Does cashless society discriminate against the poor and elderly? (2019)
blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu
blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu
Currently, all I can do is politely decline and insist that I neither have the Play nor Apple store; I still find it uncomfortable even giving away my phone number. I couldn't even get into my gym the other day, since they'd transitioned to app sign-in only (phasing out barcode tags); I'm forced to beg the attendant to look me up by phone number every time.
*EDIT: I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic
I don't think so. Certainly it's hard to argue that at least a feature phone that you're willing to give out the phone number for is well-nigh mandatory.
As you say, go back not that many years and cash/travelers checks and appropriate ID (drivers license and/or passport) were really all you needed in general. In addition to phone, it's really hard without a credit card today as well.
I don't generally want to say that too loud though because some politician will point out that they still have their eyes and fingertips so why can't we use biometrics instead.
Might as well regress to hot iron cattle branding.
Also they REALLY dont like hearing about how the phone they have now is obsolete and theres no way to get parts for it, or its just too far gone and they'll need to buy a new phone. I feel for all of these people as I totally agree with them.
Plus, even if you live in an area where a car is required you have the option to opt out and move (housing crisis aside), which isn’t an option to avoid smartphone requirements.
The Ford Mustang was introduced 18 years after the end of World War 2.
I would love to ditch my car but it’s impossible in my city and I have no power to change it. I could move I guess but choosing lack of car over my friends and family feels a bit drastic.
But yes, getting old sucks and walking takes some discipline.
and it also requires you to fully buy in to the city-centric lifestyle. Whether you like it or not there will always be a lot of people that don't want to live in an urban center or even a small town. For them, personal transportation is non-negotiable. Even people who live within walkable towns or cities will often prefer to have a car so that they can access other locations and services whenever they feel like it without having to rent or limit themselves to places accessible by mass transit. Cars just aren't going away, nor should we wish them to. I'm all for building more walkable and human scale environments, I enjoy them as much as the next person but I also want those places connected by good roads so that I can access, or leave, any of them freely.
And before you ask, I hate having to have a smartphone. It is required to VPN into work, or to do so many things. I changed grocery stores rather than let them use my cellphone for the "loyalty" card.
I also hate living in a state where public transit is useless.
TL;DR - something about "get off my lawn" and "old man yells at cloud".
Note that I am not arguing one way or another, but outright dismissal is not an appropriate counter argument.
I’ve needed all of these sans the car to interact with just government services in my state.
That is reality in a lot of the world including Europe, China, and South America.
I agree with the sentiment of not generally needing to have a car and fortunately that is the case in most of the world (except the USA)
Compact layouts that enable walking or biking are another alternative.
Walkable, bikeable cities are human cities.
(And they’re also the kind of cities that mobility aids like scooters can thrive in.)
That’s one of the main reasons that elderly people from the suburbs often move to retirement communities which are designed at pedestrian scale.
Even for people lucky enough to live in those rare areas where you can walk to a grocery store, it's extremely useful to have access to a car you can fill up with large items.
Plus, look at the Netherlands, geriatric people who've biked their whole lives and maintained good physical shape have no problem continuing to bike.
For elderly people who have trouble pedaling, the answer is an e-bike.
Well, no surprise there are so few passengers: the bus comes every half an hour! Make it once every two hours, and there will be no passengers at all.
"Every half an hour" is an option for the desperate. Also, that bus is probably stuck with cars when there's heavy traffic, while being slower than cars when there isn't. And it does not go exactly where you want to be. Would _you_ use such a bus service if you weren't forced to due to circumstances?
The answer for shitty public transport offering should not be eliminating public transport offering.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides nor any other handouts from the local council.
For clarity: the context was for local councils to give money to Uber instead of running a bus service. Which is plausible idea. I just don't think you need to be so specific: give people money, so they can buy goods and services they deem most beneficial (including Uber rides).
Now going one step further: only give the money to poor people. Welfare for rich people is a bit silly.
I'm a regular user of public transport. I don't own a car, don't have a drivers license and call taxi/uber maybe once or twice per year. I am lucky enough to live in a place where that's not just possible, but easy, easier than driving a car. And I'm not poor. I can afford a car, just don't want to have one.
Public transport is not a handout to the poor, it is a service which makes life better for everyone. If yours is so bad only poor people would use it - maybe it's time to fix it.
(I currently live in Singapore, which has excellent public transport.)
My suggestion was conditional: if a city has already decided that Uber is better than public transport, then they should still not give Uber money. But instead, give the money to poor people.
However: public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I don't say that density needs to become before public transport. Just the opposite: you need to put transportation in place before people come. But you also need to make density legal before you think about public transport.
I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
I think there does come a point where a community can decide their public transportation costs more to operate than it's worth, but unless it's consistently losing massive amounts of money it's probably not worth it to take a valuable resource from the public just to save a bit of money. Especially if that community has any desire to grow.
In places where public transport works and is used, I agree.
Similar. I spent part of my teen years in a children's home in the U.S. -- it turns out that even though the state may go in for a [driving] learning permit (pre-req for a driving license), it won't sign off for the license to drive. So I never got a license until older and dropped it later.
I'm definitely healthier for all the walking I still do :)
Especially in small towns where people know each other.
That used to kinda be the norm.
If I can't walk there within an hour, or the bus itself takes more than an hour to get there; I won't even apply to the job. My method of thinking on this is that people with their own vehicle won't go much further than an hour away anyways, so why would I with a bike, my own two feet; or transit for that matter.
It's not like the people they are hiring with vehicles are going to get there much faster if they own a vehicle taking the same amount of time. The only time this won't be true is if they live so close they really should be walking instead to save money.
It's getting so bad, that some insist on being able to drive to work even if you live within 15 minutes walking distance.
"But what about bad weather?" They ask.
"I'll dress appropriately." I reply.
3 days later: Phone rings.
"We're sorry, but we decided to go with someone better suited for the job."
The job... was at a restaurant, as a cook. Cooks... don't need to be able to drive to work... usually. (There are maybe some jobs where driving would be ideal, or necessary, but let's be real here. Most don't need to be able to drive.)
Quite frankly, I think the entire restaurant industry (in Canada) needs to be audited for multiple reasons. Tax evasion, disobeying the law in regards to discrimination, etc. (Canadian laws) There may be some innocent owners caught in the crossfire, but if they truly are innocent in this case; they should be fine and worry free. It's not a line of logic I like to use in many things, but in this case it really is true.
I once worked where I lacked a car. There were 3 buses going there in the morning. The next bus going there left downtown Denver at 4pm. Between 0545 and 1600 there was no bus service to that destination. Missing the 0430, 0505 or 0545 buses meant missing work that day. When I finally managed to get a car (legal problems), I got a new job within a month.
But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards. Heck, here in Canada we have a tribunal system to deal with human rights abuses, even in the workplace; not just societal. And it gets underfunded due to be under utilized due to the very lack of backbone I speak of. What I am saying right now is right from the horses mouth no less.
Yes, that means it's all our fault. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and so they do nothing; and so they get away with more than they should.
To be clear though for those on the other side of the fence.
I'm the employee who will usually say "yeah, sure boss. Just maybe give me some time to get down there, or cover my cab fare so I can get there faster."
Heck, one employer literally drove down to get me just to get the shift covered without any lost time.
But recently I've been getting flak from employers for even that sort of thing. (Getting a cab, or taking the bus I mean.)
So, I don't care anymore. We have rules for a reason, and you all can follow them, or uphold them. Which ever may be the case for whoever is reading this.
In the US there is no authority that oversees these sorts of things. It's perfectly legal to make insane demands on an hourly employee's time. Hourly employees are lucky if they can get a set schedule and don't have to constantly check to see what days/hours they'll work because those hours can be changed at any time without notice. They can be expected to come in at any time to cover for other employees and fired if they aren't making themselves always available at the drop of a hat.
There are very few regulations preventing employers from abusing their staff and those only cover the most egregious abuses. Walmart (the largest private employer in the country) for example has been caught for things like refusing to pay workers for hours that they worked, for locking workers inside of buildings and refusing to let them leave, child-labor violations, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and serious OSHA violations that endangered the lives and safety of their employees. While they do get the occasional light slap on the wrist for violating what few protections workers have (often only after repeatedly violating them) even the largest and easiest target gets away with all kinds of abuses not covered under law.
Companies and entire industries spend massive amounts of money on bribing politicians so they can continue to exploit workers and even manipulate the workers themselves to be so anti-regulation and anti-union that they'll fight against efforts to improve the conditions that they themselves suffer under.
Workers being exploited in the US are not uncaring or spineless. They're just working against a system that has been carefully designed and refined over centuries to keep them powerless. We're starting to see some pushes for change though. There's been an increase in efforts to unionize, but just talking about unionizing can get you fired and laws have been changed so that unions don't always have the power they used to. In the meantime, folks still have to pay rent and eat, so they're forced to suffer under exploitative practices.
Let's just say that we have it just as bad in slightly different ways. The only saving grace for us Canadians (IMHO) is that we still have stuff like the old common law stuff in effect. (of which many of our citizenry is not aware of its actual legal standing, and so they don't make use of any of it.) {Also the libertarian free-man-of-the-land types make erroneous use of some of this stuff, which doesn't help either.}
I state it as such, because when I brought this all up with a lawyer to see if I had a case at all; he was surprised I even knew about some of the old common law stuff that employers legally are supposed to be obeying. This has to do with things like wrongful dismissal for example, where an employee has decided to say no to a bad boss, and gets fired for it. A lot of our current laws state that's already illegal as well depending on the situation; but even those old laws had details in them pertaining to things like severance pay. Long story short; some employers know about this, and will pay out extra weeks even under probationary period because it could land them in court if they don't.
So it is better up here in some ways; but that kind of stuff will probably never be enacted down there, because it would mean accepting that ol Britain was right about a few things.
"Normal Land Line" wasn't something that came from nature. It is a sophisticated technology invented by humans with the same User Interface flaws and Laggard-Ranting that every generation goes through.
When Mixed-Reality becomes popular, I'm sure there will be many complaining "why can't I just have simple smartphone" and there will probably some Gen Zers sympathizing with them and reminiscing about the simple days of smartphone.
Newsflash: Adaption and Evolution is the name of the game. I can understand if a disabled person complains inability to use gadgets(although smartphones have better accessibility features), but you can bet your bottom dollar, most of these people whine because they aren't curious about the world and stubbornly refuse to adapt and the rest of the world has to bend over backwards to accommodate them?
Yes, it’s also exponentially more powerful, but it leaves a lot of people behind.
Just a few of those factors might not be so bad but with all of them it could become impossible to do legally-required things like buying car insurance without being effectively legally required to look at Google ads. Or renewing your passport without agreeing to a software EULA that forbids you from ever suing Apple for leaking your private data. All of this "it's just opting in to societal progress" crap is why Experian even ever had your data to leak[1] it in the first place, and why Google and Braze and every other tech company has it too.
0: https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png 1: https://threatpost.com/experian-api-leaks-american-credit-sc...
There are plenty of places that offer cheap phones for the poor
https://www.reviews.org/mobile/how-to-get-free-government-ce...
All Android phones have shitty long term support - even the Pixels.
Of course iPhones are a different story with Apple releasing a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s as recently as June of this year. But I’m not going to suggest an iPhone as an alternative.
On the other hand, developing countries manage with $30 unsubsidized phones and people use them for banking.
Maybe you shouldn't, but in terms of pure ability you perfectly well can. (And somewhat ironically, if you take matters into your own hands and update the OS yourself, quite a few banking apps will then refuse to run for "security reasons", while at the same time they're absolutely happy to run on an outdated OS version.)
I purchased a pair of docs for about 300$, 10 years ago. Still wear them as my day to day shoes/boots.
If you can use a computer, you can use a smartphone. It's just a form factor.
The amount of mental gymnastics some people go through to justify their irrational decisions is always mind-boggling --- and these are some of the smartest people
I don't install apps because I 100% don't trust the devs who write apps. Or well I don't trust their bosses. Corners are cut and security and UX typically takes a back seat to "the funnel"
My gym (located right across the street from my house) requires me to check in via an app. I have no issues walking across the street and getting the clerk to manually do it for me. NO I didn't bring a phone to my workout.
Your ignorance about other people's thought process doesn't imply they don't have a thought process.
It's the same stuff just in a cycle.
Cellphones are completely different. My "daily driver" smartphone, bought in 2017 for ~1/4 of my monthly salary, is obsolete and I have rooted it in order to continue to install security updates. This has locked me out of my Danish bank account.
My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works, even when the mains electricity is out, no technology change required.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_telephone [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_dialing
And they were state-of-the-art until the late 1990s, when mass consumer mobile phones became a thing.
You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
Their generation developed this technology - it can't be beyond them to learn it?
> My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works
Well it doesn't for much of society - that's the point.
My point is that, actually, no: nobody alive predates the popularisation of the telephone (the oldest person listed as being alive at the moment was born in 1904 – by which point there were ~3 m telephone subscribers in the US [1] https://www.technofunc.com/index.php/domain-knowledge/teleco...).
I think the point about being resistant to learning new skills is one thing, extreme poverty and the historically incredibly rapid widespread adoption of the smartphone is another. A smartphone from ten years ago is as good as useless for banking nowadays. If you're an 80 year old pensioner on a fixed income, it may well both be a significant proportion of your income, have taken a long time to learn to use and not exactly be understanding of your (statistically quite likely to be present) visual or fine manual dexterity difficulties, and I can very much imagine that you feel locked out of society for no good reason.
I didn't claim that. I said it was the state-of-the-art until recently, and it was.
But I know what you mean.
(Except newer smart phones tend to have better support for accessibility as people realise it's more important.)
I am already dreading what fresh clever hell Apple is going to unleash upon her when she gets shoved off this one because enough “critical” apps won’t run on iOS 15 anymore.
My dad, early 70s, is still holding out with a flip phone (fortunately still available in 4G). His hands are quite useless on a touchscreen after 50+ years of concrete-oriented construction work, and I would LOVE to see Siri attempt to parse Deep East Texan.
Newer phones are better for accessibility if lower visual or aural capability or some types of movement capacity are your main limitations, but are worse for many others. Increasingly larger phones are an awful trend for my friend who has severe muscular dystrophy and limited strength and range of motion, and voice assistants are a cruel joke for her tiny little voice.
Yes, I've heard the exact same thing from my iPhone-using elderly mother and my sister. The answer is simple: stop spending thousands on new iPhones, and get an inexpensive budget-model Android instead. They're quite simple to use. But my suggestions always fall on deaf ears.
And, of course, it's trendy to keep "modernizing" UIs, so how to use it or any given app probably changes a fair bit every year or two.
The landline is special because laws require a line-powered phone system that can survive outages. It's a minimal and reliable layer of infrastructure which still makes perfect sense for people with limited communications needs.
Is newer better? Should people be required to buy an array of fragile and expensive devices just to function? How many things should they be required to maintain and how complex should they be?
Back in the day, one would carry coins and use a phone box when needed. Nowadays everyone gets to carry a cellphone and pay 40 dollars minimum every month for the privilege. Cellphones are a regression, and we haven't even talked about the privacy aspect.
You can also dissent.
You can also resist.
And if newer is worse (for you), it's your obligation to do so.
Covered by ‘complaining’.
No, but we have to fill up those land fills and line those pockets somehow!
When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.
Hell, even the thing where stuff sorts by "most recent access" makes learning impossible. How do you find older things? (the "search" function is contrary to how the brain works, brains are wired to find things by location which doesn't work if there isn't a location because stuff is always moved by the damn magic elves).
Tech companies have the same level of respect for their users as slaughterhouses do for cattle. We are living in The Jungle, except it’s techbro computer shit instead of meatpacking.
See: https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2022/05/23/je...
However I do not see anything resembling cell phone service happening until the 1970s.
Microsoft also licenses its operating system to third parties and you PCs can get updated by the end user without having to worry about the OEM. Microsoft Windows 7 which just went out of support in 2020 ran on my 2006 era Mac.
As far as phones, Apple released a security patch for the 2013 iPhone 5s less than four months ago.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-phone...
1 in 20 households lacked a phone in 1990, 1 in 5 in 1960, and those number his regional variations.
My ex (and still one of my best friends!) was (is?) a first responder for the Pacific North-West (think oil-spills on mountains and other ecological problems). She was required to have a land-line. It was great that it would forward to a mobile, and lacking that, dump back to a battery-backed-up voice mail unit on-premises (possibly more).
OT: Her position seemed unique to me -- working for <whatever> $company, she would get alerted/activated for things in the Canada AND the U.S. And they would do the thing of "Where are You? ....... There's a heliport at X - we'll have a 'copter there in 15 minutes" and then I get to send her away clutch when I got home.
Because they're not against "state of the art" or even the notion of "state of the art" things in general, they're against smartphones in particular.
People are also able to finding smartphones (and the requirement to have one for many aspects of dealing with the government and corporations) bothersome and annoying without having to (a) hate new technology in general, (b) have it be due to them being old.
Amazingly (I know right? Who would have thought!) this can be true even if some people back in the day disliked landlines.
It's almost like each technology is not just some magic miracle everybody should adopt with no downsides and all fun and games, but something that people can be pro or against it on a preference basis (in fact, some tech can also have bjective negative consequences and side-effects).
Case in point I always disliked smartphones, and they become a thing at the time I was a teenager. And I know kids who were born with them who hate them. So there's that.
However I won't use a smart phone for money or install an app for random things like a gym membership or a restaurant's menu. Never mind banking or medical stuff. It's really hard to verify what an app actually does under the hood and too many reports of even banking apps not getting SSL right and such. I know too much about how bad software development is security wise to trust any of this implicitly.
Thanks but no thanks.
If it was invented when you were 20-40 it's new but you're willing to adopt it after some consideration.
If it was invented after you're 40 it's against the natural order of things and must be destroyed.
It's not that they are dumb or obtuse, in their world you have to understand the risk first, then you can use it. It's like the Japanese and baseball. In the USA it's balls then strikes, in Japan, it's strikes then balls. Older people think about strikes, younger people just think about balls.
I think it is apt and we are collectively ignoring how dangerous new technology and technological trends are or can be because we can use them without understanding anything about them (I'd argue even their creators understand little about them).
This is actually pretty good advice for smartphones, too.
Okay, it won't hack off your leg, but it may affect your life profoundly and adversely in ways that are not obvious at first.
Of course most landline calls today go through dubious VoIP links and poorly maintained copper infrastructure, which is why I qualify with "from several years ago."
It regularly strikes me as absurd that quality was so much better on an old landline. It's an odd trade-off for which I would never have voted.
Even still, my main complaint is over the loss of minor things like pay-phones. I think I'll always bemoan the idea of a telephone number being associated with a person, rather than a location.
But drop your mobile device and not only are you f'ed, you have to invest in getting it fixed. And until then you're a social outcast.
To say nothing of the "sorry, you MUST update or else."
Same stuff? Hardly.
Older generations have not been asked to replace their expensive tech every 3 years. My grandparents bought one phone and one TV set and kept them for the rest of their lifes. Something is wrong with today's tech and not with the elderly people who are not able to adapt as fast as zoomers.
If they'd be complaining about their mobile phone bill being higher than their landline bill, fine - but that's not the case.
I'm pretty sure the last land line phone my parents bought was under 100 bucks and it would still be working just fine 10 years later (that is in addition to the fact that we kinda transitioned from analog to ISDN around 2000, and then back). Compare to a new mobile phone every 3 years if you want security updates.
Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.
conversely the only reason that these companies enforce such policies is because they get away with doing so and people participate.
Examples from several different countries: getting around without rideshare/taxi hailing apps, 'self check-in' gyms, Covid-related QR codes to get into restaurants, stores that only take mobile payments, restaurants where the menu is only available by QR code.
Not only, you are also casting a vote:
"I am very sorry, but I usually don't have my phone with me, seems like I need to bring my money to another business."
I do say that, that all sounds crap and I don't want any of it even though I have a phone. (And it isn't my experience, I believe it exists but it's absolutely not hard to ignore.)
Again, if they all-caps-hate it so much...
I've walked out of places because of that.
The proprietary payment app in turn relies on a proprietary app for electronic ID which authorises bank transactions. And those demand a relatively recent version of iOS or Android and that the phone is not rooted. The e-ID is only available to citizens and residents, which means that people such as foreign students or guest workers can't get one. (And then the privacy and security issues of the e-ID system is a can of worms...)
The requirement of the phone not being rooted is another blunder. This is trusted computing against the user in my opinion.
If it is QR code based, take a screenshot or picture of the QR code. I just login with the photo app anymore lol.
I get and fully support what you're going for, but friendly reminder that (in America) having an ID can actually be somewhat difficult in a variety of circumstances where people are most vulnerable to being left out. It's actually kind of a hot button issue
1) Many people who were born in the US didn’t actually ever get one! This is more likely to affect people who were not born in hospitals, particularly older, poorer people.
2) Where is it? The state you were born in, and probably* the county. If you’re now in a different state, the procedure for getting it sent to you could be tricky.
3) How do you get a copy? For Texas, that used to be up to the county where you were born, with all the variability that implies (Harris Co: 4 million. Loving Co: 100.) Now that’s “state records office”… with a catch. For any of you here, it’s marvelously simple and not that spendy. If you don’t have a credit/debit card and/or don’t use the internet… that’ll be $80 and “up to” an 8 week wait. No idea about any other state.
So what if you don’t have/can’t get a copy of your birth certificate? Every state is different, but they all accept some defined set of alternative documentation: school records, military records, medical records, attestation from the doctor/midwife that delivered you… all things that someone who is having a hard time laying hands on their birth certificate is sure to have to hand.
1) Don't have an ID, just provide your birth certificate. Oh wait... that wasn't issued to me
2) Well I can try to order my birth certificate mailed to me. Oh wait... I don't have easy internet access, no smartphone or internet at my house.
3) I got online at the library, time to order my birth certificate. Oh wait... I don't have a credit card to pay. Maybe my birth county lets me mail cash (risky), or maybe they require me to show up in person, and potentially spend $100s on travel, in addition to missing work.
4) Okay, I go to apply for a credit card or open a bank account to pay. Oh wait... I need an ID.
Rinse and repeat
And if you lose your birth certificate you may have to start all over again!
There are ways to get an ID via other methods and then build up but it can be tricky and difficult to navigate. And without a stable address it can be nearly impossible.
This was never the case in any large city.
It is (was?) the case in my large (500k+) city in the 90's at least. If you were lacking all forms of identification to get an ID, you could use a neighbor or family member who had an ID to vouch for you.
I do believe it was the vouch + another form of identification, but I distinctly recall having to do this for a replacement ID when I couldn't find my papers after a move.
I’ve run into, for real, the issue of “essential” apps in Germany not being available in the US App Store, like public parking for the commuter lot in a town on the other side of the country.
I don't know who is arguing for bank accounts without ID though.
I can't help but feel it wasn't so long ago it was widely considered a bad idea to open arbitrary PDFs of questionable provenance.
But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address… I wonder if I‘ll end up getting spam by either the restaurant or the POS vendor.
It also creates a completely new and entirely avoidable problem: I don‘t have strong signal in that restaurant, and they don‘t offer a wi-fi either. All in all, while the waiter probably saved 20-30 seconds (waiting for me to unlock my phone or get my card from my wallet, tap it, and select my tipping option), it took me almost 5 minutes to complete payment on my side.
I do not think the merchant gets a name or an email address.
Not sure about the name actually, but they do get the email address - that‘s how they were able to email me an invoice without me entering anything.
That said, my my email address does contain my name, and while I could configure an alias in my Apple Pay settings, I doubt that too many people would do so. Would be a nice way for Apple to use their email privacy relay feature.
This is not true
> But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address…
In the case of a card not present transaction, the merchant always asks for your address when using credit cards. Also the original submission is about “cashless societies” and the disadvantage of it. No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
> No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
Agreed, but why does a restaurant have to be a web merchant when there is a much more convenient alternative available?
The checkout site did request my email address from Apple Pay, which obliges by default.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-pay/
> Information Shared When You Make a Payment
> When you begin a payment within an app, on the web, or within Apple Messages for Business using Apple Pay, to enable tax and shipping cost calculation your zip code, postal code, or other equivalent information is provided to the app, website, or merchant. After you authorize the payment, other information requested by the merchant, such as a device- or merchant-specific account number, your shipping address, or email address, is also provided.
No one is arguing that web merchants should accept cash. The commenter I replied to was referring to in person transactions
Further, the response is about a restaurant that has a website you have to use. The website offers Apple Pay as an option. If you pick it your email will be shared. It says so on the page itself.
* do they put up signs, and make sure not to let you in, if you don't have a phone?!
* what if it just doesn't work with your phone. you ate, try to pay, doesn't work.
* what if you have a phone, but no way to pay via phone, eg, no credit cards?
I just don't get it
Frankly, after eating, if presented with "you need a phone to pay", my response would be to ask, "so you refuse to take cash?".
If they did... well, their problem. Not mine.
I‘ve seen a variation of this (in the UK) where they really only bring a QR code, and you can‘t even read the amount without a phone. Presumably you have to ask for a printed check if you want to pay by cash or card, introducing another unnecessary step into the process. (Coincidentally they also initially brought me the wrong QR code since they are only labeled very discreetly, momentarily shocking me with a large group‘s check.)
The only reason to make it an either/or, is to try to force it.
I'd tip less, as a result too. Most places I worked at, has pooled tipping, meaning even the bus boy got some of the take.
But regardless, if my food is cold, or tasteless, I tip less too. My tip is some for the waiter's service, some for everything else.
And having to wait for a real receipt, and I presume eyerolling is part of it, would mean a lesser tip.
If someone thinks that unfair, then I say the same to them, as to the waiter. Find a different job, where the employer cares about customer satisfaction.
Re: gym, when I signed up I didn't have a phone at all. After being asked twice, I finally lied and said yeah it's um at home.
The problem with the app barcodes is simply that they are slow to load, nonstandard, and not open source.
I think a common standard, lightweight, open source app would be perfect. Stocard is proprietary, but at least it loads quick and organizes all of the cards in a uniform way.
I don't like these slow, buggy apps that bury their barcodes.
The brightness problem is real, and getting the angle right can also be a challenge, although that seems like an issue with the current quality of barcode/QR readers. I assume that could be solved if anyone cared.
Keychain barcodes are insecure, easy to damage, easy to lose, and provide zero real identity guarantee.
Phones at least can offer the level of identity guarantee that 2FA does, and largely solves those other problems.
Don't feel bad about asking them for access to the service that you paid for. Here are some good reasons for not installing their app:
- I forgot my phone at home
- My phone is broken, I stepped on it when I got out of the bed
- I can't install any apps, the memory is full and I don't want to delete my family videos
- I don't know my Appstore password right now
- This is a work-provided phone, I cannot install any apps on it
- My phone contains confidential client data, I cannot install any apps on it
- I am an investigative journalist, is your app certified for high-security applications?
- My kids have the phone, I didn't want to interrupt them playing games
- Does your app run on Nokia?
- Does your app run on Windows phones?
- Is your app on f-droid, my phone only supports f-droid?
- I am sensitive to radiation and cannot use any radio device
- I am a minimalist and I live phone-free!
I tried that in an interview. They never called back. /s
Well to that one they could reply that you better not turn on a SDR to see what radio waves are passing through you at this and every moment. XD
The arguments back like, "I have nothing to hide," or, "cards are just convenient," aren't centerist or neutral, they are the banal nihilism of people suited to scheduling prison trains, imo.
The one thing I like about cashless is that it makes it just that tiny bit more difficult for bad actors who accrued their money through nefarious means.
If the government doesn't provide such a thing that is ok but it must grant citizen's the right to issue their own medium of exchange with a regulatory path to pay taxes if it fulfills the inflation/deflation criteria.
You get to pick negative rates or inflation. There is no other option.
In Australia the gov doesn't give the first nations people assistance, they give them cards that denote how they can spend the money. It's nanny state in the highest.
But as the technology gets better and more reliable this gets rarer and rarer so that in the end it discriminates against those who already lack a different kind of power: social and political power. That is, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poorly educated, the illiterate and innumerate, those whose grasp of the local language is poor. I'm sure the list could be expanded.
And makes it more difficult to anyone who is outside their country of origin. Many payment apps are limited to residents and nationals only, while others are avaialble on specific country app stores.
Like the migrant family fleeing from they country I met this evening. They told me they were stranded here while travelling to a better country.
Neither her or I have banking apps that can talk to each other. But I was able to gift him enough for dinner for his family today. Quick interaction,from my wallet to their hand, no QR code to be scanned, no database to be updated.
They can scan your card with a thing that doesn't use power, but most places I saw that were at places like gun shows where they shouldn't have had an issue taking a check either, since either way there was gonna be some kind of background check.
For context, I sold stock out of my IRA a third(ish) time recently, because I had so many issues stemming from a set of phone scammers who hijacked calls at the carrier level in 412 around the time I got laid off from my last full time role.
I hope that the same folks doing that didn't also impersonate the IRS when I tried to call the last time -- I'd been told over and over if you have questions, call about how to declare income, and the person I got was super rude, even threatening. Made some smart ass comment about whether I was taking notes "my senator" in a sarcastic tone of voice when I tried to ask how to declare what little income I had.
Anyways TL;DR: lots of places don't handle loss of power well, or even just reverting to 90s era social Norms in an emergency ;-)
In Sweden a while ago an entire chain of supermarket had to close for a weekend because some hack that happened to a company in USA completely blocked their capability to process payments.
Also occasional downtime of debt card network does occur.
In the UK, we have "basic bank accounts". These are aimed at people with bad credit history, and offer no line of credit, but do provide a debit card, which may also be used at an ATM.
How are there 70 year olds today that worked throughout the 90s and 2000s without coming across a computer?
I do wonder if these problems will eventually fizzle out, as more and more people have been exposed to technology throughout their lives and will be able to use it in their old age.
While there may be some arguments against a cashless society from a privacy point of view, it's hard to argue with the convenience and cost savings that you get from going cashless.
He loves to argue about convenience or as he sees it, massive inconvenience.
Recently when I refinanced I got a mortgage and the servicer (can’t remember their name as they sold to mrcooper and then to WellsFargo) that funneled everything through their app that wanted to auto withdraw from my bank. I tried to pay by check and couldn’t get an address out of them despite multiple calls and hours on the phone.
I remember, growing up in a more “End Times” focused evangelical denomination, they were always talking about how barcodes or credit cards are maybe like the “Mark of the Beast” number in the book of Revelation, without which you can’t make any transactions. That’s paranoia, of course, but it’s also kind of a good point. A fully cashless society using our typical methods puts a massive power into the hands of the government and a few very powerful corporations.
It also tilts the power differential in favor of employers of all sizes. a local small business coffee shop I frequent doesn’t pay super well, but they do tipping. The owner can easily keep track of how much tip money comes in and uses that as an excuse to employees that they can tolerate getting paid only $8/hour because they have tips. The employer also has control of the tip money that’s paid in cashless form, and it’s not unheard of for employers to take some of that money or withhold it. I prefer to use cash for more and more purchases, but for basically all tips, I tip in cash. (And I agree tipping in general is lame, but I don’t want to punish employees for that.)
Manufacturing, retail. Those are just two things that I can name where I personally know people in their 50's who have no real access to computers.
>I do wonder if these problems will eventually fizzle out, as more and more people have been exposed to technology throughout their lives and will be able to use it in their old age.
I bet they don't fizzle out. Technology is always changing. At some point in their past, even the 99 year old who couldn't turn on a smartphone today was hip on the current technology of the day.
Oh, they saw the clerks using them in the office when they came in each week for their paychecks, and later on, engineers and maybe even other contractors bringing laptops on-site, perhaps even helped support a kid doing a CS degree, but plenty of 70 year olds today never had a work-related reason to touch one.
My dad spent 50 years doing construction. His employer did attempt to teach him how to use the laptop they got him those last few years he worked in the early 2010s, but settled on basically providing him an on-site secretary (recent college grad) to use it for him.
I agree with your first sentence, but the summary doesn't necessarily follow.
The convenience and cost savings are not free. You are the product. Moving to a "modern society" doesn't need to involve enriching the marketing networks of the planet.
And even more so in a generation where many women stayed home and didn’t enter the labor market at all, or all those who worked any of the various manual labor jobs. Some restaurants still don’t have digital records of orders, etc to this day.
I'm currently in Malaysia. They have a mobile ewallet/payment system (tng). It accepts foreigners with fairly large monthly limits (around $5500/month). I can buy TnG balance with Bitcoin/Crypto/Cash/Barter, and it's accepted almost everywhere (even more than MC/Visa).
I'm happy with this being an alternative to cash. The way I see it, companies can only be evil once they have leverage. But using multiple different systems, you take that leverage away from them. Cards have leverage on the day-to-day payments, online and international market. To take it away, use services that bypass them.
Banks still have leverage on the large transfer, wealth holding market. I'm yet to find an alternative to that (There is USDT/USDC but it's banks with extra steps. Crypto is an alternative but the volatility is too high).
- barter economy when the power or network or website goes down.
- all transactions tracked.
- can have your money disabled by a 3rd party.
- transaction fees, particularly when traveling internationally.
- magnetic fields suck. Plastic gets brittle.
- As more banks participate in ESG and experiment with what they can get away with, people may lose access to their funds if they hold the wrong beliefs or lack good social credit score. This is already in place in China and all the big banks are looking at dipping their toes into this game.
PayPal already experimented with this and back-peddled when their stock dipped as a result. A few dozen big banks in the US are now participating in ESG. Only time will tell what they dare to implement.
Did you mean China, or is there something that happened in Canada that I'm not aware of?
The worse part of it is that some are denying that it happened, even though the Deputy Prime Minister made an official announcement about it.
The legislators of my state and several other states are actively fighting banks that exhibit this behavior. None of the small banks I interact with will ever participate in that concept.
[1] - https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publication...
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/01/1120457153/texas-ban-on-firms...
These scores are currently a big deal on the right, since they tend to be based on socially liberal values and tend to push companies into left-leaning policies, but the left should be just as concerned about the trend given that the trend is to reduce the diversity of policies among the very large companies which (seek to) control our lives.
And the nation state is just the corporation with the local monopoly on violence.
The chips in credit cards aren't damaged by magnetic fields. Mag stripes will eventually be discontinued. (For instance, cards from Mastercard won't have mag stripes after 2033.)
> transaction fees, particularly when traveling internationally
Many banks offer no international transaction fee cards. Charles Schwab Checking is one such example.
> magnetic fields suck. Plastic gets brittle
Cash is filthy disgusting and deteriorates. Also risk of receiving counterfeit bills.
"Cash-less" society means loss of anonymity.
The matter is not with options, but with lack of options.
Everything else may be more convenient in various ways, but it’s more complicated, too. And with unexpected things that can happen.
I'm certainly not arguing against the device overall - they're still useful when you get to your destination. It just seems the destruction of individual safety by technocratic authoritarianism is right at home in a thread about "cashless society".
But yes, multiple SEPARATE funding sources and cash are a minimum when traveling, even within the US imo.
There is a sufficient hair trigger on fraud alerts these days that you really need a diversified set of cards when traveling--especially internationally. And, yes, get some cash though in post-COVID travel world I'm probably now stuck with a bunch of random foreign cash I'm never going to spend. (Pounds/Euros I can deal with but a bunch of other smaller currencies I doubt I can easily exchange.)
Travel notifications can help. But I've even had random declines for $20 purchases at US gas stations.
Inasmuch as they can understand a payment card equally well. They don't understand acquisition of [cash] money, but equally don't understand why the magic plastic rounded-rectangle works. They can use a payment card more easily than cash in my limited experience (as a parent and uncle).
A payment card would seem to either be magic (it always works!) or confusingly not consumed in its use but still not work again later (gift card).
I am 100% dead set against "cashless society", not because I am "unable" to use anything else, but because it is less private, less empowering, and outright less convenient. Sure, I'll sometimes give in to the financial surveillance industry to get money back, or to make returns easier, or to do online purchases, or to avoid trading fomites during Covid. But ideally I want to transact in cash. Make the decision to spend a given amount of money exactly once, and not suffer the same transaction multiple times as I see my agglomerated statements at the end of the month.
With friends, no fucking Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, or whatever fly by night crap is popular this week that undoubtably forces some nonconsentual "terms" at me. Never mind creating yet another insecure account that has to be checked every month lest I end up responsible for a company's negligence. Cash - we settle and then we forget about it. Sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower, most of the time it evens out, sometimes it doesn't but we assume it does and move on with our lives.
Like maaaaaybe in the far future if phones are ever personal computing devices that represent individuals, and we have the security properties granted by systems like Monero, and software designed for end users and not surveillance companies, then I'd be happy to settle with digital money. But it's foolish to jump the gun and pretend that any of the junk currently being pushed by surveillance companies represents that sort of idyllic future in any way.
There's a period when you don't have all the required paperwork, and it's really hard to open a bank account, or sign up for payment services.
Many banks in Germany use the same ID verification tool, and it does not recognise all passport types. Some banks require a residence permit or registration certificate, both of which can be hard to get.
If you have a bank account, it can still be shut down or restricted because of your government back home. This happened to Americans in 2019 and to Russians recently.
It's also a pain for visitors who need to join the system.
At last, phones get lost or break. When I lost mine, it took me two weeks to regain access to everything, in part because of 2FA catch-22s. At least I had money to replace it.
American regulation made it too much work for certain banks to keep American customers. From what I've heard it's still an issue.
Probably preaching to the choir, but I briefly participated in a documentary of sorts which may be of interest [1].
But the elderly? If you're receiving social security checks and paying utility bills, surely you have a bank account and a debit card?
> The elderly are less able to manage cashless payment methods, especially without transition support. If local authorities or utility companies do not support cash...
Since when have utility companies ever accepted cash? The elderly have spent their whole lives paying utilities by check. And they've been using ATM cards for decades. If they can use an ATM card they can use a debit card, since they're the same card.
This article throws "elderly" into the headline but gives zero actual evidence for that group.
> check-cashing outlets provide a range of convenient payment services in one location. They cash paychecks, sell low-cost money orders with stamped envelopes for making long-distance payments, and serve as agents for utility bill payments and electronic money transfer services, such as Western Union
So unbanked people have to use (often high-cost) proxies to participate in these sorts of economies. Probably contributes to their unbanked status since it's hard to save enough to open a checking account when fees constantly eat into savings.
As to the point about elderly, according to the FDIC survey [^2], the under/un-banked rates among older age groups is actually lower than, say, the 25-34 year old age group. However, I think OP's post still stands because 1. If your retired being unbanked is arguably worse, as if you have to use the previously mentioned check-cashing outlets, you're going to eat through any savings you have a lot faster, and 2. there's a technological argument as well, and if smartphone adoption becomes more and more a requirement towards accessing finances, then technical literacy rates become a new barrier and that tends to be associated with younger populations.
[^1]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/bringing-unbanked-househo... [^2]: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf
Many companies will set kiosks in areas with a large number of unbanked so they'll go to these kiosks at the local 7/11 or whathaveyou and then charge anywhere from $3-$5 fees.
But it gets worse. If someone has a $100 bill and they put in $3, that kiosk will take that $3 as a payment fee and apply $0 towards the bill itself. Not only that, it happens more than you'd think.
People flat don't understand the predatory nature of many of these companies.
Did you actually check? Mine do accept cash.
I've never lived anywhere where any utility company had a branch you could just drop by and pay your bill in cash.
And mailing cash through the USPS is obviously insecure and high-risk. The USPS goes expressly out of their way to not recommend it.
As far as I'm aware, utility bills are all debts (money owed for a service already given), so they're required by law to accept cash one way or the other. It's not the same as going to a shop and putting items in your cart; there is no debt in that case so they aren't required to accept cash.
(Also, in practice, mailing cash is a lot more reliable than most people make it out to be.)
But in the US, the normal way was always by check in the mail, until online bill pay took over.
You can have a cashless society that still uses checks, debit cards, credit cards, money orders, cashiers checks, wire transfers etc. All these can be managed or used by visiting a local branch or with a phone call.
Plenty of people still pay their rent with checks and I've never been at a sit down restaurant in the US where I could pay with Apple/Google Pay but I can of course use my CC/Debit Card.
All of the methods listed above work without power as one commenter suggested would be an issue. Its really not...
Overdraft fees are egregious but they're also something you can opt out of and is just another form of credit.
All you need to participate to this degree is a bank account that offers a debit card which is accessible and possible to the vast majority of the population including the elderly - they're not hoarding all their cash under their mattress. In the US to open an account at any major bank is an ID and maybe an initial deposit whether that be a cash/check/incoming transfer etc.
It has never been easier to go to a library/school/friend's place and sign up for a free bank account that will ship you a debit card that will also reimburse you for ATM withdrawal fees.
The group that should really be the focus is the underbanked - often those less fortunate.
Including seniors in this category of 'discrimination' feels odd - I know of some who have no problem paying their bills, shopping, living life etc without a smart phone or computer.
Society can't be beholden to the past forever - progress is made and individuals have to choose to participate if they want to use new things that are accessible only through certain tools.
This isn't any different from when we moved from the telegraph to the telephone - you had to go and buy a landline to participate. The same is true of getting a passport to fly/sail to different countries as countries also further add requirements for updated passports and IDs (a la Real ID requirements in the US).
Loss of anonymity in transactions is not «progress». It is the opposite.
> if they want to use new things that are accessible only through certain tools
The issue is with "things being from some point on accessible only through certain tools*.
When you talk about less parking spots people will shout you are taking away the parking spots for the disabled.
Ok then only get rid of normal parking lots and add more parking lots for people with special needs and make it easier for them to apply for access.
I'm not against cash I just think that it is standing in the way of negative interest rate policy. The IMF suggested an exchange rate Vs cash and that the central bank should pick it's interest rate policy to minimize inflation to exactly zero and only cash will keep inflating.
Another store has online only coupons and just killed using checks, too. They do have a free ATM at least.
What specific services do you depend on that require a smart phone?
(And certainly there are a lot of things on the web that are hard to go without and I assume the typical case where someone doesn't have a smartphone doesn't have easy access to a computer either.)
Are cheques really that common in the US still? In Ireland, and as far as I'm aware, the rest of the EU, it's rare to see a cheque at all these days. Almost everything is paid either on cards or some other form of electronic transfer.
I guess my counter-question is what does the rest of the world do for doctors bills or paying laborers who don't accept payment via Paypal/Venmo?
Interesting. I'm not even sure a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here.
> My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well
Here it'd be either cash in hand, or a bank transfer (same as rent, really). All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. You can sometimes run into issues if their bank account is in a different country to the bank you're transferring from—it's unlawful to discriminate between IBANs in different countries, although it tends to goes unpunished—but there's usually workarounds to that.
Also frequently paid by check.
All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit.
What is this dark magic?!?! lol. The US is comically awful at consumer banking.
My sister recently had a stay in hospital, and then later an emergency room visit. As far as I'm aware, it all totaled less than €200 (half of which will be refunded by insurance, and another 20% of the remainder as a tax credit), which was all paid for partially by card (to the GP who referred us to the hospital), and partially by bank transfer (to the hospital).
In the Netherlands banking apps let you create "Payment Requests", which is basically a URL you can share with someone to have them pay you (you can pre-fill the amount they need to pay). Typically, if you open such an URL on your phone, it will let you jump into your banking app of _your_ bank to make the actual payment (even if the payment request is from a different bank than the on you're using).
(That said, I probably only deposit 5 or 6 checks a year. So putting them in an ATM at the bank wouldn't be a horrible inconvenience. And they are getting less and less common.)
I'm sorry, but what the fuck sort of paternalistic and defeatist attitude toward education is that?
EDIT: I would like to apologize, I swore in my previous edit of this comment. I did not swear enough. Seriously what the absolute fuck sort of attitude is that toward people and swearing?
Not really. Happens enough that you can't call it a surprise to see one, but they're only used in certain niches at this point. I write a check about once a year, for some edge case like I'm paying a contractor who refuses to just get Venmo or equivalent.
Even where they are used (as someone mentioned, you do occasionally see elderly folks write them at the grocery store) they tend to be just a slightly different version of a debit card w/o PIN -- the stores now can instantly run them, there's no way to float one.
That's actually the most surprising thing I've heard in this thread. Having that ability would probably go some way toward explaining their longevity. Like I said in another comment, I don't even know if a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here, mostly because they wouldn't have the ability to run them.
I assume things like car dealerships use the system as well. When I bought a car recently I just gave them a personal check which they were fine with. In the past I had to go to my bank and get a cashier's check.
You don't even generally see signs about returned check fees these days.
They're not super-common in general for most use cases but they're still the most straightforward way to make personal payments (other than in-person cash payments) without going through some process that's more involved than giving someone a piece of paper.
The Netherlands has a supermarket (Marqt) which does not accept cash. Thankfully, there are alternatives. Marqt is also so expensive that you're either a yuppie with a debit card or can afford to pay a shopper if you're getting your food there.
Ah, that makes sense. I've never used those. I've used taxi cabs but maybe I am missing out or paying more than I should.
At least in my experience, you're not doing either of those things.
That would be like an older person complaining they "have to have a smartphone" to see pictures of their grandkids, when it's actually the other around. Because smartphones exist, they can see pictures they otherwise would not have seen at all because no one would have driven to the store, printed them out, and mailed them (or had a camera to take them with) without that technology.
Contrast that to something like parking, where using a phone app provides convenience and decreased operating costs, but the service itself is in no way dependent on people having phones.
Well, if you can no longer pay for something that you used to be able to pay for with coins, you've lost something with a smartphone requirement.
Otherwise I get your argument but, if instead of smartphone, you say computer--now say that you don't really need a computer. You can phone people on your landline but many people won't pick up. OK, you can't use Amazon but there are local stores you can get to. And so forth. At some point, it's probably not like you'll starve but you're cut off from a lot of modern interaction.
If you think of it like that, then it's awfully inconvenient. But what you do, what I think most of us used to do, is pair that errand with another, like grocery shopping. Chances are fairly good there is an in-network ATM in route to the grocery store, if not at the grocery store. It only adds a minute, maybe a few minutes, to a trip you were going to make anyway.
That said, there are manual workarounds to almost everything requiring a smartphone. They’re simply less efficient.
If I can conveniently print out a boarding pass either at home or at the airport I tend to do so. That way I'm not fiddling with my phone when I don't need to.
(I think I've seen it the other way around in London at least.)
I'm sorry, what? Outside the US I just show my boarding card prior to going through security. I'm pretty sure my ID doesn't get checked until I board the plane, so hearing that you show biometrics is a bit jarring.
I was in the US a few weeks ago, but I can't remember if I had to show ID when going through security on leaving. I tend to work on autopilot when navigating airports.
There are other things in life that are certainly a lot more convenient with a smart phone. I rely on public transit, bussing and trains, and if I didn't have a smartphone that would make it a lot more difficult to navigate. Sure I could pull up a paper map of the bus routes and estimate what routing might be the most optimal to get to my destination by hand, and call up the transit agency operator line with my buss stop ID to ask when the next bus is slated to appear, but its infinitely easier to just use google maps and be done with it. When I am on the first bus and anticipating transferring to another bus, unless I knew that bus stop ID for the transfer point ahead of time I cannot call ahead and know when my transfer bus is arriving, for example.
Why no physical authentication, e.g. YubiKeys?
There are numerous streets that dont have meters now and just a sign to "pay on this parking app"
MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL all do this with league-branded apps and/or partnerships with Ticketmaster, etc
It was a shame because I would have liked to give out maps to the kids so they could navigate/orient themselves.
A few days afterward, I actually went to the trouble of printing nice legal-sized color versions of the map at Staples to give to the kids as mementos. Sure enough, they loved looking at and discussing those maps just like I did as a kid.
Next time we go I'm printing maps ahead of time so we can have them while we're there.
I'm curious. Do you get roaming charges having cross state-lines in the US, or do you have a nation-wide data package? Here in the EU, I'm on a plan that gives me unlimited data anywhere in europe, for around 30€ a month.
Interesting. But those plans are not everywhere. I believe that the EU law is having a cap of (currently) 2€/GB for data consumption beyond the amount allowed outside home borders, which is computed by some providers as a proportion of the monthly fee.
Additionally every bank has an app and some of them don't have branches in every city so they say "just deposit checks via mobile"
There were Sony hearing aids discussed here yesterday, requires an app to configure.
Aunt's hottub/pool requires an app to configure.
Many Universities require them.
I love the convenience but it needs to be an option, not an obligation.
Anything less privacy- and liberty-conserving is a strict downgrade from cash.
Why should anyone prefer some band of zealots controlling their financial lives?
Perhaps the elderly are just … wiser?
How is the pseudo-random subset selected, assuming the presence of an adversary controlling part of the transaction data and a significant percentage of nodes?
The subset of hosts is determined by the hash of the transaction.
Related, last night I started watching this B-movie on Netflix, called "Johnny Mnemonic." (Had never seen it despite being a Bill and Ted fan.) From the 90s but set in 2021. In it there is a criminal underbelly consisting of folks who reject oppressive technology called the "Lo-Teks" ... and I thought wait a minute, that's me! That's my gang. Even get to hang out with Ice-T. :-D
I've decided it's fine for now, they already have my payment details. At least I made a conscious decision and don't believe they are selling it.
I'm looking to quit in the near future, as the product has been going down hill. But I have a few things to watch first.
I stopped carrying cards.
Oh yes absolutely. The number of $100 bills are more than $1 bills and less than 20% are in circulation inside US [1], meaning significant portion of that is being used for shadow economy. I am pro cash, but the US could probably print less $100 bills. Of course, there is also other currencies, financial instruments and crypto that can be used instead of $100 bills.
> Maybe in the end it will be better to have this shadow world.
It's hard to tell, but we do know that forcibly trying to remove the shadow economy is extremely tough on normal people while bigger players are already diversified with alternatives (gold, crypto, other currency) to have much impact. See India for recent example [2].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/04/there-are...
[2] https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/04/news/india/india-cash-crisi...
One of them was a victim of identity theft in which a five figure loan was made on her name, and the other had a legal order due to a debt from her ex-fiancee due to a cancelled wedding.
Hmm, working as intended? Or do you think legal judgments should be easily avoidable?
What is your goal with this comment?
What more do I need to know? If they don’t want the judgment used as a counter example, they shouldn’t bring it up as evidence for their point.
The point being made is the legal system sometimes chooses losers, whether the fault of the system or their own. We remove the escape hatch for those losers.
If you really want to argue that the legal system makes no mistakes then do it in front of the graves of those who were wrongly sentenced to death.
Reminder that identity theft doesn't exist. Someone stole something from the bank, and the bank stole back from your coworker.
If I remember it right.
So anyway it seems the article's question can be answered with a resounding No! if folks in Africa see this as cheaper than ordinary currency.
Of course it does. But so did society that started adopting the telephone, or automobiles, for people who didn't have money to buy telephones or cars, or didn't want to get on board the technological change. And what doesn't discriminate against poor people, by the way? The poor are always getting the short end of the stick. You come up with ways to help them, but railing against a new technology because it disadvantages some has never worked.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of cashless, but whatever the technology is, life adopts it and moves on. People have to deal. Or they die and get replaced with people who do. You will never get 100.000% of the people on something that takes away what you used to rely on.
Personal telephony and mechanized personal transportation have been empowering assets, extras, while transactions in the market are basics - you live and could live without cars and phones, while living without money is a completely different enterprise.
> railing against a new technology because it [has] disadvantages
That is not what the article is doing. And the real disadvantages are beyond «the discrimination of the poor and the elderly».
> People have to deal
A circular assumption in which "history justifies history" and explicitly poses nothing.
But equally, gasoline used to cost $1/gallon. People used to communicate by mail and have to use pay phones.
Then people came to be expected to buy more efficient cars, pay more for gasoline, and communicate electronically. And by the way, many people who aren't dealing successfully with things getting more expensive are because they're being very inefficient. Think of all the houses and cars that were totally inefficient before higher energy prices caused them to upgrade?
Life moves on. People are forced to adapt.
And if they cannot, bad for them?
My mom has developed an eye problem, that - while not making her totally blind - makes impossible for her to use Pos' and ATM's, let alone the (crappy) bank website or app. (with a lot of difficulties, in the "right" lighting, in the comfort or her house, she can still read the screen and type on her devices).
She is "technologically advanced" (within limits, she has an iPad and Facebook and e-mail, and a smartphone and Whatsapp and can use them).
Since a couple of years she doesn't use anymore her card(s) simply because she cannot see the Pos or ATM display or keypad, and she has switched (back) to cash-only for the small day-to-day payments, while I manage all the other ones.
If shops started to implement cashless only she would be severely affected, and deprived of the little things she now still enjoys doing, like going out to get a coffee, buy some groceries, etc.
Vegetable vendors have been using this QR code payments thing even pre-UPI (2016) with paytm (that works only with paytm)
You're off by a few zeroes. UPI transactions totalled 1 trillion USD last year. Figures from last month can be seen on their website - nearly $135 billion for September 2022.[1]
[1]: https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/upi-ecosystem-statist...
If you grow up with the idea of "money" as a stack of coins and notes that disappear as they're consumed, does it create a different perspective on spending and saving than seeing it primarily as a score on a screen?
I can recall a bit of a parenting crisis back in the '80s, where there was concern that children wouldn't learn to read an analog clock face; there's probably some knock-on factors about understanding fractions and modulo arithmetic. I'd expect similar needs for physical money; change making is fast mental math.
And I'm talking about in San Francisco. Where we are far too proud of our tech & tech literacy. I don't think I've seen a single credit card only business in town... Though maybe I'm just oblivious.
The former always implies the latter, but the reverse is not necessarily true: not all change is progress.
So need some form of secure identity that can scale and be secure even on insecure terminals.
Perhaps a combination of password, mobile phone number, PIN and email. Then you could verify the transaction with the email or phone. But you could also opt to not use phone and email for a less attestation that you transacted.
If not for those, you could trivially purchase a Visa/Mastercard prepaid card at every convenience store, shrink-wrapped, no signup / personal details necessary, and then top it up with cash.
You can get a reloadable if you provide SSN and DOB. You don’t need to pass a credit check.
Do elderly and poor people not have SSN and DOBs?
This is puzzling... How does refusal to accept cash from X create a frictionless experience for Y?
It can be very slow for both the customer and the employee to deal with the transaction.
I think it's a good idea for children to have a bank account and to manage their own money.
Here in the UK, debit cards with contactless are available from age 11.
Apple Pay's minimum age is 13, and Google Pay's minimum age is 16.
i.e. a dystopia
Once again, genuinely confused about why one of these approaches are being talked about a lot more on this thread. If I am missing something very obvious, I would appreciate a pointer.
Of course laws against abuse should be developed so that when you need the service you are protected - but the main thing is that the service is not forced on you.
It’s why private arms ownership (in the millions) and ability to use cash (also in the millions) IS one of the (only effective) checks and balances.
The idea of the state having effective state-based checks and balances to restrain the power of the state is nonsense. We tried that and got a military-industrial takeover of all 3 branches via universal communications surveillance of every single judge, congressperson, and chief executive/cabinet by unelected military spies. There are people in the USG who know the location tracklogs and call history, iMessage history, iCloud Photos, email contents, and fb/wa/ig DM contents of every single mistress, sex worker, bag man, and drug dealer that services every individual member of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as their entire personal and professional staff, and can threaten or blackmail any of them at will. In theory there are checks and balances over these spies, but in practice once they have that kind of power, they have enough power to keep abuses of same out of the newspaper.
It’s like the police stopping police crime; it is a nice idea in theory but does not happen in the real world.
To maintain a free society you must maintain the practical ability for millions to do things that are legal but that the state REALLY does not want them to do. Payments are #1 on that list as they enable publishing and organizing.
Also, the USG does call in missile strikes on US citizens (as well as their entire families) that they simply don't like, and checks and balances don't stop that at all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
Once everything is public, and you have nothing to hide, it is very difficult to be blackmailed or coerced in the traditional ways govts have thought about this tactic.
Any governing body large enough to manage all of the affairs of a country of hundreds of millions or billions of people is going to comprise in the thousands of people, and there will be dirt for the finding on almost all of them. Remember, you don't need actual proof - you just need enough circumstantial evidence that the threat of cancellation/impeachment/resignation/etc is credible.
Yes because private arms ownership is all it takes to fight a government with access to tanks, missiles, drones, and unlimited resources.
The ways they have of making your life inconvenient escalate to making your life completely unlivable (e.g. unable to buy food/clothing/shelter, or ride a bus) in the absence of anonymous payment systems.
BSA/PATRIOT make it illegal to issue payment cards in the US that aren't strong identity-linked.
Cash isn't so much useful because it's cash, it's useful because it's not linked to identity. If anyone could buy prepaid payment cards that didn't require identity, then this would be much less of an issue (but would still link multiple transactions together in time and space, which is its own privacy issue).
So yes, right now they can "unperson" someone in a targeted fashion across a dozen (for now) unlinked channels working together in different ways, which we just see happening to people we consider undesirable, extreme, or hateful etc.
But they cannot do that in a serious and automated way at scale across all channels to a more average person (right now the more manual approach is too much effort). They are currently proposing+building APIs that enable it at scale.