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Comment by Animatronio | Hacker News Reader

Are these really inconveniences? Most of the times I've had trouble paying for stuff were usually at supermarkets or gas stations where the credit card reader would refuse to acknowledge my card. Swiping/inserting/touching, not even cursing worked so without cash on hand I'd have had to surrender my ID to the clerk, take a cab to the closest ATM and return with cash.

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I've been using cards nearly exclusively my entire adult life, and I can only think of one time that my card had an issue, and it turned out my whole bank was down for ~1 hour. Inconvenient, but I can think of more times I've forgotten to have enough cash with me, and I barely use cash at all now.

In the UK and Australia where I normally am, card infrastructure is just so entirely universal and reliable that it's not even worth considering.

I'm in Canada and the US, but same story. Still carry $40 on me just in case I need the cash but 99% of my transactions in-person are card.

Yeah when I first moved to London after uni I used to carry ~£20, but about 6 years ago I naturally stopped using or replenishing it and ended up never having cash in my wallet. Now I rarely even have a wallet on me, even when abroad.

Im in the us and have had at least 3 times in the last year that I needed cash due to credit card systems "being down" be it from internet outage or actual issues. Twice while trying to get gas for the vehicle.

I was an early adopter of (debit) card only, using it for everything in 1999. Your experience has never happened to me, as far as I recall. I don’t think I’ve ever had to go to an atm because the reader didn’t work.

The main reason I carry multiple cards, and Cash was because my debit card was used for fraud once, which shut down my card, and it took several days to get a new one.

Now days they can print you a new card in real time at the branch, but still I will never not have cash, and not have a backup card

I also NEVER use by debit card for anything other than ATM now, credit cards and pay it off every month... I dont even carry my debit card anymore, it is locked in the safe, and a bring it out when I need to get more cash.

Well, it happened to me just the other day - said it cannot read the card or something like that (even though I had used it less than 15 minutes earlier in another shop). There was already a queue behind me so I forked $40 for gas and went on my way.

Where do you live that you just don’t pay with a card at the gas pump? I’m guessing not in the USA?

Yes. I cannot stand cash, I hate carrying it, I hate coins, I don’t want to keep up with it. I leave my house with nothing but my phone and I’m good.

I don’t have a wallet, and I don’t want one. I want efficient and secure digital currency, with easy interfaces between digital wallets. I pay for my lawn care via Cash App, most of the other small businesses have Square or something similar.

If I need anonymous currency, I will convert to crypto and then convert once or twice more across different coins. It’s good enough for my use.

Curious, do you use a tumbler or distributed exchange (not sure if this is the right term)? I always treated crypto as not-at-all-anonymous, so I'm curious how to achieve cash level of privacy with crypto. Any tips?

I don’t use my physical credit card much anymore. Just my watch which is connected to ApplePay which is linked to a credit card.

Those problems do exist, I usually just go somewhere else if their card/payment reader is down.

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