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Comment by cmilton | Hacker News Reader

>That being said, I am now running into what I call the "Non-App Tax". The most prominent example I can think of in my own experience is my towns local parking payment system. You actually don't need to use the app to find parking or pay. You can scan a QR code and pay via text. Then I looked at the prices on the app vs prices via text and the prices were a decent amount higher ($1-2 more) and less flexible than if I had just used the app. Kinda shitty and I can absolutely see this becoming the norm.

Or a "discount" for using the app. /s

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It says “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private” on every dollar bill.

I wish that was actually enforced.

AFAIK the concept of legal tender doesn't mean that you can use the law to force a business to accept dollar bills. If you want to trade your black lotus for my foil charizard, I can't refuse to trade and then sue you to pay you in cash instead. Rather, AIUI, the "debt" referred to there refers to legal debts, so e.g. if my dog gets into your chicken coop and you sue me for damages, you can only ask for an amount in dollars rather than forcing me to provide you with replacement chickens.

IANAL, and I don't think the GP's argument is valid, but his goal is valid: retail businesses should not discriminate against people without phones or credit cards. There are lots of them, and it could be you at some point. There are lots of good articles about accessibility and how we all get old, etc. That same argument applies here: you may be well off, consider having a smartphone and several credit cards "normal", but you may fall, financially, and you will lose those things. I would call this "financial accessibility". The argument is NOT for the business to address more market (there is that though) but rather to avoid making life even harder for people who's lives are already quite hard.

Retail businesses that don't accept cash are also reducing their risk of being robbed. Prominently placed signs informing customers and criminals to the lack of cash on site means most criminals will go to the next place. It also helps keep the employees' sticky fingers from skimming the till.

I can see why some might be enticed.

Yeah, I have been on both sides of this issue. I really want cash to work anywhere, but I have also worked retail and seen that cash is a giant pain in the ass for businesses. It has to be secured, transported, the employees steal it, and it means more accounting headaches. Whereas if all your payments are done through Square, this all goes away. It's not surprising to me an increasing number of businesses— especially really small ones like food trucks— are just doing away with it. I'm not sure what the solution is.

It's also expensive to have handicapped parking spots and ramps. You do it because it's right, not because it's convenient or cheap.

Not many retail places are building their own locations any more. Normally, they are just renting space. The things you mention are the landlord's problem

Edit: also, landlords are not doing these things because they are "right", they are doing them because they are regulated to do so

The only reason things are legal or illegal, allowed or disallowed, is because the majority of the voting public deems it to be so. There is no possible set of rules that can reflect every individuals sense of right and wrong, since we disagree strongly and in good faith about those matters.

Building codes exist because people died in fires. Limits on working age exists because there would be child labor without it. Limits on working agreements exist because there would be indentured servitude without it. Limits on government power, exemplified by the first 10 amendments to the US constitution, exist because without them the government would do anything to you that it wanted. And even then there are those who find those regulations limited, who want government with unlimited power over them, thinking that would make them safer, or that it's coercive to government workers to abide by them. Society is not a game of absolutes - it's a game of compromises that can only function if people are generally acting in good faith.

I think you've strayed from the herd a bit too far here. We're talking about a retail establishment accepting cash payments or not.

You're trying to make moral comments on labor laws or something. I'm not really sure the point. Regulations to run a business can be deemed as protecting what's "right". While we can commonly agree that it's "right" to provide accessibility access to your establishment, we can hopefully also agree that if it wasn't legislated to be, then more than a few retailers would not provide them.

However, none of this has anything to do with a retailer's decision to accept cash and all of the risks associated with that.

Landlords don’t provide parking ‘because it’s right’. A more accurate statement would be ‘because it is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and you won’t receive a building occupancy permit unless you provide handicap parking’.

That Act was passed by legislators who were elected by the general public to represent what is "right" to them.

Also, making change for cash transactions is also not trivial. I've been on both sides as a vendor and a buyer where this has been an issue. As a vendor, i've tried rounding down to be advantageous for the buyer for the inconvenience, but it's annoying. as a seller, if it's a craft fair or some sort of thing with small artisans, i've rounded up for a tip. either way, it's a painful part of a business that going cashless avoids altogether.

The issue is that there is no debt if you haven't yet transacted. And you can't steal the item and then claim to be in debt and force the person to take your money.

I've run into several parking places recently where you had to pay using the app, but where there was no mobile signal on any of the networks. Cue a lot of annoyed motorists.

On the other hand we (from London) were visiting Santa Barbara and had to use an app to park, and I was amazed that the app (ISTR it was PayByPhone) let me use the rental car with my UK login and billed me the right amount with no hassle.

Eventually, when the app reaches a certain amount of downloads, do you believe they will eventually regulate the prices as the one you have to pay for physically?

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