Cash Might Be King, but They Don't Care (nytimes.com)

In Midtown and some other neighborhoods across New York City, cashless is fast on its way to becoming normal, The New York Times reports, sharing anecdotes where merchants have refused to accept bills from customers (the link may be paywalled). From the report: Cashless businesses were once an isolated phenomenon, but now, similarly jarring experiences can be had across the street at Sweetgreen, or two blocks up at Two Forks, or next door to Two Forks at Dos Toros, or over on 41st Street at Bluestone Lane coffee. In the future, when dollar bills are found only in museum display cases, we will look back on this moment of transition and confusion with the same head-shaking smile with which we regard customs on the Isle of Yap in Micronesia, where giant stone discs are still accepted as payment for particularly big-ticket items. Some people already live in this cashless future. They find nothing strange about paying for a pack of gum with a swipe of a card. If you are one of these people and you are still somehow reading this article, you may be thinking, "What on earth is the big deal?" At Two Forks on 40th Street, where the lunch offerings have cheery names like Squash Goals, Kristin Junco, a 34-year-old auditor for the state Education Department, said she had not used cash for about a week and much prefers a cashless establishment to its opposite. "We travel a lot for work," she said, gesturing to a colleague, "and if they don't take credit cards that makes things difficult." [...] Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice. A Visa executive described this practice to CNN as offering shoppers "freedom from carrying cash."

Comments

Visa and Mastercard needs to be broken up

[mysidia]

Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice.

Clearly they are wielding monopoly power now against GOVERNMENT-BACKED legal tender. If bribing vendors to reject Bills and accept only Visa fake money that only those with good credit or a bank account can get isn't a threat to freedom, democracy, and capitalism, then I dunno what would be.

Re:Visa and Mastercard needs to be broken up

[liquid_schwartz]

A couple of points. First off the government doesn't really like us using cash as they want to monitor every single thing we do. Thus they prefer us using credit cards with all records being available to them. Second, banksters run the country and make ~2.5% per transaction this way so of course it will be preferred over cash.

I pay with cash because....

[hipsterdufus]

I don't think my bank or credit card company needs to know where I eat lunch every day. Sure, I use plastic to avoid dealing with a cashier (gas stations and parking) and of course for online shopping where you can't use cash. I find cash convenient for me and faster than a lot of transactions I see when people have to use a card, wait for it to authorize, some then fire up a printer, then they sign it. Dunno. My bank probably thinks I'm a drug dealer. My cash machine is only a few minutes away from the office, so it's easy to get more. Lots of point-of-sale machines at small shops get malware on them as well. We've had a few instances at work where a lot of people suddenly saw unexpected charges on their cards. In both cases, a nearby lunch place had their point-of-sale system infected and it stole their information. So, it does happen.

Get off my lawn...I suppose?

Re:I pay with cash because....

[johannesg]

I pay with cash because I don't to end up living in a world where the government has 100% visibility on all of my financial transactions. Not because I do anything fishy with them, but because once everything is electronic, confiscation will also become a trivial measure. At least with cash they'll have to go door to door.

Not to mention negative interest rates. The only thing that keeps interest rates in check now is the threat of people withdrawing all of their money at once. Once that threat is gone, there will be no limit on negative interest rate as well.

Oh, please...

[magusxxx]

...they're doing it because they think they'll have less chance of being robbed.

Re:cash costs money

[omfglearntoplay]

Exactly the mentality of some small business owners I know, but the opposite of others. I see the dichotomy as such:

1. Do you hate paying taxes, but are OK with paying 2% to a bank for every single thing you do?

2. Do you trust big companies with skimming off the top, or do you trust your employees that you hand pick?

3. Do you feel OK when the rich get richer, but get pissed off when the small guy gets a bonus 1% higher than he got the year before?

Basically, I feel you should either be a Scrooge and hate losing money in any case, letting the actual measured bottom dollar make the decision (including future change)... or you should cater to your local workers and your own employees. Bigger and bigger businesses breed monopolies that eventually screw everybody if you let them. Credit cards are designed to steal from the moderately rich, middle class, and poor alike to make the richer even more so. I use them, but locally I use cash more and more to try to keep prices down.

Re: Where's the story here?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I am stating that refusing to do business with people who don't have credit cards is blatantly discriminatory, and it doesn't matter what the treasury says, because there are many, many other *laws* that matter more than the treasuries *rules*. This is a matter of law, not rules.

Re:cash costs money

[cascadingstylesheet]

accepting cash isn't free. Employees steal. You have to do the paperwork to keep track of it and account for all the receipts. Unless you run to the bank daily, you have to pay an armored car to pick it up and deposit it for you.

Er, neither is accepting cards free. There's a significant fee on every transaction, so much so that in some places (where it is allowed) businesses will offer a lower price to those who pay cash. .

(I'll grant you that a lot of the risk is offloaded to other entities when cards are used, and that therefore you might think the fees worthwhile in that respect. However, the customer and public are pissed at you, Spatula Warehouse, for having your systems compromised and their accounts hit with fraudulent charges, they are not pissed at Visa or BigBank.)

But in any case, accepting cards isn't free either.

Cash, use it, or become a banks & government s

[Wowsers]

A lot of people use cards for payment because they don't have to have a pile of cash, it's sort of quick (so long as the bank network doesn't go down), you can track payments, but there are very serious downsides that these people who are pushing the so called cashless society do not want to consider and definitely do now want to tell people about.

1. You can track all payments. Fine if you're dopey person parroting the state's "Nothing to hide nothing to fear" nonsense, but that means they will know everything about you, what newspaper you buy, did you buy a sex toy, did you give your grandchildren a bit of birthday money.
2. You lose all control of your wealth. What I mean is, instead of having an ability to buy what you want with cash, the moment it's all electronic, the government can stop you existing by freezing your access to electronic "money". Good luck to eating / paying bills without money. This can be extended so you vote the right way in elections nothing happens, and raid your account as punishment if you voted "the wrong way".
3. With no cash, at a moment's notice, the government can decide it will raid all your bank / savings accounts for x%, just like the European Central Bank did to Cyprus - they called that state crime a "bail-in". Noticed how the US economy is $19Trillion+ in debt, reduce it by raiding your accounts one day, you won't have a say in it.
4. With electronic "money", there is NOTHING to stop the banks and card providers suddenly increasing their transaction fees. Want to protest about it? Too late, you have no alternate way of paying for anything,.
5. Much is made of the ability to track transactions, with the claim you can stop money laundering. This is false. If a drug dealer for example has a suitcase of $20 bills, it's going to weigh a lot, and attract a lot of attention. But in the electronic world, at a press of a button, that same amount of money can be sent around the world any number of times, cleaning it. Nobody does it? Just ask HSBC (and other banks) who where caught doing just that, laundering money for drug cartels.
6. Cash funds crimes and terrorism? It's far easier to move electronic "money" around to fund terrorism, just ask governments and banks and stock exchanges, they do it daily.

So before people think what a great idea going cashless is, you better be prepared to sign your life away to being totally controlled, and not cry about it when it is.

The Down Side

[LeftCoastThinker]

Cashless is great, convenient etc. until it isn't. Wait until the next hurricane, earthquake or N Korea shoots an EMP attack and the power is out for days or weeks. Then the people with no cash will be stuck with no ways to buy food and water or other necessities... There is a reason that hard currency is still around even when credit cards have been around for decades.

The other problem with going cashless is the invasion of privacy that is routine by big businesses and the government. If you are fine with both knowing every intimate detail of your life, go for it, but if not, you may want to make some purchases with untraceable cash.