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China's Cashless Economy Threatens To Leave Its Elderly -- and Their Money -- Behind (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: With his cellphone in one hand, and two wooden meditation balls in the other, Zhang Siqi queued up alongside throngs of fellow retirees that make up the morning rush at a small Beijing grocery store. Zhang, a Beijing native, then opened the WeChat mobile pay tab on his phone and scanned it at the automatic register to pay for some fruit and a pack of cigarettes with a savviness that belied his age.
That cutting-edge payment method is rapidly becoming so common in Beijing and other large cities that experts have begun referring to the Chinese capital as a prototype of the futuristic cashless society. In 2017, the country saw $15 trillion in mobile payments, the Wall Street Journal reported, far outstripping the US. While Zhang has been using WeChat social media and mobile pay functions for a few years now, the 63-year-old knows not every Chinese senior citizen is equally adept.
"Some old people find it difficult to keep up with technology. Many retirees have poor eyesight, and struggle to see the screen, or have a poor memory and keep forgetting how to use the apps," he said, pocketing his phone with his right hand, and rolling the wooden meditation balls with his left. Those issues were brought into sharp focus recently by a viral video of an older Chinese patron in northern China arguing with the staff at the checkout of a supermarket in northern China over how to pay for a bag of grapes -- the staff told him he needed to pay by app, but eventually relented and allowed him to pay by cash. A slew of viewers expressed sympathy for the demoralized customer, including consultant Matthew Brennan, who writes about China's ever-evolving tech scene.
That cutting-edge payment method is rapidly becoming so common in Beijing and other large cities that experts have begun referring to the Chinese capital as a prototype of the futuristic cashless society. In 2017, the country saw $15 trillion in mobile payments, the Wall Street Journal reported, far outstripping the US. While Zhang has been using WeChat social media and mobile pay functions for a few years now, the 63-year-old knows not every Chinese senior citizen is equally adept.
"Some old people find it difficult to keep up with technology. Many retirees have poor eyesight, and struggle to see the screen, or have a poor memory and keep forgetting how to use the apps," he said, pocketing his phone with his right hand, and rolling the wooden meditation balls with his left. Those issues were brought into sharp focus recently by a viral video of an older Chinese patron in northern China arguing with the staff at the checkout of a supermarket in northern China over how to pay for a bag of grapes -- the staff told him he needed to pay by app, but eventually relented and allowed him to pay by cash. A slew of viewers expressed sympathy for the demoralized customer, including consultant Matthew Brennan, who writes about China's ever-evolving tech scene.
...someone will ALWAYS figure out how to take money from you. This is the biggest non-problem on the planet.
It isn't just the elderly who will have problems in a cashless society. Authoritarian governments LOVE cashless payments as it allows them to keep tabs on what everybody is buying and selling. "Sorry, you've bought too much alcohol this month, time for re-education camp." "You bought a ski mask but no skis? You must be planning a robbery (or worse, a protest)!"
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
CASHLESS, means EVERYTHING you purchase, EVERYTHING you earn is noted by "the government". Once this globe falls into the one world order, with EVERYTHING controlled by the imperial United Nations (or whatever they call it), ANYTHING you attempt to purchase, will be approved or denied by the global rulers. Hard currency, be it gold, barter or whatever, keep the governments nose OUT of your business. Cashless is touted now as "secure & convenient" which is just a ruse to get you to give up more of your privacy.
C) one does not need to grow up with a technology to understand and master it - to claim otherwise is the most pathetic of excuses.
Or maybe that's just your excuse for the crappy nature of most mobile software, none of which have standards for interfaces (which would allow for transferability of skills) or very good interfaces at all. Add to this the fact that mobile usage is driving out deaktop as a dominant mode of interaction with the net (which because of the shift in UI, obviates the last set of N standards the elderly may have learned) and you can see why most (old) people are not too enamored with learning new tech. What's the point of learning something if the information isn't usable after that point in time?
In short, don't blame the elderly for not wanting to put up with the churn - blame the industry for not making it easy for them to use the tech in the way they probably have learned to use it..
That is all.
Maybe the "geezers" are pretending to complain because they're old, and really complaining because they remember the consequences of total government control (Mao's purges, etc). Maybe they don't want their grandchildren to grow up in a country where all of their purchases are sliced, diced, data-mined, and socially credited by Chinese government filth. Don't toe the line, good luck buying food next month...