Most people are, because they don’t realize that when all transactions must be done without privacy and only at the pleasure of the state, the free society that you have come to take for granted will cease to exist.
I did a talk about this very topic at the CCC some years ago:
Not me. Around here is spreading a 3-4% surcharge when paying with a card. Everything from a sandwich to car repair to rent. I still use cash and checks when necessary. Originally, cards were used to entice customers to a store with the promise of convenience and ease of short term credit. Now we pay for the "convenience."
What about international travelers who don't have an internationally accepted payment card because their home country was mostly isolated from the banking system in a mostly futile attempt to punish its government?
I don't think cash is saving anyone from the knock-on effects of international sanctions on their citizens. The same people who don't have access to a Visa because they're citizens of a sanctioned country aren't in a position to easily turn their local currency into USD, and the ways they'd start to earn money outside of the sanction bubble overlap the ways they'd get an internationally accepted payment card.
Most people are, because they don’t realize that when all transactions must be done without privacy and only at the pleasure of the state, the free society that you have come to take for granted will cease to exist.
I did a talk about this very topic at the CCC some years ago:
https://media.ccc.de/v/cccamp11-4591-financing_the_revolutio...
That’s certainly a possibility. But no, I don’t think a lack of cash will cause society as I know it to cease to exist.
Makes me wonder how fast you would change your mind you would get locked out of your cashless method of payment.
Yes, I it happened to me and it wasn't pleasant.
Not me. Around here is spreading a 3-4% surcharge when paying with a card. Everything from a sandwich to car repair to rent. I still use cash and checks when necessary. Originally, cards were used to entice customers to a store with the promise of convenience and ease of short term credit. Now we pay for the "convenience."
What about international travelers who don't have an internationally accepted payment card because their home country was mostly isolated from the banking system in a mostly futile attempt to punish its government?
I don't think cash is saving anyone from the knock-on effects of international sanctions on their citizens. The same people who don't have access to a Visa because they're citizens of a sanctioned country aren't in a position to easily turn their local currency into USD, and the ways they'd start to earn money outside of the sanction bubble overlap the ways they'd get an internationally accepted payment card.
You can freely exchange Russian rubles to US dollars and back. Many people I know travel like that.