French Town Tests Cashless Society

SamiousHaze writes to mention a Silicon.com article about an attempt in a French tourist town, Caen, to do away with cash in some locales. From the article: "Among [the locations in the trial] is an underground car park; the town hall; a bus stop which can transmit timetable information; a cinema poster which downloads video trailers to users' mobiles; a local supermarket, where people can pay for their groceries with a mobile phone, and a tourist information sign outside the historic Abbaye des Hommes. By touching the mobile against the 'Flytag' logo at each of these locations, users can pay for services or receive information straight to their phone."

Comments

Damn

[taskforce]

I read the headline thinking it might be some kind of experiment into anti-materialist anarchism... then up on reading the summary I realised that by "cashless" they meant "physically cashless, so you don't have anything that can be traded for goods and services if they decide to pull your card".

Somewhat different I must say.

There will always be some form of cash

[Rude Turnip]

Even if it isn't the government-sancationed variety. I don't know of too many people that would willingly create a transaction record of payments for various of their habits.

Loss of privacy

[misleb]

Talk about opportunities for loss of privacy. In a truely cashless society, there would be no way to have private transactions. Everything would be accounted for. Maybe it is one of those things where if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about, but still. I'd like to keep the option of paying my dealer^H^H^H^H^Hbookie^H^H^H^H^Hfriend without some kind of electronic trail.

-matthew

Re:Loss of privacy

[no reason to be here]

I would say very naive. most tax-evasion is done by the extremely wealthy and by mega-corporations, who fully disclose all their holdings, then avoid paying taxes on as much of it as possible through completely legal tax loopholes that their lobbyist bought for them.

Re:Loss of privacy

[LordNimon]

Do you actually use cash in this day and age?

All the time. My minimum for credit card purchases is $20, and I never write checks unless I have to.

Re:Loss of privacy

[OldManAndTheC]

Tax evasion is hiding income, lying on your tax forms, and otherwise cheating by illegal means. Tax avoidance is using legal means to avoid taxes, like tax shelters, transfer prices, profit laundering and other tactics used by the mega-rich and large corporations. The impact of tax avoidance is greater than that of tax evasion, because tax avoiders have more money and better accountants and lawyers.

This report has an excellent discussion of legal tax avoidance schemes by the rich and their impact on society.

Yeah but what happens in case of a blackout?

[Spy der Mann]

Interesting irony. Debit and credit cards were used to stop burglars from taking your cash, but right now the electronic frauds are becoming popular so it's MUCH EASIER for someone to steal your identity (and then buy goods using your money) than to steal your cash.

Now suppose a natural disaster (earthquake, hurricane, who knows) took out the power lines. How will you buy the goods you need?

Re:So much for being egalitarian...

[Fareq]

Question: How do you buy a phone?