But how will I make it rain?

I'm not terribly nostalgic for carrying around about a million coins in my pockets. When I travel, and I suddenly have to, and it seems annoying. Even the mega companies like Paypal offer the service free for private citizens, so I'm not terribly fussed. As already mentioned my money is already just ones and zeros on a website...why should it manifest itself in a physical form when I want a hotdog? Also it makes total sense that banks don't want to deal with counting and stockpiling cash. But then I don't really do illicit things, much. If a small vendor wants cash I will always happily comply. Of all the dumb new millennium things, this seems like a perfectly sensible modernization.

Iceland is basically cashless, and getting around there is effortless. (Granted, I’m coming from a position of privilege. Not sure how easy it is for homeless persons, but Iceland also seems to do a decent job on that front too.) I’m not sure I’d vote not crap, but I’m not opposed to it in principle.

But one thing I do hate? The constant fucking emails from every business you’ve ever patronized. “Click here to opt out of future communicationsl”—ha ha, fuck off with that. That button manages to be broken on every single website and app.

I should also mention how wonderful it is to land in a foreign country and no longer have to worry about being completely fleeced by a currency exchange, but instead be able to either use a credit card with no conversion fees, or use an ATM to withdraw local currency, also without a conversion fee.

Kniferide wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2024 2:16 pm But how will I make it rain?

/Thread

Multiple businesses in my neighborhood are cashless because they got tired of people breaking in and trying to steal the whole fucking register. Once it happened in the middle of the fucking day to the corner store down the street from me (yes a dude or two just picked up the register and ran)--coincidentally one of the only places on my block that takes cash.

The time I ever go out of my way to get cash is when I gotta go get some more edibles, and weed shops are constantly targeted around here since they are all cash.

Nordic cashlessness is admittedly a slightly different thing. (The elderly, migrants, and poor people still get left out in the cold a little, though.) But ok, lending practices and the credit industry are way, way less shitty over there. For example, bank wire transfers are free. And the ecosystem of restaurants (wage-based vs. tip-based) and small businesses doesn't have a ton in common w/the structure of such things in the States.

That said, it was still pretty fucking annoying not to just be able to slap a few notes on a bar for a late-night drink in Stockholm. And I don't really carry a phone to pay for shit, so I end up running up my credit card bill in that part of the world.

Still more often than not, someone—whether that's you or the business—will ultimately end up paying for the "convenience," directly or indirectly, in one way or another.

tallchris wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2024 4:09 pm Multiple businesses in my neighborhood are cashless because they got tired of people breaking in and trying to steal the whole fucking register. Once it happened in the middle of the fucking day to the corner store down the street from me

Bulletproof glass, dude.

Completely cashless? Overall crap I suppose, but money/currency as a concept is pretty shit.

Physical, digital, there's not much in it for me (which certainly shows a level of privilege on my part)

Also, a lot of the anti-cashless groups seems to lead back to the same old yikes conspiracy bullshit.