The Future of Money

Snuggums writes "Apparently some major forces at play in the tech money world. People like Vint Cerf, Tim O'Reilly, Andre Durand, and Cory Doctorow are teaming up with Tom Frey and the futurist think tank, DaVinci Institute, to dive into the forces at play with a Future of Money Summit later this year. They've even tapped a Nobel Prize winner and Visa founder, Dee Hock. They're hoping to answer questions like; what kind of money you'll be putting into vending machines 25 years from now; when will cash disappear; when will our current banking system become obsolete; and who gets to own money in the future?"

Comments

Dont you know?

[Junky191]

Dont you know that cash is unpatriotic? Please refrain from using it anymore. Make everything electronic so we have an excellent paper trail to ensure domestic security and civility. What you don't like it? You must be one of them...

AS long as thay have anonomous cash

[Unknown Poltroon]

Ill be happy. Or would you be comfortable paying by credit card for a copy of 2600? How long before ashcroft starts checking up on those "obvious" criminals.

Re:AS long as thay have anonomous cash

[wfrp01]

David Chaum has been concerning himself with these issues for years. If you read some of his writings you will find that he shares your concerns.

Rather than badly paraphrase his thinking, I'll just quote the introduction to "Security without Identification":

Computerization is robbing individuals of the ability to monitor and control the ways information about them is used. Already, public and private sector organizations acquire extensive personal information and exchange it amongst themselves. Individuals have no way of knowing if this information is inaccurate, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate, and may only find out when they are accused falsely or denied access to services. New and more serious dangers derive from computerized pattern recognition techniques: even a small group using these and tapping into data gathered in everyday consumer transactions could secretly conduct mass surveillance, inferring individuals' lifestyles, activities, and associations. The automation of payment and other consumer transactions is expanding these dangers to an unprecedented extent.

Organizations, on the other hand, are attracted to the efficiency and cost-cutting opportunities of such automation. Moreover, they too are vulnerable, as when cash, checks, consumer credit, insurance, or social services are abused by individuals. The obvious solution for organizations is to computerize in ways that use more pervasive and interlinked records, perhaps in combination with national identity cards or even fingerprints. But the resulting potential for misuse of data would have a chilling effect on individuals. Nevertheless, this is essentially the approach of the electronic payment and other automated systems now being tried. Although these systems will require massive investment and years to complete, their underlying architecture is already quietly being decided and their institutional momentum is growing.

This momentum is driving us toward a seemingly irreconcilable conflict, between organizations' need for security and the benefits of automation on one side, and individuals' need for ensured privacy and other protections on the other. But this conflict may be avoided by early adoption of a fundamentally different approach to automating transaction systems. This new approach is mutually advantageous: it actually increases organizations' benefits from automating, including improved security, while it frees individuals from the surveillance potential of data linking and other dangers of unchecked record keeping. Its more advanced techniques offer not only wider use at reduced cost, but also greater consumer convenience and protection. In the long run, it holds promise for enhancing economic freedom, the democratic process, and informational rights.

Of course the technology Chaum advocates is not the only way to conduct monetary (and other) transactions. You can be sure that there are powerful forces that would like nothing better than to have improved access into people's private business. At the very least, people should realize there are other options.

Re:AS long as thay have anonomous cash

[MillionthMonkey]

You'd have to be out of your mind to buy a copy of 2600 with a credit card. Are you oblivious to the digital slime trail that your daily activities are leaving behind you? How many lists do you think you're on?

Some idiots in the government recently examined all of Safeway's California customer relations management files and compiled a list of people in California who had bought hummus of all things. You think they won't ask Barnes and Noble for a list of people who have purchased copies of 2600? The goons who are searching for hummus eaters will certainly find you. Think you have nothing to hide? Then you'll have no problem with letting them in when they show up at your door after the 4th Amendment has been legislated away!

You've probably got a big red flag next to your name in a number of databases. But maybe you can repair the damage. I suggest you get your CC out right now and use it to buy 50 copies of "A Charge To Keep". This will prove to the Attorney General that you're one of the sheep who won't cause any trouble and who deserves to keep his citizenship after PATRIOT II passes.

Next time you buy 2600, make sure you've got your tinfoil hat on first!

Re:Who gets to own money in the future?

[pVoid]

Money is very much 'owned'. The government 'owns' a lot of money for instance, and it has tricks up its sleeves like releasing cash into the market to readjust inflation rates and what not.

Money is not just money. There's a whole fucking market behind it.

No cash = rampant spending

[fobside]

Have any of you gone shopping for things when you have no paper money on you? It's so much easier to write a check, swipe a credit card, even a debit card. If paper money is eliminated, sure it's less to deal with, but I think people will start spending their cash and draining their savings. Just look at credit cards. Before credit cards, credit problems didn't exist. You could only spend the money you actually had. Now, if they eliminate paper money in exchange for cards storing credits, people will just draing their cards so fast without thinking. They'll put more on them, then drain them again. It's great for the economy, but do you think we're really ready for this kind of responsibility? The amount of credit card debt says no.

Re:No cash = rampant spending

[Anonymous Coward]

QUOTE:
"Before credit cards, credit problems didn't exist."

You're absolutely right! And before cars existed, traffic accidents didn't exist! Before space flight, shuttle accidents didn't exist!

People still had problems with money before there were credit cards; the problem may have been exasberated because of the availability of credit and people (like me) spending money that they don't have, but the problem of overspending and spending money that they didn't have has been around for ages, man.

Re:No cash = rampant spending

[fobside]

Yes, but cash is something muc more tangible. You can count it as it leaves your hands, whereas with cards, it's one lump sum. Sometimes people don't even check the total on a bill when using a credit card. I know I've been guilty of this. I didn't check a receipt and I was charged twice for the same item. It's a case of what sociologists call mindlessness vs mindfulness. We are much more mindful when when we deal with cash as opposed to cards and credit.

The ./ obsession with a cashless society?

[stefanlasiewski]

Where does this Slashdot obsession with a cashless/e-gold/alternative currency come from?

Money has been around for 3200 years. Trade "I'll give you 2 sheep for one cow" has been around for thousands more.

I remember hearing these "cashless society" arguments in 1980. I look in my wallet 23 years later, and I still have a wad of cash in there, along with a credit card and ATM card. Sure, much of my purchasing is electronic, but it's far from cashless.

Now people are again saying "We'll be a cashless society in 25 years", and I still don't believe them. I've heard it before.

It reminds me of the "computers will solve all your paperwork problems. We will be a paperless society in 25 years." Cash is not going away anytime soon just because some money-geeks think they found an alternative.

As Ivanova from Babylon 5 said:
"Every time somebody says we're coming into a paperless society, I get 10 more forms to fill out."

Re:The ./ obsession with a cashless society?

[xigxag]

Oh, come on! The real reason they don't accept credit in Chinatown is that it would leave an indelible trail, and the marchants on Canal St. would be forced to declare their income and pay taxes on the sale of grey market and smuggled items.

And taxes, my friend are the reason why the government would love to have a non-anonymous (nymous? nymful? identible?) cashless society, and every small businessman in existence would hate it. As would lovers of privacy and freedom, but that goes without saying, I hope.

Valuables?

[hackwrench]

More to the point who gets to decide when to increase or decrease the money supply. Your use of the word valuables in this context appears to refer to the notion that money needs to be backed by something like gold. It doesn't.

Re:A bigger question.

[JaredOfEuropa]

Yes, people have, over and over again. The banks' answer was always that they use the interest on your money to cover the cost of the transaction. Thankfully, my bank (ABN Amro) has changed their ways. Instead of delaying transactions, my money is transferred instantly from one account to the other, but the rent date on the account where the money was withdrawn from is back-dated two days. The bank get their rent, and I don't have to wait for my money to arrive in my second account. Suits me just fine.

As for the future of money... I don't see cash disappearing in the next 25 years. Cash is still very convenient for a numbe of purposes and I carry some with me at all times. Cash is useful for person-to-person transactions on the spot, and as a safeguard against overdrawn accounts, broken electronic wallets and the debit card / ATM / CC verification server being down. If any of these happen to you while you're checking out in the supermarket, you'll be glad to be carrying soe cash.

I think we will see a form of Internet (micro) payments such as Paypal coming into being in the next 25 years. It'll be less clunky and more fail-safe than Paypal as it will be run by proper banks and institutions. Most likely it will be seen as a regular banking transaction system, and be subject to the susual government regulations, scrutiny and taxes where applicable.

a problem

[pummer]

the problem with credit cards today is that people under 18 cannot have their own. How can we instill hardworking qualities in our young people while denying them the right to use their money as they choose?

Re:a problem

[Mononoke]

How can we instill hardworking qualities in our young people while denying them the right to use their money as they choose?

Because it's not their money. It's the bank's money, and they are just loaning it. I don't know anyone under 18 that I'd loan money to.

People under 18 can have checking accounts. That's how you learn how to manage money, by having a finite amount to manage, not by having some open-ended letter of credit.

credentials

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. None of the hard digital cash crowd is there, just a bunch of hand-waving, bandwagon-hopping types. Don't look to the institute for any sort of real innovation and breakthroughs.

Re:Mod parent up - Funny!

[Forgotten]

The main thing people don't understand about "human nature" is that there's no such thing as human nature.

Humans have evolved to be flexible; in fact, human bodies and brains evolved in concert with human societies. That's why people can adapt to live in a highly socialist system, or a highly capitalist one, or any of a million other alternatives.

What you seem to be calling human nature is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Create an economic system that depends entirely on the pursuit of self-interest, and people will behave in self-interested ways. Create one where people work together, and they'll work together. Pretty obvious really.

Socialist systems have all sorts of problems, but exploitation by the selfish or lazy rather notably isn't one of them, precisely because that sort of behaviour isn't fostered. Capitalist systems have a whole other set of problems, many of which are related to selfish behaviour, because that's the basis of the whole system.

There's ample room for criticism of any system, but to think you can live immersed in one world and be able to reasonably comment on the people and workings in another is absurd. Go live in Sweden for a few years and your point of view might be worth listening to. You'll certainly have a better conception of "human nature".

Every other country has solved this.

[Duncan3]

If you want to know what's next just do some traveling. Anyplace but here in the USA you will find debit cards and such everywhere.

So why not here? Because the banks here are making a nice 3-5% on EVERYTHING we do, usually paid by the merchant. It's a 3% tax right into the banks pocket.

Don't expect to see any of these futuristic (meaning 20 years ago everyplace else) technologies in the US anytime soon. Powerful rich people will not give up their $300B yearly drain on our wallets easily.

What happens when it wont read the card?

[MP*Birdman]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has has a debit or credit card no longer be able to be read by the machine at the till after a bit of wear and tear. What happens when your cash card with your life savings on it can't be read anymore?

It never ceases to amaze me...

[Sanity]

...how O'Reilly repeatedly price their conferences out of the range of most of the people that build, or are likely to build, the very software the conferences are about.

These conferences are primarily interesting because of the people that attend them, yet by pricing their conferences like that they are virtually guaranteeing that the only people who turn up are Sun and Microsoft's [insert conference buzzword here] evangelists, and a bunch of journalists.

Re:Everything for Free

[Kwil]

Without the possibility of inequality through different amounts of effort, there is no motivation to do anything.

Sure there is.

It's called "self-actualization", and sits at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Would some people start partying all day? Damn straight. Others would sit down and do some serious thinking and writing, others would work on creating fantastic pieces of art, architecture, or what have you, and yes virginia, some people would choose to cook.

What, after all, is the motivation to post on Slashdot? It's certainly not advancing your career or your knowledge. Hell, you're lucky if *reading* Slashdot advances your knowledge, but we do it anyway.

Now I'll admit that even while some people might still be happy to take care of the sick and maintain power-plants, the numbers would probably be far fewer, but that's where the nanotech and robotics come into play.

Re:We shall need independently certified wealth

[Cid Highwind]

The time frame is unclear, but eventually nanotechnology will allow exact copies of more or less anything. This will make cash, gold and many other current measures of wealth nearly worthless.

You're more right than you know. It makes the very *concept* of wealth nearly worthless. If nearly anyone can turn nearly anything into nearly anything else, then they have all the "wealth" they need! Pervasive nanotech could enable a "Star Trek" style economy.

Somehow, institutions will need to be established to keep track of everyone's net worth. What happens when crackers manage successful attacks on these? Shudder.

Why shudder? As long as I have technology to turn garbage into useful stuff at virtually no cost, what should I care what the system says my wealth is? If (when?) nanotech advances to the level where you can copy anything, traditional definitions of wealth will be as meaningless as medieval peerage systems are today.

Volunteer And Gen In Free?

[mrs clear plastic]

Perhaps you can volunteer at this and get in for free?

I have volunteered at conferences including Unsenix, Interop, WWW Consortium, and others and have allways received complementary admission.

It may be too late for this one, but if you become aware of stuff in the future (> 6 Months), you might have a better chance of getting in.

Especially if you off to do a key role, such as head up registration, logistics, whatever.

Mark