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Under Pressure, Amazon Plans To Accept Cash at Cashierless 'Go' Stores (cnn.com)
Bowing to growing pressure from opponents who say that cashless stores leave out low-income Americans, Amazon plans to take cash at its 10 cashierless "Go" stores. From a report: Amazon Go stores, located in San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, use AI and cameras to check out customers. Amazon reportedly is considering opening up to to 3,000 by 2021. "We are working to accept cash," a spokesperson for Amazon said Wednesday. "Paying cash at Amazon Go will work as you would expect: you'll check out, pay with cash, and then get your change." Amazon did not say when Go stores will begin accepting cash. Amazon also said its bookstores will start taking cash, but did not share any details.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
This is not about low-income, rather about keeping alternative to payment processors widely accepted and available.
Just consider the power VISA would have if there was no ready alternatives to paying with VISA. Without alternatives they would have an effective power to implement VAT-like tax on everyone worldwide. At least for now, ability to pay with cash keep them in check - if they get too greedy merchants would stop accepting plastic.
When a 16-year old with no more than a side gig cutting laws can obtain a free checking and savings account, to include the debit/credit card, can someone please explain this "low-income" excuse?
Perhaps instead of "low-income" you call it what it is; Citizens wanting to hide their legal status by being paid under every proverbial table.
Yeah, I like semi-anonymous transactions and privacy too, but they're not doing this for "high-privacy" Americans...
it's fine for the 16 year old with no credit. Give that kid a few years. The car his mom & dad helped him buy will break down and his two $8/hr jobs won't be enough to get it fixed. He won't know how to fix it himself because we pay for schools with property taxes and Auto Shop was one of the first things cut when the property values in his neighborhood collapsed and his school district lost all it's funding. Kid now has a high interest loan over his head and very little money. So his credit's shot. One of these days he overdraws his account and the bank uses that opportunity to close it out and send him packing since he's all cost and no profit. The divorce he has in his 20s (along with child support) means no bank will touch him. Doesn't help that the mom cleaned out his account right before the divorce
Once the world kicks down you it doesn't stop. Unless some outside force steps in you're pretty much done with. As for the illegals, they've got their own little world that still takes cash that they keep to. Everyone knows they're there but turns a blind eye because the local businesses want to hire them and the locals themselves want their lawns maintained and their houses renovated on the cheap. This has nothing to do with illegal immigration. We could stop that any time we want with stricter employer guidelines and by ending the drug war so the refugees would stop streaming in. But if we did that the right wing in America would lose yet another boogeyman to scare us with.
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Low-income Americans and illegal immigrants keep the good, old-fashioned, cold, hard cash economy rolling along. We should bow down, kiss their feet, and thank them for preserving payment options that are private and not subject to bankster tracking.
It's easier to pay cash -- I know exactly how much I paid, and they can't enter an incorrect "tip" amount later. Plus cash is good, cash is private, we should all be doing our part to keep the cash economy humming along. It's our duty to freedom from tracking and bank/government control. I carry and pay cash as a (small) revolutionary act.