or implications of some of the facts.

That's essentially just feeling and opinion, and that can't be argued with.

So I usually only say "Go forth and enjoy your terribly_unwise_thing".

In this case, go forth and enjoy your all-digital life.

By the numbers, it will likely go fine for you.

By which I mean because that's the way all things work no matter how bad or wrong.

If a harm affects everyone, then it's either indirect and deniable (in other words hidden), or it's mild enough on an individual scale that each individual just tolerates it. Collectively someone is getting away with murder, but individually you just tolerate some small theft or technical injustice because that is the path of least resistance, and a lot of people equate that with "rational".

Or if a harm is significant, then it doesn't affect most people and so most people don't care about the propblem only a few people face who aren't them.

IE, by the numbers, both you and I will probably never suffer any obvious problem from money being all digital, and all centralized in orgsnizations we can't audit or control.

The difference is when I see a single instance of someone's life being destroyed or even merely controlled by the abuse or even mere mismanagement of the power granted by digital assets and digital ID, I recognize that there is no special difference between myself and that unlucky person, and the mechanism that provides that power should probably simply not exist.

The problem is not that some power isn't administered well enough, the problem is that the means exist at all.

I am not ok with relying on essentially a lottery that I won't be abused, not where it's artificial and avoidable. We have to suffer all kinds of luck no matter what, but that in no way excuses voluntarily giving your life into someone else's hands and just hoping they treat to right, or excuses them for creating systems that grant themselves that much control and requiring you to trust them with that much control and veto power over every tiny aspect of your life. It doesn't matter if they mostly don't get in your way.

As an IT guy I sometimes get funny looks from a customer when I avoid knowing their most important passwords. "Can't I trust you?" Absolutely. The way you know you can trust me is I never ask you to trust me.

Anyone who not only asks, but requires you to trust them with some significant power over you, is automatically in the wrong. Automatically. It's an indellible property of the very act itself.

[Georgelemental]

Uber is regulated also?

[polygamous_bat]

To a far, far smaller extent than banks, but yes.