Hacker News Reader

Comment by maximilianroos | Hacker News Reader

...then don't buy things from those businesses?

We need a stronger reason than "I want that" to force businesses to give us things — otherwise how do we decide whose preferences we should mandate?

View on HN

There's a whole field of study and endeavor called "politics" which is concerned with this very question! Check it out!

Without State intervention there's nothing stopping businesses colluding to all go cashless. Or... all together do something else that's bad for us. Or monopolizing.

The strong enough reason is "it's better for the people."

It's easy how we decide whose preferences we mandate - we mandate people's preferences, and businesses find ways to make money within those constraints. There's no issue making profit like this, so I'm not sure where the concern is. Profits slightly dented for a second? Oh well.

Right, no one is rejecting the notion of regulation.

But personal preferences are a bad way to choose regulation — businesses can aggregate preferences much better than the state can.

It isn't about preference. It's well understood that refusing cash payments has an outsized impact on both the impoverished and underrepresented classes.

One easy way to keep the homeless from coming in to make purchases is to refuse cash payments.

The government's job isn't to cater to business preferences it is to look out for the well-being of the people.

> The government's job isn't to cater to business preferences it is to look out for the well-being of the people.

Businesses are also run by people. Everything is people. The difference here is the government wants to impose cost on businesses to solve problems it should be solving. It could solve them by issuing every homeless person with a credit card that gets topped up by X a month. It would rather just write a rule, take the credit, and have someone else pay all the costs.

> The difference here is the government wants to impose cost on businesses to solve problems it should be solving.

Handling cash has been an accepted cost of business for over a century, but now it’s somehow an undue burden to continue doing so? Hogwash.

> It could solve them by issuing every homeless person with a credit card that gets topped up by X a month.

That sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Good luck at getting something like that implemented in the US.

> Handling cash has been an accepted cost of business for over a century, but now it’s somehow an undue burden to continue doing so? Hogwash.

Handling cash is a big cost. You have to store it, get it moved in and out, stop people stealing it, be insured against people stealing it, count it, make sure you have change available, etc etc. Yes people did it, and cash used to get stolen more.

More importantly, this isn't about the cost of cash. It's the mandatory of adding this cost in to businesses that don't want to pay all that money to handle money.

> That sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

It's a solution to a very specific problem: cashless shops.

> It's a solution to a very specific problem: cashless shops.

Why should the government be responsible for building out an incredible infrastructure project so that some businesses don't have to worry about handling cash? Cash is not a new concept, we've been using it since the inception of the nation. Suddenly some businesses find a way to save a buck by not handling it, but this also happens to segregate a portion of Americans, but oh well that's not their fault, if the government doesn't like businesses doing segregation, the government can just become a bank? And issues cards?

Nah. In the USA if you want to do business you need to manage and handle cash. That's a perfectly reasonable expectation. Cost of doing business.

You also have to track your revenue and file taxes. That's perfectly reasonable as well, right? Or should the government be responsible for auditing every single company and managing their finances to determine how much tax is owed? I mean it would save the company money, right?

> Why should the government be responsible for building out an incredible infrastructure project so that some businesses don't have to worry about handling cash?

Your post is pretty poor tone-wise, but I'll address this. It's the exact opposite of what you're saying. If the government wants something, it should pay for it. Business is not imposing anything on the government. Business pays the government money it earns, and the government decides how much, and how long to lock the owner in a box for if they don't pay enough. Why should businesses be financially responsible for things the government is paid to solve?

I was replicating your tone, because the question seems silly: businesses have to do what governments say because governments aren't businesses, they're representations of the people's will and protectors of the people's wellbeing.

Businesses are profit generating algorithms with singular purpose. They have no other concerns. Without governments, businesses would seek profit through horrifying means.

These stereotypes are far too simple. Governments are the things that declare wars and send people to their deaths. They can strangle their own populations to death via socialism, or kill races through genocides. They aren't just protectors of the people's wellbeing.

Humans make up businesses and governments. Governments can overreach very easily, as they have all the power. It is totally valid to point out when a government misuses that power against businesses, because businesses are just people, and people in governments shouldn't abuse other people with bad policies.

As you say, however the measure of a successful business is simply profit, while the measure of a good government is far more nuanced but usually something along the lines of "how well the people in the nation are faring."

Therefore, it makes sense that we order our society such that businesses are subservient to governments, and governments priorities are first and foremost the needs of people, regardless of any additional cost to businesses.

There is, it's called starting your own business. And the only thing stopping that is... state intervention.

That might solve it for the one business “you” start. It doesn’t address the collusion of everyone else, does it?

Yeah, I wonder if the card processors have considered kickbacks to go cashless.

I wonder if security vans, safe vendors, permanent dye vendors, business insurance vendors have considered kickbacks to ban cashless.

I specifically do avoid any business that is cashless. I appreciate any business that puts a sign up claiming to be cashless so that I can specifically avoid doing business with them.

I used to have that position, but here in Sweden the cashless have won and there is nobody who even cares to uphold the law. The same could happen elsewhere.

It is pretty much only the civil defence authority that encourages use of cash, because they are aware of the incessant hacking attacks that could disrupt the system at any moment. Cash has become less convenient for consumers: businesses refusing to take cash made it even more so.

Finn here. I haven’t used cash since Covid, it’s all card-based.

I do carry emergency cash with me, but it’s been in my wallet for 2 years now.

I visited Sweden and Denmark recently, and only coming home did I realise I didn't use any cash so don't have any for my "leftover cash and coins from places abroad I've travelled to" collection.

There is an element of injustice, the poor and immigrants may not have the same access to banks and credit as others do.

Perhaps we should fix that? I mean, if you can't get banking services, how exactly are you participate in the modern economy? Is it a good idea forcing homeless to deal with cash, when they are the most vulnerable population to drug abuse? How can they safely save to prepare some solution for their situation?

So many questions, with "how will you buy your coffee" very low in the order of priority. Electronic money remittance should be seen as a basic human right.

Seems like neither side really cares about these people, but they make a useful rhetorical prop.

No reason can't we have both cash and full free access to electronic payments.

They have access to alternate options for where they shop.

Have you seriously tried that "alternate option" you offer?

Unironically, those that rage against "The Cashless Society" also rage against "the poor and immigrants".

You would be incorrectly generalizing. I believe cash is a pillar of a stable society, and I also believe that the way most Western nations treat their homeless and poor is varying degrees of bad and disgusting.

Ideally you decide by voting. It’s either that or you decide things by who has the most money / power / guns.

Right — we could decide whether each transaction should take place by voting on it. But that would be really inefficient! So instead, we generally let people trade with each other as long as it doesn't intrude on others.

Not sure whether Sweetgreen choosing to go cashless is an example of "decide things by who has the most money / power / guns."?

> we could decide whether each transaction should take place by voting on it. But that would be really inefficient!

I think that "everyone else votes on whether I get to buy lunch" had more issues than just being inefficient.

It is an example of who has the most power. If you don't have a different service that does the same for you, you'll have to suck it up or live without the service.

This becomes a big issue as soon as all services in a specific niche do 'the thing', be it refusing cash or stuff like removing headphone jacks.

At that point, what are you gonna do? Stop using products from that niche altogether?

The options are stop using them, provide them for yourself, or use the government to force others to provide it for you. Only the first two are remotely reasonable to people without entitlement issues.

With the example of smartphones not having headphone jacks - speaking from personal experience, life is harder without a smartphone. I was smartphone free for a year and ended up having to get one to use an app for a specific government service. And providing a smartphone for myself... I lack the technical knowhow to design one, and I don't think I have enough cash or connections to get one custom built.

Ironically enough, I'd be okay with government regulations mandating a headphone jack in phones.

Even assuming otherwise ideal conditions, choosing between two (mostly similar) political parties doesn't contain enough expressive power. Choosing goods in markets does. It's a computation problem as much as anything else.

How about "This note is a legal tender at its face value for all debts public and private"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com