To be fair, apart from the privacy aspects, they’ve chosen some of the worst arguments against a full cashless society. Seriously, piggy banks and birthday cards?
I think it’s easier for us, as adults, to dismiss those things, but they bring kids joy and an opportunity to learn about the value of money and saving.
God how we would suffer without piggy banks or garage sales.
I though this whole post was sarcasm until I saw people’s comments taking it seriously. Thanks for bringing sanity to this thread.
Also have any of you heard of instant transfers or crypto currency? So cringe.
And giftcards will still exist, still traceable though.
unfortunately. god they suck so much. they’re like money, but worse in every way.
Why do garage sales have to go away, I just went to one and used zelle to send the guy money.
I was scratching my head with that one too. HOAs are doing a better job at killing the garage sale.
I use my paypal card reader! Both when holding garage sales and when visiting, it’s pretty normal and a lot of people use it without blinking.
If you pearl-clutching Christians fearful of change don’t want a cashless society, maybe stop pouring all your support behind the political powers that want to see giant megacorporations flourish and crush out small businesses. The people who want to control your rmoney are not the banks nearly as much as the Walmart down the street that can now take credit card payments simply by glancing at the store as you pass.
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Why are you like this though
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No one is pushing for a “cashless society” like this post describes. It’s fear mongering.
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There is a massive difference between a business being cashless and a government enforced “cashless society” like this post describes.
Spain, Belgium, and France have banned cash transactions above a threshhold (e.g. €3k) at least 5 years ago already. Cannot pay tax using cash in Belgium. Think about that for a minute.
New recent law in Belgium: all businesses (incl. self-employed workers and even landlords renting out property) MUST accept electronic payment. Try doing that without using a bank.
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- I completely disagree that if a majority of businesses went cashless that would mean the government has no choice but to be cashless.
- I never said it “could NEVER happen.”
- What do you mean it “DID happen,” it hasn’t.
- Ad hominem gets you nowhere.
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26% in a recent poll:
A Mastodon poll with 210 responses is hardly representative.
Why do you think 210 is statistically insignificant? Is there a reason why the central limit theorem does not apply in this case?
If you’re more fixated on the samples coming from Mastodon, can you explain why you might expect cashless proponents to be even fewer in populations outside of Mastodon? IMO, a Mastodon-using population is more likely to embrace individual rights and condemn imbalances of power that favor giant corporations like banks. I believe if the same survey is carried out outside of Mastodon, the 26% will be even bigger, if different.
The same reason someone might think Linux is a wildly popular choice of OS on Lemmy. These communities are very niche.
Mastodon is not niche. Mastodon is a diverse community of nerds and low tech people, artistic brains and analytical brains, white collar workers and blue collar workers. A substantial portion of Mastodon is from Reddit refugees. Reddit is no more niche than Facebook.
The greater Mastodon venue who that poll reached lacks right wing conservatives, who tend to stay in their bubble of extremist networks. That does not make Mastodon “niche”. Running the same survey on a right wing Mastodon node might be interesting, but we can see from the linked poll that political affiliation is generally orthoganol on this issue.
If you deposit your money at a bank, or PayPal, or some online digital bank transfer service,** you do not have your money anymore.** They have your money.
Now you have some kind of contract that says they’ll give you your money on demand. But sometimes they won’t give it to you when you want it. If any judge or cop wants to see every person or business I’ve ever transacted with the bank will happily give it over.
On the other hand, cash is cash. If I possess it, then I have it. And nobody gets to know how much, or how suspicious, or with whom I’m transacting.
If you deposit money at a bank, it is covered by federal deposit protection insurance (up to some limit that varies by country but generally in the range of $100k-$250k), so you are guaranteed to be able to get it back no matter what. Even if the bank fails. Banks are subject to extremely strict regulation to protect consumers and make sure you have access to your funds
PayPal is not a bank, it’s an EMI (e-money institution), but those are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Your funds are not covered by deposit protection insurance, but as an EMI they have to keep your money in a safeguarding account at a real bank and they can’t use it themselves, so in case PayPal fails you will still get your money back. Revolut in the UK is another example of a non-bank EMI
If you deposit money at a bank, it is covered by federal deposit protection insurance (up to some limit that varies by country but generally in the range of $100k-$250k), so you are guaranteed to be able to get it back no matter what.
Time matters. Those insurance claims take months to process and they only cover bankruptcy (which is the least likely reason a bank denies you access to funds).
The copy of my ID card that the bank had on file expired. I renewed it on time but did not think to update the bank with a new copy. The bank’s way of communicating to me that their records of my card were out of date was to freeze my account. Boom, just like that, I have no money all of the sudden. I don’t recall the time of day it happened, but if it had happened on a Friday night I would not have access to my money until I appear in person at the bank Monday morning — assuming it’s even possible to get off work. At that time, I kept an empty fridge… only eating on the go. Had I not had cash on hand, getting food could have been a struggle.
Even if the bank fails. Banks are subject to extremely strict regulation to protect consumers and make sure you have access to your funds
LOL! Those so-called strictly enforced banking regs are not for us. Banks are scared shitless of AML/KYC shit hitting the fan. Banks laugh at the consumer protection variety of regs with reckless disregard. It’s a joke. I’ve reported banks in breach of consumer rights. The bank’s regulators do fuck all. One reculator responded to me and said “why don’t you switch banks”. I shit you not. That came from a regulator who’s job it was to enforce a law that the bank was breaking.
PayPal is not a bank, it’s an EMI (e-money institution), but those are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Your funds are not covered by deposit protection insurance, but as an EMI they have to keep your money in a safeguarding account at a real bank and they can’t use it themselves, so in case PayPal fails you will still get your money back.
No, that’s not how it is. PayPal has a reputation for copious extremely out of whack “anti-fraud” false positives. I was burnt by it. Paypal blocked my acct and kept my money. There are many similar complaints.
https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/rap_sheets/paypal.md
What country are you in? If it’s the USA, then yeah my understanding is that regulations are a lot worse/weaker there. The stuff you described wouldn’t fly if it was a UK or EU bank I believe. SVB failing wouldn’t have happened here either (nor would it have in the USA before Trump)
Yeah PayPal are terrible lol, I’ve got some horror stories of my own
Not that I think society should be cashless but why couldn’t you donate to homeless people and do garage sales in a cashless society?
Pretty much everyone has a phone here, including beggars and homeless people. It’s a necessity these days.
My country is basically cashless (as in almost no one uses cash and quite a few stores don’t accept it at all) and we just send money with an app that almost everyone uses. It’s easier than cash, bank transfers, and cards. It’s also instant.
Hell, I have even gotten some money from my grandparents that way a few years ago.
Sad to see all the Monero fans and no GNU Taler fans here
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Yeah, it’s popular among the crypto folks. But GNU Taler has advantages over Monero. Buyers are also untraceable, but sellers are not. So they are taxable, which is pretty neat. The EU and Swiss governments are experimenting with it and for them the taxation part is kind of valuable.
Edit: Ah, and it also doesn’t rely on a blockchain, so offline transactions are feasible etc.
Whoever wrote this has very little imagination. Most of this is already not true
This is some boomer facebook shit.
I have a Paypal credit card reader I keep with me because I do commissioned work on the side, it’s the size of a stick of gum, I can take a payment anywhere, I’ve paid friends for dinner or other things with a quick tap and use it at garage sales.
Not saying I WANT a cashless society, nor do I think anyone is seriously pushing this issue because if you did away with cash people will come up with something to use as cash the very same day. But I do think this weird image/article is extremely 1-dimensional and likely published in some Christian magazine to reinforce the right-wing fear that anything will ever change at all.
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What would you do if (insert hypothetical)? Oh okay. Well what would you do (insert more far fetched hypothetical).
Repeat.
But fine I’ll bite the bait. You can’t de facto bar bartering, as a significant amount if b2b is effectively bartering. Now if only corpos can do it, then I’d say we should really look into that socialist democracy stuff.
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I dunno if you live in the US, but if you do, you’re already required to pay taxes on the goods you exchange. So literally nothing would change wrt this cashless society thing because the law is already there, and you’re already not paying your taxes, and it has nothing to do with cash because in a barter you’re not exchanging cash.
I love how in a PRIVACY Lemmy community there are people who actually, unironically argue for a dystopian cashless society.
We’re all fucked, aren’t we?
Some people already live in a cashless (and moneyless) society already - the homeless and those who are incarcerated. Also children. They tend to barter and trade for stuff. It’s not that crazy of an idea, most people figure it out.
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no.
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Every single point raised in this post is already solved with current technology.
False dichotomy. Many, even most, of the examples given here could be accomplished in a cashless society (not that I’m actually advocating for one, but this is just factually incorrect).
Possibly with the exception of the domestic violence example, the examples that directly reference ‘cash’ make the least sense. Of course you can’t give cash to your grandchildren, there’s no more cash!
When I was a kid my parents controlled my account and would take money out of it sometimes, sometimes to punish me for this reason or that (staying up late sneaking SNL back when it was good, for instance.) What they didn’t control is the cash they didn’t see my grandparents slip me on my birthday, and therefore they couldn’t steal that. Sure “well they shouldn’t have done that in the first place,” but they did, or “you shouldn’t have disobeyed your parents,” ok whatever Mom, but I’m thankful I had my secret stash.
Savvy grandparents transfer BTC to their grandkid’s cold wallet
Can’t wait for crypto to be fully adopted
Dude, crypto is pretty much dead.
BTC is breaking price records as several world governments start to officially adopt it as an ETF, and this guy says “crypto is pretty much dead”.
My fucking sides. Get real, my dude. Crypto has never been more alive, and this is just the beginning. Check the price if you don’t believe me.
Fucking LOL
It’s used to launder money. The value is artificially blown. But it will never be used for everyday transactions.
Well that’s a completely different argument.
I’m not buying BTC for everyday transactions; I’m buying so that I have a chance at not being a wage slave for the rest of my life.
(And FWIW there are several debit cards available that will let you buy anything with crypto at any place that accepts Visa. Like the Coinbase Card, for example. Or the CL Card.)
Buying crypto to not be a wage slave? You’re killing me. Buy lottery tickets, chances are the same. Hell, just throw money into a trash bin, chances are also the same. You are living in capitalism. If You weren’t born rich, you will die poor.
We’re all living in capitalism. I hate the system just as much as you do, but until a better system comes along, it’s either play by the rules, or die homeless. I chose the former.
So that everyone can see everything, instead of just the banks.
Hmm why are comments that mention Monero getting down votes?
Because Lemmy has an irritional hate towards crypto. Calling it “dead” and a “scam” while the price is breaking records and being officially adopted by several world governments.
and being officially adopted by several world governments.
Monero? Or which one?
BTC. The price already passed ATH ($70k) and has had ETF approval in the US several months ago, Canada; China coming soon. ETH is up for consideration next. And then there’s the fact that several small countries like El Salvador that have already accepted it as their official currency.
But you already knew all of this, so why am I even wasting energy on trolls like you? You people fucking suck. Quit talking shit just cause you’re even worse investors than me.
Quit talking shit just cause you’re even worse investors than me.
What? I asked one question.
We aren’t at the point as a society to be fully cashless. Maybe someday it could work but I think that day is very far away. Look how fucked up even the most basic parts of society are. We can’t even get societies and cultures to live together in peace or something that resembles balance and harmony. Lack of privacy and security is holding back the star trek future. Trying to make these good intentioned theoretical changes in society before society is humanly ready will fuck us all.
I think humanity is a lot further behind than most think. … And it almost feels like social life and community is getting more and more primitive, wild, and fragmented as time goes on. These different future paths are marketed from and for them, the corporations and greedy, not for the benefit of us.
Some places are basically cashless already though, look at Sweden
don’t worry, the politicians will never block themselves from receiving suitcases full of money
They don’t receive suitcases of money. Their wives law firms get steady business from a network of donors. Their kids get past the fancy school acceptance filters despite being block heads. They’re invited to speak at an overseas conference where they do one event and then 30 days of vacation. Their fake biographies of overcoming hardship get sold out and given out for free by their political party. They can trade stock with insider knowledge.
