I think there almost needs to be a "Reacher Law", in that there should be minimal friction to participating in society aside from maybe cash and an ID.
I definitely find a default assumption of having a smartphone that's creeping in everywhere (android / iOS compatible & has an active data plan) to be increasingly cloying.
Currently, all I can do is politely decline and insist that I neither have the Play nor Apple store; I still find it uncomfortable even giving away my phone number.
I couldn't even get into my gym the other day, since they'd transitioned to app sign-in only (phasing out barcode tags); I'm forced to beg the attendant to look me up by phone number every time.
*EDIT: I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic
Ive been doing some IT work at a cell phone store in a very low income area. There is a large number of people coming in to buy new phones or get their old ones repaired and many of them (especially the older ones) HATE that they need to have a smartphone. I hear at least one person a day complain about how they cant just have a normal land line anymore and need to have a smartphone to participate in society.
Also they REALLY dont like hearing about how the phone they have now is obsolete and theres no way to get parts for it, or its just too far gone and they'll need to buy a new phone. I feel for all of these people as I totally agree with them.
I’d posit it’s quickly getting easier to live without a car than without a smartphone in the US.
Plus, even if you live in an area where a car is required you have the option to opt out and move (housing crisis aside), which isn’t an option to avoid smartphone requirements.
Yeah, this sentiment covers for sure all of Gen X and Elder Millennials. If the back half of Millennials all turn 30 and it’s the same story we can pretty confidently say that it’s not really a generational thing.
I would love to ditch my car but it’s impossible in my city and I have no power to change it. I could move I guess but choosing lack of car over my friends and family feels a bit drastic.
and it also requires you to fully buy in to the city-centric lifestyle. Whether you like it or not there will always be a lot of people that don't want to live in an urban center or even a small town. For them, personal transportation is non-negotiable. Even people who live within walkable towns or cities will often prefer to have a car so that they can access other locations and services whenever they feel like it without having to rent or limit themselves to places accessible by mass transit. Cars just aren't going away, nor should we wish them to. I'm all for building more walkable and human scale environments, I enjoy them as much as the next person but I also want those places connected by good roads so that I can access, or leave, any of them freely.
I honestly doubt anyone who complains today about needing to carry a cell phone was in any way directly responsible for the decisions of automobile manufacturers, lobbyists, and marketing firms that brought us the car-obsessed culture we have.
The people who created the car-obsessed society died long ago. These people would be my parents' & grand-parents' generations. I'm in my 60s.
And before you ask, I hate having to have a smartphone. It is required to VPN into work, or to do so many things. I changed grocery stores rather than let them use my cellphone for the "loyalty" card.
I also hate living in a state where public transit is useless.
TL;DR - something about "get off my lawn" and "old man yells at cloud".
Do you seriously think it's easier for a 80-year-old to hop in a car to go somewhere than walk 10 minutes to the store in a more compact city or take the bus?
Plus, look at the Netherlands, geriatric people who've biked their whole lives and maintained good physical shape have no problem continuing to bike.
Walking to a store everyday to buy only their daily necessities would end up costing them a lot more than if they were buying a bunch of what they need in bulk, and nobody ( especially an elderly person) is going to walk home carrying around their items in bulk sizes.
Even for people lucky enough to live in those rare areas where you can walk to a grocery store, it's extremely useful to have access to a car you can fill up with large items.
There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it. I think in those towns it would be cheaper for local council to just pay for Uber service for everyone who needs public transportation. No need to buy expensive buses, maintain bus stops, stations and depots, pay drivers and administrators salaries and pensions etc.
> There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it
Well, no surprise there are so few passengers: the bus comes every half an hour! Make it once every two hours, and there will be no passengers at all.
"Every half an hour" is an option for the desperate. Also, that bus is probably stuck with cars when there's heavy traffic, while being slower than cars when there isn't. And it does not go exactly where you want to be. Would _you_ use such a bus service if you weren't forced to due to circumstances?
The answer for shitty public transport offering should not be eliminating public transport offering.
Well, it depends. Public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides nor any other handouts from the local council.
For clarity: the context was for local councils to give money to Uber instead of running a bus service. Which is plausible idea. I just don't think you need to be so specific: give people money, so they can buy goods and services they deem most beneficial (including Uber rides).
Now going one step further: only give the money to poor people. Welfare for rich people is a bit silly.
I'm all for giving more money to poor people, but how is that related to public transport? "Let's sell for scrap metal what's left of our public transit system and give the proceedings to the poor" would be a mad proposition.
I'm a regular user of public transport. I don't own a car, don't have a drivers license and call taxi/uber maybe once or twice per year. I am lucky enough to live in a place where that's not just possible, but easy, easier than driving a car. And I'm not poor. I can afford a car, just don't want to have one.
Public transport is not a handout to the poor, it is a service which makes life better for everyone. If yours is so bad only poor people would use it - maybe it's time to fix it.
For what it's worth, I never owned a car in my life.
(I currently live in Singapore, which has excellent public transport.)
My suggestion was conditional: if a city has already decided that Uber is better than public transport, then they should still not give Uber money. But instead, give the money to poor people.
However: public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I don't say that density needs to become before public transport. Just the opposite: you need to put transportation in place before people come. But you also need to make density legal before you think about public transport.
> I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides
I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
I think there does come a point where a community can decide their public transportation costs more to operate than it's worth, but unless it's consistently losing massive amounts of money it's probably not worth it to take a valuable resource from the public just to save a bit of money. Especially if that community has any desire to grow.
> I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
In places where public transport works and is used, I agree.
It's really not at all. In Japan, you just buy a debit card and swipe that every time you enter or exit a station. When it gets low, you stop at a vending machine and put more cash on it. It doesn't get any simpler, and it's totally anonymous.
Touch a piece of plastic when you start, toich again when you end. It’s not exactly complicated. You can buy the plastic for cash, or use the one almost everyone has in their wallet, or use a phone.
It may sound odd, but you are not bolstering your argument here. The parent is arguing for a way to ensure that participation in society is not bound by one's ability arrange for unrelated physical objects other than cash and ID to participate. And that is before we even get to how much having a car and cell phone governs one's life in US. Not everyone believes it is a good societal structure.
Note that I am not arguing one way or another, but outright dismissal is not an appropriate counter argument.
Yeah, the minimum you need to participate in US society is SSN, driver’s license number, working cell phone number, credit/debit card, health insurance, car, car insurance, proof of citizenship, permanent address, internet connection and W2 or equivalent.
I’ve needed all of these sans the car to interact with just government services in my state.
I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years. I've never felt the desire, my mom always commented it was odd back when I was a teenager... But I digress, it is very possible and it's easier than ever. I grew up on the rural west coast, moved inland to an agricultural area. Never living in a proper city by most metrics. Certainly I've missed some opportunities along the way, c'est la vie, but it is easier than ever and I'm meeting more and more people like me as time goes on. I also don't have a photo ID as a general rule, but that's a whole different can of worms and in some cases much more limiting than living car free.
Most people seem to create their own hurdles or embiggen real ones that they do face, certainly I do in my own ways so don't take that as a judgement just an observation. Choosing to go carless is not half the hurdle many people perceive it to be.
> I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years.
Similar. I spent part of my teen years in a children's home in the U.S. -- it turns out that even though the state may go in for a [driving] learning permit (pre-req for a driving license), it won't sign off for the license to drive. So I never got a license until older and dropped it later.
I'm definitely healthier for all the walking I still do :)
Tell that to some of my past prospective employers.
It's getting so bad, that some insist on being able to drive to work even if you live within 15 minutes walking distance.
"But what about bad weather?" They ask.
"I'll dress appropriately." I reply.
3 days later: Phone rings.
"We're sorry, but we decided to go with someone better suited for the job."
The job... was at a restaurant, as a cook. Cooks... don't need to be able to drive to work... usually. (There are maybe some jobs where driving would be ideal, or necessary, but let's be real here. Most don't need to be able to drive.)
I’m guessing “the bus was late” is a common excuse used by those who are frequently late to work. The issue here is that they mindlessly apply a filter of if you drive to work you pass if you don’t you fail. Employees with attendance issues can still use plenty of dumb excuses. A car itself provides several: car broke down, traffic was bad, snowy roads. Those issues don’t apply to someone who can walk in. Unfortunately not being a driver is not a protected class in the US.
I think far more common (in the fast food & retail industry) is the manager calling you up: "X called out sick, we need you to come in to do their shift, starting in 45 minutes." If the person lacks a car, then "I can't, buses don't run today" or "it will take me 90 minutes to get in by bus today".
I once worked where I lacked a car. There were 3 buses going there in the morning. The next bus going there left downtown Denver at 4pm. Between 0545 and 1600 there was no bus service to that destination. Missing the 0430, 0505 or 0545 buses meant missing work that day. When I finally managed to get a car (legal problems), I got a new job within a month.
But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards. Heck, here in Canada we have a tribunal system to deal with human rights abuses, even in the workplace; not just societal. And it gets underfunded due to be under utilized due to the very lack of backbone I speak of. What I am saying right now is right from the horses mouth no less.
Yes, that means it's all our fault. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and so they do nothing; and so they get away with more than they should.
To be clear though for those on the other side of the fence.
I'm the employee who will usually say "yeah, sure boss. Just maybe give me some time to get down there, or cover my cab fare so I can get there faster."
Heck, one employer literally drove down to get me just to get the shift covered without any lost time.
But recently I've been getting flak from employers for even that sort of thing. (Getting a cab, or taking the bus I mean.)
So, I don't care anymore. We have rules for a reason, and you all can follow them, or uphold them. Which ever may be the case for whoever is reading this.
> But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards.
In the US there is no authority that oversees these sorts of things. It's perfectly legal to make insane demands on an hourly employee's time. Hourly employees are lucky if they can get a set schedule and don't have to constantly check to see what days/hours they'll work because those hours can be changed at any time without notice. They can be expected to come in at any time to cover for other employees and fired if they aren't making themselves always available at the drop of a hat.
There are very few regulations preventing employers from abusing their staff and those only cover the most egregious abuses. Walmart (the largest private employer in the country) for example has been caught for things like refusing to pay workers for hours that they worked, for locking workers inside of buildings and refusing to let them leave, child-labor violations, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and serious OSHA violations that endangered the lives and safety of their employees. While they do get the occasional light slap on the wrist for violating what few protections workers have (often only after repeatedly violating them) even the largest and easiest target gets away with all kinds of abuses not covered under law.
Companies and entire industries spend massive amounts of money on bribing politicians so they can continue to exploit workers and even manipulate the workers themselves to be so anti-regulation and anti-union that they'll fight against efforts to improve the conditions that they themselves suffer under.
Workers being exploited in the US are not uncaring or spineless. They're just working against a system that has been carefully designed and refined over centuries to keep them powerless. We're starting to see some pushes for change though. There's been an increase in efforts to unionize, but just talking about unionizing can get you fired and laws have been changed so that unions don't always have the power they used to. In the meantime, folks still have to pay rent and eat, so they're forced to suffer under exploitative practices.
While I suppose that most people will be considering this topic under American rules and regulations; please note I mentioned Canada in my comment. That said, I accept that USA has all sorts of things to work out and get fixed. BUT, Don't look north for inspiration. It's not exactly better up here, cause the employers up here (except for the few good ones) take inspiration from your bad employers all down south of our border.
Let's just say that we have it just as bad in slightly different ways. The only saving grace for us Canadians (IMHO) is that we still have stuff like the old common law stuff in effect. (of which many of our citizenry is not aware of its actual legal standing, and so they don't make use of any of it.) {Also the libertarian free-man-of-the-land types make erroneous use of some of this stuff, which doesn't help either.}
I state it as such, because when I brought this all up with a lawyer to see if I had a case at all; he was surprised I even knew about some of the old common law stuff that employers legally are supposed to be obeying. This has to do with things like wrongful dismissal for example, where an employee has decided to say no to a bad boss, and gets fired for it. A lot of our current laws state that's already illegal as well depending on the situation; but even those old laws had details in them pertaining to things like severance pay. Long story short; some employers know about this, and will pay out extra weeks even under probationary period because it could land them in court if they don't.
So it is better up here in some ways; but that kind of stuff will probably never be enacted down there, because it would mean accepting that ol Britain was right about a few things.
It's that, and more. It's also that they want to be able to rely on being able to call you in at any moments notice without any potential for excuses like "Well, it's going to take an hour to get there, because of the bus." or "I can't come in right now due to the weather on such short notice."
Quite frankly, I think the entire restaurant industry (in Canada) needs to be audited for multiple reasons. Tax evasion, disobeying the law in regards to discrimination, etc. (Canadian laws) There may be some innocent owners caught in the crossfire, but if they truly are innocent in this case; they should be fine and worry free. It's not a line of logic I like to use in many things, but in this case it really is true.
If I can't walk there within an hour, or the bus itself takes more than an hour to get there; I won't even apply to the job. My method of thinking on this is that people with their own vehicle won't go much further than an hour away anyways, so why would I with a bike, my own two feet; or transit for that matter.
It's not like the people they are hiring with vehicles are going to get there much faster if they own a vehicle taking the same amount of time. The only time this won't be true is if they live so close they really should be walking instead to save money.
They'd probably agree with you. Having to pay to maintain a car (probably an awful one that has lots of problems) just to get anything done is distinctly bad part of being poor in America.
Hopefully they'll react as if you were an irrational pedant, because I have been participating in society without a car my entire adult life just fine.
That's because when they were young a 'normal land line' was the state of the art tech. Why were they fine using state of the art tech then? I guess older people at the time found it confusing and the people complaining to you probably thought they should get with the times.
Landlines were state-of-the-art tech more than a century ago; depending on when you define its invention it came at some point between 1844 and 1877 [1] and it was widespread by the second world war. There was a huge portion of the last century in which "just" having a landline was a relatively constant, relatively well defined utility and (from the consumer's point of view) the technology was mature and did not change much between arguably 1950 and about 1990. The rotary dial pulse dialling system was patented in 1891; the telephone I grew up using (in the 1980s) used essentially the same technology and pulse dialling gradually replaced it over the course of several decades. Most of the innovation took place on the side of the exchange, and the average telephone user probably noticed little other than changes in billing and a slowly decreasing frequency of talking to an operator.
Cellphones are completely different. My "daily driver" smartphone, bought in 2017 for ~1/4 of my monthly salary, is obsolete and I have rooted it in order to continue to install security updates. This has locked me out of my Danish bank account.
My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works, even when the mains electricity is out, no technology change required.
My ex (and still one of my best friends!) was (is?) a first responder for the Pacific North-West (think oil-spills on mountains and other ecological problems). She was required to have a land-line. It was great that it would forward to a mobile, and lacking that, dump back to a battery-backed-up voice mail unit on-premises (possibly more).
OT: Her position seemed unique to me -- working for <whatever> $company, she would get alerted/activated for things in the Canada AND the U.S. And they would do the thing of "Where are You? ....... There's a heliport at X - we'll have a 'copter there in 15 minutes" and then I get to send her away clutch when I got home.
Blame the obsolescence of your cell phone on the Android ecosystem and Google’s poor stewardship of Android.
Microsoft also licenses its operating system to third parties and you PCs can get updated by the end user without having to worry about the OEM. Microsoft Windows 7 which just went out of support in 2020 ran on my 2006 era Mac.
As far as phones, Apple released a security patch for the 2013 iPhone 5s less than four months ago.
> You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
> Their generated developed this technology - it can't be beyond them to learn it?
My point is that, actually, no: nobody alive predates the popularisation of the telephone (the oldest person listed as being alive at the moment was born in 1904 – by which point there were ~3 m telephone subscribers in the US [1] https://www.technofunc.com/index.php/domain-knowledge/teleco...).
I think the point about being resistant to learning new skills is one thing, extreme poverty and the historically incredibly rapid widespread adoption of the smartphone is another. A smartphone from ten years ago is as good as useless for banking nowadays. If you're an 80 year old pensioner on a fixed income, it may well both be a significant proportion of your income, have taken a long time to learn to use and not exactly be understanding of your (statistically quite likely to be present) visual or fine manual dexterity difficulties, and I can very much imagine that you feel locked out of society for no good reason.
Depends on what you mean by “accessibility”… my 85-year-old aunt-in-law finds her iPhone 7 running iOS 15 to be far less accessible than her old iPhone 4 that probably stopped being updatable around iOS 7. All she wants to do is make phone calls, read texts and take pictures and view them in the order they were taken, and run those apps being foisted upon us. This is all becoming increasingly more difficult, and her careful notes that get her through her previous corner cases increasingly less helpful.
I am already dreading what fresh clever hell Apple is going to unleash upon her when she gets shoved off this one because enough “critical” apps won’t run on iOS 15 anymore.
My dad, early 70s, is still holding out with a flip phone (fortunately still available in 4G). His hands are quite useless on a touchscreen after 50+ years of concrete-oriented construction work, and I would LOVE to see Siri attempt to parse Deep East Texan.
Newer phones are better for accessibility if lower visual or aural capability or some types of movement capacity are your main limitations, but are worse for many others. Increasingly larger phones are an awful trend for my friend who has severe muscular dystrophy and limited strength and range of motion, and voice assistants are a cruel joke for her tiny little voice.
>Depends on what you mean by “accessibility”… my 85-year-old aunt-in-law finds her iPhone 7 running iOS 15 to be far less accessible than her old iPhone 4 that probably stopped being updatable around iOS 7.
Yes, I've heard the exact same thing from my iPhone-using elderly mother and my sister. The answer is simple: stop spending thousands on new iPhones, and get an inexpensive budget-model Android instead. They're quite simple to use. But my suggestions always fall on deaf ears.
> You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.
Hell, even the thing where stuff sorts by "most recent access" makes learning impossible. How do you find older things? (the "search" function is contrary to how the brain works, brains are wired to find things by location which doesn't work if there isn't a location because stuff is always moved by the damn magic elves).
> When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.
Tech companies have the same level of respect for their users as slaughterhouses do for cattle. We are living in The Jungle, except it’s techbro computer shit instead of meatpacking.
> or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
Is newer better? Should people be required to buy an array of fragile and expensive devices just to function? How many things should they be required to maintain and how complex should they be?
Personally, I find that people complaining about cellphones needing charge, cellphones needing replacement and poor cellphone reception have a point. You didn't have that with landlines.
Back in the day, one would carry coins and use a phone box when needed. Nowadays everyone gets to carry a cellphone and pay 40 dollars minimum every month for the privilege. Cellphones are a regression, and we haven't even talked about the privacy aspect.
There's legitimate concerns around having to use your phone for everything, given how easy it makes for corporations and governments to track you, and how you're locked into a continuous upgrade cycle, and inundated with notifications and apps vying for your attention.
Covered by using my battery-drained iPhone (which I only have because I was being paid money to have it) as a beer opener. It's not a very good beer opener but gets the point across really well. Socioeconomic pressure works both ways.
The landline is special because laws require a line-powered phone system that can survive outages. It's a minimal and reliable layer of infrastructure which still makes perfect sense for people with limited communications needs.
Cell phones are pretty old. “Sprint” was an acronym for “South Pacific Railway Internal Network Technologies.” Used by passengers on railways since the 1920s.
This isn't true at all. The name "Sprint" wasn't chosen until the 70s and the initial business was alternative long-distance carrier, not a railway cell phone.
Mea culpa, searching for the actual original name “Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications” pulls up a number of interesting stories about the origins of the company running telegraph lines along the rail tracks.
Example: https://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162963607/sprint-born-from-ra...
However I do not see anything resembling cell phone service happening until the 1970s.
>Why were they fine using state of the art tech then?
Because they're not against "state of the art" or even the notion of "state of the art" things in general, they're against smartphones in particular.
People are also able to finding smartphones (and the requirement to have one for many aspects of dealing with the government and corporations) bothersome and annoying without having to (a) hate new technology in general, (b) have it be due to them being old.
Amazingly (I know right? Who would have thought!) this can be true even if some people back in the day disliked landlines.
It's almost like each technology is not just some magic miracle everybody should adopt with no downsides and all fun and games, but something that people can be pro or against it on a preference basis (in fact, some tech can also have bjective negative consequences and side-effects).
Case in point I always disliked smartphones, and they become a thing at the time I was a teenager. And I know kids who were born with them who hate them. So there's that.
In several ways such as reliability and call quality, land lines from several years ago are a far superior technology to current cellphones.
Of course most landline calls today go through dubious VoIP links and poorly maintained copper infrastructure, which is why I qualify with "from several years ago."
Were it not for this, I would go back to the landline that I enjoyed until recently.
It regularly strikes me as absurd that quality was so much better on an old landline. It's an odd trade-off for which I would never have voted.
Even still, my main complaint is over the loss of minor things like pay-phones. I think I'll always bemoan the idea of a telephone number being associated with a person, rather than a location.
FWIW my mom loves her smart phone. She would probably use this stuff. She does still have a land line too for actual phone use but uses the smart phone for other things.
However I won't use a smart phone for money or install an app for random things like a gym membership or a restaurant's menu. Never mind banking or medical stuff. It's really hard to verify what an app actually does under the hood and too many reports of even banking apps not getting SSL right and such. I know too much about how bad software development is security wise to trust any of this implicitly.
It's not the same. Not even close. Those old Bell Telephone phones were military grade. That is they rare broke down. 100s of slam!!! hang ups and they didn't flinch.
But drop your mobile device and not only are you f'ed, you have to invest in getting it fixed. And until then you're a social outcast.
To say nothing of the "sorry, you MUST update or else."
I'm between 20 and 40. I'm a full time software developer. I've written software and firmware in my spare time. I've soldered MCUs and debugged them with an oscilloscope. I know better than 99% of people how my phone works. The issue is not that I am unwilling to learn new things. The issue is that cash has been functional as a method of payment for at least 3 thousand years, and the reasons being given for preventing it from being legal tender objectively do not stand up to scrutiny. There is no cycle. You're just wrong. Oh, and I use cash for 100% of the transactions that support it, because I know what's good for me.
payphones were a thing and they could receive phone calls, so even if you yourself couldn't afford a landline you could still give and take phone calls.
Older generations have not been asked to replace their expensive tech every 3 years. My grandparents bought one phone and one TV set and kept them for the rest of their lifes. Something is wrong with today's tech and not with the elderly people who are not able to adapt as fast as zoomers.
Also, for older people, new technology was dangerous. New farm equipment, new machines, etc. So they were brought up with the mentality of 'if you don't understand EVERYTHING about this, don't touch it, on risk of life and limb'.
It's not that they are dumb or obtuse, in their world you have to understand the risk first, then you can use it. It's like the Japanese and baseball. In the USA it's balls then strikes, in Japan, it's strikes then balls. Older people think about strikes, younger people just think about balls.
I think it is apt and we are collectively ignoring how dangerous new technology and technological trends are or can be because we can use them without understanding anything about them (I'd argue even their creators understand little about them).
If they'd be complaining about their mobile phone bill being higher than their landline bill, fine - but that's not the case.
I'm pretty sure the last land line phone my parents bought was under 100 bucks and it would still be working just fine 10 years later (that is in addition to the fact that we kinda transitioned from analog to ISDN around 2000, and then back). Compare to a new mobile phone every 3 years if you want security updates.
Why do they need to have one? I dislike phone reliance (both in myself and others) and have spent periods without one. I think I've settled on having one for certain conveniences, but it's perfectly possible not to (especially if one 'HATE's it so much).
There are restaurants with only digital menus, there are bars that only take electronic payments, gyms that only have a digital membership card, parking lots only payable via app, during covid there were countries that required quarantine apps on entry.
Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.
This is doubly annoying as a tourist or immigrant: no, I don't have a local phone number, I don't have a bank account here, and I don't want to install $APP that is ubiquitous in your country but controlled by $Evilcorp.
Examples from several different countries: getting around without rideshare/taxi hailing apps, 'self check-in' gyms, Covid-related QR codes to get into restaurants, stores that only take mobile payments, restaurants where the menu is only available by QR code.
I hate digital menus. I don't like being on my phone when I go out for dinner (unless I'm by myself) and looking at a nice menu was part of the experience.
Seoul has been 'modernizing' bus stops. The route information, which used to be printed on posters at 1200 dpi, is now visible on large screens at 300 dpi, but the graphics have not been updated. As a result it is very challenging to see the details of most routes.
Dang. Literally none of those things exist where I live in the US. In fact, there's a food truck that comes through every once in awhile that is still cash-only.
> Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.
I do say that, that all sounds crap and I don't want any of it even though I have a phone. (And it isn't my experience, I believe it exists but it's absolutely not hard to ignore.)
Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy in the ranter and general sympathy from HN code towards them.
"Normal Land Line" wasn't something that came from nature. It is a sophisticated technology invented by humans with the same User Interface flaws and Laggard-Ranting that every generation goes through.
When Mixed-Reality becomes popular, I'm sure there will be many complaining "why can't I just have simple smartphone" and there will probably some Gen Zers sympathizing with them and reminiscing about the simple days of smartphone.
Newsflash: Adaption and Evolution is the name of the game. I can understand if a disabled person complains inability to use gadgets(although smartphones have better accessibility features), but you can bet your bottom dollar, most of these people whine because they aren't curious about the world and stubbornly refuse to adapt and the rest of the world has to bend over backwards to accommodate them?
I'd be with you if these devices weren't hundreds of dollars with obsolescence lifetime treadmills measured in the ones of years and bound to a duopoly of corporate-controlled ecosystems that require opting in to onerous contract terms.
Just a few of those factors might not be so bad but with all of them it could become impossible to do legally-required things like buying car insurance without being effectively legally required to look at Google ads. Or renewing your passport without agreeing to a software EULA that forbids you from ever suing Apple for leaking your private data. All of this "it's just opting in to societal progress" crap is why Experian even ever had your data to leak[1] it in the first place, and why Google and Braze and every other tech company has it too.
You can buy a pair of shoes and a smartphone for about the same amount of money (pick your number!) and they'll wear out in about the same amount of time.
> If it doesn't get security updates, you really can't do online paying/banking with it.
Maybe you shouldn't, but in terms of pure ability you perfectly well can. (And somewhat ironically, if you take matters into your own hands and update the OS yourself, quite a few banking apps will then refuse to run for "security reasons", while at the same time they're absolutely happy to run on an outdated OS version.)
That’s mostly true for any Android phone after a year or two - or sometimes never.
All Android phones have shitty long term support - even the Pixels.
Of course iPhones are a different story with Apple releasing a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s as recently as June of this year. But I’m not going to suggest an iPhone as an alternative.
On the other hand, developing countries manage with $30 unsubsidized phones and people use them for banking.
I'm happy to learn and adapt, the point is, I shouldn't have to. Any system which creates a history of who, was where, and when, aggregated in a single data source is incredibly dangerous and the primary reason I use cash transactions for everything. Cash has worked just fine as a form of legal tender for over 3000 years. I have a really hard time passing the reasons cited for deprecating it through Hanlon's razor.
A lot of things have worked out for thousands of years.
If you can use a computer, you can use a smartphone. It's just a form factor.
The amount of mental gymnastics some people go through to justify their irrational decisions is always mind-boggling --- and these are some of the smartest people
I'm a software dev, and I leave my phone at home as often as I can. I know how to use it. I've been contracted to write apps for both droid and iphone. Still I'd rather leave all tech at home. I'm not justifying it. I don't like being distracted.
I don't install apps because I 100% don't trust the devs who write apps. Or well I don't trust their bosses. Corners are cut and security and UX typically takes a back seat to "the funnel"
My gym (located right across the street from my house) requires me to check in via an app. I have no issues walking across the street and getting the clerk to manually do it for me. NO I didn't bring a phone to my workout.
That makes sense. Companies want a "maximalist", i.e. someone who's addicted to consumption. Such person has no other option but to continue working - their addiction demands it. Whereas a minimalist has a large degree of freedom and can often just ditch the job if it becomes too shitty.
I agree with you. It's getting harder and harder. Went to a restaurant Friday night with friends. Inside there are no menus, only QR cords and the UX is some of the worst ever (toastlab). There is also no way to pay except through the website which wants you to register an account. I don't want to be a dick to my friends but I also don't want to eat at this restaurant. The waiters said "put in fake info" and they acknowledged everyone complains about the menus. In the end my friends paid and I didn't have to bring up the issue.
I had a similar experience recently at one of my favorite restaurants. They do still have physical menus, but payment by default now works via scanning a QR code. This is especially frustrating, given that they only recently switched to a pretty cool POS handheld system that accepts contactless and allows tipping right at the touchscreen.
But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address… I wonder if I‘ll end up getting spam by either the restaurant or the POS vendor.
It also creates a completely new and entirely avoidable problem: I don‘t have strong signal in that restaurant, and they don‘t offer a wi-fi either. All in all, while the waiter probably saved 20-30 seconds (waiting for me to unlock my phone or get my card from my wallet, tap it, and select my tipping option), it took me almost 5 minutes to complete payment on my side.
Not sure about the name actually, but they do get the email address - that‘s how they were able to email me an invoice without me entering anything.
That said, my my email address does contain my name, and while I could configure an alias in my Apple Pay settings, I doubt that too many people would do so. Would be a nice way for Apple to use their email privacy relay feature.
You can of course pay via card or cash too, but the default experience is the waiter leaving the check with a QR code on your table, expecting you to pay by scanning it.
I‘ve seen a variation of this (in the UK) where they really only bring a QR code, and you can‘t even read the amount without a phone. Presumably you have to ask for a printed check if you want to pay by cash or card, introducing another unnecessary step into the process. (Coincidentally they also initially brought me the wrong QR code since they are only labeled very discreetly, momentarily shocking me with a large group‘s check.)
Well, that's just silly. The bill could have the full receipt, and a QR code easily enough.
The only reason to make it an either/or, is to try to force it.
I'd tip less, as a result too. Most places I worked at, has pooled tipping, meaning even the bus boy got some of the take.
But regardless, if my food is cold, or tasteless, I tip less too. My tip is some for the waiter's service, some for everything else.
And having to wait for a real receipt, and I presume eyerolling is part of it, would mean a lesser tip.
If someone thinks that unfair, then I say the same to them, as to the waiter. Find a different job, where the employer cares about customer satisfaction.
> When you begin a payment within an app, on the web, or within Apple Messages for Business using Apple Pay, to enable tax and shipping cost calculation your zip code, postal code, or other equivalent information is provided to the app, website, or merchant. After you authorize the payment, other information requested by the merchant, such as a device- or merchant-specific account number, your shipping address, or email address, is also provided.
This is for websites - “card not present” transactions. You have always had to share that information when using credit cards when your card isn’t present.
No one is arguing that web merchants should accept cash. The commenter I replied to was referring to in person transactions
I don't know where you are carving out an exception. The entire page is about what happens with Apple Pay. It doesn't say anything about "card not present"
Further, the response is about a restaurant that has a website you have to use. The website offers Apple Pay as an option. If you pick it your email will be shared. It says so on the page itself.
The parent comment was talking about in a restaurant
> But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address…
In the case of a card not present transaction, the merchant always asks for your address when using credit cards. Also the original submission is about “cashless societies” and the disadvantage of it. No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
Yes, and I was adding to that comment, mentioning restaurants using QR codes not just for menus, but also for payments. This effectively makes restaurants using this system card-not-present merchants.
> No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
Agreed, but why does a restaurant have to be a web merchant when there is a much more convenient alternative available?
Very on topic. Here in Sweden cashless payments using smartphones have largely replaced cash for person-to-person transactions.
The proprietary payment app in turn relies on a proprietary app for electronic ID which authorises bank transactions. And those demand a relatively recent version of iOS or Android and that the phone is not rooted.
The e-ID is only available to citizens and residents, which means that people such as foreign students or guest workers can't get one.
(And then the privacy and security issues of the e-ID system is a can of worms...)
It's the same in Denmark. I get charged extra by the bank for using cash and others look at me weird. I have a rooted Android phone and am privacy mad. Most Danes think I'm a weird foreigner (which, to be fair, I am!)
Conversely, loads of places in Germany don't even accept card payments. I go there occasionally for work and can't easily avoid getting at least some cash to make it through the week.
Completely on-topic. Phone-based identification is armed with too much capability inside the black box and limited means for the user to have a clue what is being leaked to whom.
I think there was just a thread here last week about how homeless people get their stuff stolen or lost all the time. 2 Factor keeps people out when you can't reliably Bring Something.
I don't generally want to say that too loud though because some politician will point out that they still have their eyes and fingertips so why can't we use biometrics instead.
99.9% of people have eyes and fingertips. If we’re going to require eye/fingertip authentication to function in society we need to solve for that last 0.1% as well.
Totally agree. Would add that it’s comical how perturbed people get when you’re buying something in person and they start asking you for your phone number/email etc. and your tell them no. You get this “does not compute” look, and a response like “well the system needs your phone number”!
Well, yeah, they aren’t going to tell you “the performance metrics on which I am evaluated are based on this, and the level of employee surveillance is intense enough that I know people who have been dismissed for making up info for customers that don’t provide it”, but...
>I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic
I don't think so. Certainly it's hard to argue that at least a feature phone that you're willing to give out the phone number for is well-nigh mandatory.
As you say, go back not that many years and cash/travelers checks and appropriate ID (drivers license and/or passport) were really all you needed in general. In addition to phone, it's really hard without a credit card today as well.
I live in two countries, “I just got back to the country and don’t have a sim card with a US number yet” is a high status “I’m never giving you my fucking phone number”. For me it has the benefit of being true a lot of the time.
I’m stealing this for use on both sides of the pond.
I’ve run into, for real, the issue of “essential” apps in Germany not being available in the US App Store, like public parking for the commuter lot in a town on the other side of the country.
I don't get region restricted apps. Sometimes it might make sense, but 99% of the time it's just unnecessary and achieves nothing except annoy travelers. Is there some incentive for app developers to region restrict their apps?
The gym barcode keychain thingy worked perfect. It was indestructible! And now I have to have my phone in hand, on, bright, open app, click stupid button, line up phone.
Re: gym, when I signed up I didn't have a phone at all. After being asked twice, I finally lied and said yeah it's um at home.
There was an app called Stocard that I used at one point. I prefer to have minimal keychain items.
The problem with the app barcodes is simply that they are slow to load, nonstandard, and not open source.
I think a common standard, lightweight, open source app would be perfect. Stocard is proprietary, but at least it loads quick and organizes all of the cards in a uniform way.
I don't like these slow, buggy apps that bury their barcodes.
The brightness problem is real, and getting the angle right can also be a challenge, although that seems like an issue with the current quality of barcode/QR readers. I assume that could be solved if anyone cared.
Keychain barcodes are insecure, easy to damage, easy to lose, and provide zero real identity guarantee.
Phones at least can offer the level of identity guarantee that 2FA does, and largely solves those other problems.
I get and fully support what you're going for, but friendly reminder that (in America) having an ID can actually be somewhat difficult in a variety of circumstances where people are most vulnerable to being left out. It's actually kind of a hot button issue
Can you provide some details? The state where I am living (Illinois) goes through hoops to ensure that everyone can get an ID card, such as it being free if you are homeless.
One of the issues is the documentation required to get one - the most obvious is a birth certificate, because of course everyone born in the US would have one, right?
1) Many people who were born in the US didn’t actually ever get one! This is more likely to affect people who were not born in hospitals, particularly older, poorer people.
2) Where is it? The state you were born in, and probably* the county. If you’re now in a different state, the procedure for getting it sent to you could be tricky.
3) How do you get a copy? For Texas, that used to be up to the county where you were born, with all the variability that implies (Harris Co: 4 million. Loving Co: 100.) Now that’s “state records office”… with a catch. For any of you here, it’s marvelously simple and not that spendy. If you don’t have a credit/debit card and/or don’t use the internet… that’ll be $80 and “up to” an 8 week wait. No idea about any other state.
So what if you don’t have/can’t get a copy of your birth certificate? Every state is different, but they all accept some defined set of alternative documentation: school records, military records, medical records, attestation from the doctor/midwife that delivered you… all things that someone who is having a hard time laying hands on their birth certificate is sure to have to hand.
Thanks for this. It makes clear the series of cyclical complications that follows "I don't have an ID and need one, but I don't have a smartphone or credit card"
1) Don't have an ID, just provide your birth certificate. Oh wait... that wasn't issued to me
2) Well I can try to order my birth certificate mailed to me. Oh wait... I don't have easy internet access, no smartphone or internet at my house.
3) I got online at the library, time to order my birth certificate. Oh wait... I don't have a credit card to pay. Maybe my birth county lets me mail cash (risky), or maybe they require me to show up in person, and potentially spend $100s on travel, in addition to missing work.
4) Okay, I go to apply for a credit card or open a bank account to pay. Oh wait... I need an ID.
This is it. The cycle of ID. To top it off, good luck getting the spelling of your name corrected in your birth certificate if it doesn't match other legal documents, such as school records.
It was easier back before the mass electrification of everything, because if the local sheriff knew who you were they could vouch to the local DMV and you’d be good to go. Now everything is fraud proof and trickier.
And if you lose your birth certificate you may have to start all over again!
There are ways to get an ID via other methods and then build up but it can be tricky and difficult to navigate. And without a stable address it can be nearly impossible.
It is (was?) the case in my large (500k+) city in the 90's at least. If you were lacking all forms of identification to get an ID, you could use a neighbor or family member who had an ID to vouch for you.
I do believe it was the vouch + another form of identification, but I distinctly recall having to do this for a replacement ID when I couldn't find my papers after a move.
some things have those expire based on time. Off the top of my head NYC area passenger rail on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North have that for electronic tickets.
I agree on the cash point, but I’m not even convinced that ID should be required for minimal, daily participation in society. Maybe a lack of ID prevents you driving, buying alcohol, or voting, but if you accept those consequences, you shouldn’t have to provide ID to anyone.
If we're talking daily participation, you don't (or shouldn't) need ID. For one off events like registration or entry, then ID is a fair requirement (sometimes).
I don't know who is arguing for bank accounts without ID though.
I could see something reasonable being a surcharge for allowing access to an "archaic" system - however then that fee should be subsidized to the business, by the centralized organizations, as such "archaic" systems are necessary mechanisms to counter potential tyranny-captured of centralized systems by very bad actors.
just curious, what prevents you from getting an extra phone number and a phone just to go about your day to day needs? You need not share that number with anyone else? Heck, you can even switch it off, or silence it all the time.
I am a big believer in sticking it to these organizations that make these foolish assumptions. The burden of responsibility should be on them, since it is they who wants to get the money out of this transaction.
It discriminates against everyone except the minority of public administrators it ensconces. It literally removes the discretion and ownership of money if you cannot physically possess it. It polarizes people involved in grey market transactions into a permanent underclass who cannot escape it, and just partial cashlessness has been used within the last several or so hours to disenfranchise political opposition. That it is being discussed seriously at all is an offensively false equivalence. The only people who are "cashless" in a cashless society are the citizens from whom the cash is taken.
The arguments back like, "I have nothing to hide," or, "cards are just convenient," aren't centerist or neutral, they are the banal nihilism of people suited to scheduling prison trains, imo.
I agree. I personally prefer paying by card 100% of the time, but cash should always be an option. I think it's fine for cash to be a little less convenient - when paying for gas, for example, the pump might only take card, and if you want to pay by cash you have to go into the store. Or a store may not be able to provide exact change and that's fine.
Coins/cash have been around for thousands of years, and war since time immemorial. Cards aren’t making us do anything we haven’t already done since, well, forever.
Exactly, the same kind of warmongering was enacted under livestock barter economies.
The one thing I like about cashless is that it makes it just that tiny bit more difficult for bad actors who accrued their money through nefarious means.
The thing that I noticed, at least in Italy, is that young people seem believe all the propaganda about cashless society: they really think that it is about fighting tax evasion. I am sincerely afraid of an entity that can control all of your money if you're not "good" enough: how not-good I have to be before they forbid me from living.
But 2 things can both be true. I do believe that forcing cashless is the only way to tackle evasion, and that's by far the biggest problem in Italy imho.
On the other hand I'm also terrified of the idea of preventing people to transact from the State.
The solution would be to encode the "right to transact" as a constitutional right, and offer 0 interest free accounts to all (which iirc is a thing already in Italy since June 2018?). And then reduce cash threshold hard.
(I know encoding things as a right wouldn't stop an evil state to prevent you from transact, but then the same argument applies to jailing you which also limits your transactions so it's a bit moot)
There should be a right to a suitable medium of exchange with very low inflation or deflation and very low unemployment.
If the government doesn't provide such a thing that is ok but it must grant citizen's the right to issue their own medium of exchange with a regulatory path to pay taxes if it fulfills the inflation/deflation criteria.
Money is a relationship. Private ownership of a relationship is slavery. The central bank must devalue the slave contract by 2% otherwise an accumulation of slave contracts will enslave the entire society. Our money is a time banking network and time on earth doesn't last forever, people age. The "owners of money" don't care, in fact, to them aging is the greatest sin that must be punished as it devalues their "private property". They expect the young and future born to give up their time to compensate through the time lost through aging.
You get to pick negative rates or inflation. There is no other option.
Why the scare quotes around private property? Every species in nature acquires, accumulates, and defends assets and territory, evolves means to do so, or it dies out sometime before the ones who do. The opening syllogism is a non-sequitur.
A cashless society discriminates against whomever that society wishes to discriminate against. That's the point: total central control of all exchanges of value between humans. Nothing outside of the state. It's an intensely authoritarian goal with obvious and inevitable results. It's just a matter of time before some bad* group gets in power and turns the system against you.
I completely agree with what you say, but I hardly see it as better now. Big payment services (from traditional banks to PayPal) lock "high-risk" (meaning anyone who has ideas they don't like) customers out of their services completely independent of the justice system and state apparatus.
I remember when the credit cards blocked wiki-leaks. People become beholden to the organisations that own the cards.
In Australia the gov doesn't give the first nations people assistance, they give them cards that denote how they can spend the money. It's nanny state in the highest.
In addition it discriminates against anyone who finds themselves even temporarily without power for their payment device whether they are a customer or a seller.
But as the technology gets better and more reliable this gets rarer and rarer so that in the end it discriminates against those who already lack a different kind of power: social and political power. That is, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poorly educated, the illiterate and innumerate, those whose grasp of the local language is poor. I'm sure the list could be expanded.
> In addition it discriminates against anyone who finds themselves even temporarily without power for their payment device whether they are a customer or a seller.
And makes it more difficult to anyone who is outside their country of origin. Many payment apps are limited to residents and nationals only, while others are avaialble on specific country app stores.
Like the migrant family fleeing from they country I met this evening. They told me they were stranded here while travelling to a better country.
Neither her or I have banking apps that can talk to each other. But I was able to gift him enough for dinner for his family today. Quick interaction,from my wallet to their hand, no QR code to be scanned, no database to be updated.
I'm not going to reliably charge my phone. I dont care about my phone. They're terrible devices that do everything they do badly except call and text. I'd much rather have a wallet and keys and paper boarding passes.
Or if you broke/lost your phone and can't buy a replacement as the only way to pay was with your phone, and then you get a phone but to restore your data and apps you need the credentials app which was on your old phone. . .
It will be real fun with the incoming widespread blackouts.
In Sweden a while ago an entire chain of supermarket had to close for a weekend because some hack that happened to a company in USA completely blocked their capability to process payments.
Also occasional downtime of debt card network does occur.
That's a bit strange because here in Norway if the payment terminal in my local supermarket loses contact with the payment processor the checkout operator just print two copies of the receipt and has you sign one that they keep. When the terminal regains contact it uploads the transactions and life carries on.
>In addition it discriminates against anyone who finds themselves even temporarily without power
They can scan your card with a thing that doesn't use power, but most places I saw that were at places like gun shows where they shouldn't have had an issue taking a check either, since either way there was gonna be some kind of background check.
For context, I sold stock out of my IRA a third(ish) time recently, because I had so many issues stemming from a set of phone scammers who hijacked calls at the carrier level in 412 around the time I got laid off from my last full time role.
I hope that the same folks doing that didn't also impersonate the IRS when I tried to call the last time -- I'd been told over and over if you have questions, call about how to declare income, and the person I got was super rude, even threatening. Made some smart ass comment about whether I was taking notes "my senator" in a sarcastic tone of voice when I tried to ask how to declare what little income I had.
Anyways TL;DR: lots of places don't handle loss of power well, or even just reverting to 90s era social Norms in an emergency ;-)
I think we need to remove barriers to people getting access to the technology that's needed to function in a modern society.
In the UK, we have "basic bank accounts". These are aimed at people with bad credit history, and offer no line of credit, but do provide a debit card, which may also be used at an ATM.
How are there 70 year olds today that worked throughout the 90s and 2000s without coming across a computer?
I do wonder if these problems will eventually fizzle out, as more and more people have been exposed to technology throughout their lives and will be able to use it in their old age.
While there may be some arguments against a cashless society from a privacy point of view, it's hard to argue with the convenience and cost savings that you get from going cashless.
One problem with cashless is it gives a ton of power to all intermediaries, which often are duopolies. Google and Apple. Credit card companies (Visa and Mastercard). These are able to extract a significant sales tax (“fee”) from users and shut down accounts with little recourse. And the fact that it gives the government power to both monitor all transactions and immediately halt all transactions with that individual is like a massive Big Brother capability combined with a digital shackle that can keep anyone they want from moving. Can’t use public transit, can’t use micromobility bikes, can’t use taxis, can’t use airplanes, can’t use your car (how do you get gas? Pay tolls?), can’t even walk far as you can’t buy food.
I remember, growing up in a more “End Times” focused evangelical denomination, they were always talking about how barcodes or credit cards are maybe like the “Mark of the Beast” number in the book of Revelation, without which you can’t make any transactions. That’s paranoia, of course, but it’s also kind of a good point. A fully cashless society using our typical methods puts a massive power into the hands of the government and a few very powerful corporations.
It also tilts the power differential in favor of employers of all sizes. a local small business coffee shop I frequent doesn’t pay super well, but they do tipping. The owner can easily keep track of how much tip money comes in and uses that as an excuse to employees that they can tolerate getting paid only $8/hour because they have tips. The employer also has control of the tip money that’s paid in cashless form, and it’s not unheard of for employers to take some of that money or withhold it. I prefer to use cash for more and more purchases, but for basically all tips, I tip in cash. (And I agree tipping in general is lame, but I don’t want to punish employees for that.)
I think the best answer to this is postal banking - let people open up basic bank accounts and get other simple financial services at the post office. Do it as a public service, fee free (with charges for anything beyond basic accounts to help fund it).
>How are there 70 year olds today that worked throughout the 90s and 2000s without coming across a computer?
Manufacturing, retail. Those are just two things that I can name where I personally know people in their 50's who have no real access to computers.
>I do wonder if these problems will eventually fizzle out, as more and more people have been exposed to technology throughout their lives and will be able to use it in their old age.
I bet they don't fizzle out. Technology is always changing. At some point in their past, even the 99 year old who couldn't turn on a smartphone today was hip on the current technology of the day.
“How are there 70 year olds today that worked throughout the 90s and 2000s without coming across a computer?”
Oh, they saw the clerks using them in the office when they came in each week for their paychecks, and later on, engineers and maybe even other contractors bringing laptops on-site, perhaps even helped support a kid doing a CS degree, but plenty of 70 year olds today never had a work-related reason to touch one.
My dad spent 50 years doing construction. His employer did attempt to teach him how to use the laptop they got him those last few years he worked in the early 2010s, but settled on basically providing him an on-site secretary (recent college grad) to use it for him.
Not everyone worked - it is quite possible to be a young adult without having ever used a computer or phone - rare, but possible.
And even more so in a generation where many women stayed home and didn’t enter the labor market at all, or all those who worked any of the various manual labor jobs. Some restaurants still don’t have digital records of orders, etc to this day.
> While there may be some arguments against a cashless society from a privacy point of view, it's hard to argue with the convenience and cost savings that you get from going cashless.
I agree with your first sentence, but the summary doesn't necessarily follow.
The convenience and cost savings are not free. You are the product. Moving to a "modern society" doesn't need to involve enriching the marketing networks of the planet.
My dad is 78. He retired in 95 and never used a computer. He owns lots of them but can’t use them for day to day activities, preferring to go in person to pay bills and whatnot.
He loves to argue about convenience or as he sees it, massive inconvenience.
Usually yes. But he also clicks yes on everything asked of him. This has led to probably comical situations where he’s in the apple store trying to pay his bill. There’s no way to mail apple a check.
Recently when I refinanced I got a mortgage and the servicer (can’t remember their name as they sold to mrcooper and then to WellsFargo) that funneled everything through their app that wanted to auto withdraw from my bank. I tried to pay by check and couldn’t get an address out of them despite multiple calls and hours on the phone.
I've started to reduce my card usage as of late. This is not because I am annoyed by banks (though I am pretty annoyed of some banks) but because I think the root of all evils is MasterCard/Visa. They have a tight grip over the international/internet payments market.
I'm currently in Malaysia. They have a mobile ewallet/payment system (tng). It accepts foreigners with fairly large monthly limits (around $5500/month). I can buy TnG balance with Bitcoin/Crypto/Cash/Barter, and it's accepted almost everywhere (even more than MC/Visa).
I'm happy with this being an alternative to cash. The way I see it, companies can only be evil once they have leverage. But using multiple different systems, you take that leverage away from them. Cards have leverage on the day-to-day payments, online and international market. To take it away, use services that bypass them.
Banks still have leverage on the large transfer, wealth holding market. I'm yet to find an alternative to that (There is USDT/USDC but it's banks with extra steps. Crypto is an alternative but the volatility is too high).
I think only a permissionless system could be an acceptable alternative to cash. Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies satisfies this. However, being traceable is a major downside. Monero is not practically traceable and has much lower fees compared to Bitcoin. I hope to see it being used more in real life transactions.
- As more banks participate in ESG and experiment with what they can get away with, people may lose access to their funds if they hold the wrong beliefs or lack good social credit score. This is already in place in China and all the big banks are looking at dipping their toes into this game.
PayPal already experimented with this and back-peddled when their stock dipped as a result. A few dozen big banks in the US are now participating in ESG. Only time will tell what they dare to implement.
This is bang-on. We're seeing daily examples of companies forcing their "values" on users, and it's most acute in big monopolies. It's fine to debate whether people should be kicked off twitter (they can just build their own lol), but depriving people of money in retaliation is a whole other level, only seen in places like Canada
ESG's are environmental, social, and governance metrics. It is a method of altering the behavior of businesses and individuals through incentives or in some cases disincentives. Rather than altering group and individual behavior through legislation, banks and financial institutions can alter the behavior of businesses and people using a social credit score.
The legislators of my state and several other states are actively fighting banks that exhibit this behavior. None of the small banks I interact with will ever participate in that concept.
The core idea is that pension funds should only invest in companies which are socially responsible. In order to achieve this, pension funds/large investors assign (or outsource the assignment of) scores to each companies based on each company's "Environmental, Social, and Governance" practices. As these have become more and more standard, large corporations have started changing their policies to improve their ESG scores. Pushing companies to be more responsible for externalities sounds good and reasonable, but the implementation gives a lot of power to the people who define and calculate ESG scores, and like all metrics, ESG scores are flawed and gameable. (A common complaint is that companies can get away with dispicable behavior by gaming the scores in other categories.)
These scores are currently a big deal on the right, since they tend to be based on socially liberal values and tend to push companies into left-leaning policies, but the left should be just as concerned about the trend given that the trend is to reduce the diversity of policies among the very large companies which (seek to) control our lives.
The chips in credit cards aren't damaged by magnetic fields. Mag stripes will eventually be discontinued. (For instance, cards from Mastercard won't have mag stripes after 2033.)
And more brittle, in at least some ways, as well. When I travel, especially internationally, I try to be prepared so that I wouldn't be completely screwed if my phone decided to die on me. Of course, stuff can always happen like your bag being snatched but I try to be in a position at least to deal with an electronic device just crapping out.
My credit card had a fraud block put on it because I tried to make a large payment while out of the country (Thanks for nothing Capital One). Even after they accepted the payment a few days later I still had to jump through many hoops to get the card unblocked.
I now think 3 credit cards plus a bunch of cash is the minimum when traveling out of the country.
There is a sufficient hair trigger on fraud alerts these days that you really need a diversified set of cards when traveling--especially internationally. And, yes, get some cash though in post-COVID travel world I'm probably now stuck with a bunch of random foreign cash I'm never going to spend. (Pounds/Euros I can deal with but a bunch of other smaller currencies I doubt I can easily exchange.)
Travel notifications can help. But I've even had random declines for $20 purchases at US gas stations.
Some credit cards let you put a travel itinerary in their records, to reduce the chance of this happening (if I recall correctly, American Express will do it for you automatically, so if you buy a plane ticket to Rome, they'll know charges from Italy are probably good).
But yes, multiple SEPARATE funding sources and cash are a minimum when traveling, even within the US imo.
Multiple bank accounts, even if you operate primarily with cash, are a requirement for normal living. You always want a backup, preferably isolated from the original.
A good way to always have cash while travelling is to get a belt wallet. You will get mugged for your phone and your bag and what they presume to be your actual wallet, but they aren't going to ask for your belt or even whatever you might have shoved into your sock.
Yeah. Most places I wouldn't bother but there are circumstances where that's good advice--though I'd probably actually use something where I could tuck in a spare credit card.
Unfortunately TSA generally makes you remove your money pouch when they're feeling up your genitals, making it so everyone can see that you have a money pouch. Yet another way the Orwellian-named agency makes individual travelers less secure.
They might make you remove your belt but they won't open the belt up or anything like that. Plus you probably won't be mugged at the airport itself or make yourself much of a target beyond everyone else putting a $2000 laptop on the conveyer belt.
I sometimes have removed my ID or credit card from my wallet while going through TSA and I just kept it in my fingers (visible to them) while getting Terahertz scanned or going through metal detectors, so it never left my person. Protecting against the small risk of it being stolen during the process of X-raying my belongings and recovering them.
Especially when tired and/or jet-lagged you're probably a lot better off leaving as much as possible in a bag than handling it through security screening. After losing a drivers license at the airport a few years ago--which caused less of a hassle with TSA than I expected but was a real issue with hotel check-in--I only use my Global Entry card for domestic check-in because I don't really need that card for anything.
The more I have to unpack my person and splay my things out for inspections, the less secure I am. Even against basic stuff like accidentally leaving something. The main goal when traveling is to keep your shit together, and the TSA forces you to the exact opposite for theater. So I gave up wearing the money belt through airports, and just leave it in my bag.
I'm certainly not arguing against the device overall - they're still useful when you get to your destination. It just seems the destruction of individual safety by technocratic authoritarianism is right at home in a thread about "cashless society".
Inasmuch as they can understand a payment card equally well. They don't understand acquisition of [cash] money, but equally don't understand why the magic plastic rounded-rectangle works. They can use a payment card more easily than cash in my limited experience (as a parent and uncle).
My kids at least understand that "a dollar" can be exchanged for "good or services" and that if they want more they have to find another dollar. They haven't quite grasped that a coin isn't as good as a dollar, or that a 1 and a 10 are different.
A payment card would seem to either be magic (it always works!) or confusingly not consumed in its use but still not work again later (gift card).
My nine year old had a debit card attached a joint bank account. He could log in and see how much money he had. I gave him his allowance via a bank transfer.
The fundamental problem with this regressive "discrimination" framework is that it divides people into a dichotomy of "having agency" and "having no agency", and then focuses the analysis on those with no agency while ignoring the concerns of those with agency. Essentially it asks the wrong question, stands in for real discussion about societal problems from such things, and allows real issues to be handwaved away as those with agency just needing to choose to "get with the program".
I am 100% dead set against "cashless society", not because I am "unable" to use anything else, but because it is less private, less empowering, and outright less convenient. Sure, I'll sometimes give in to the financial surveillance industry to get money back, or to make returns easier, or to do online purchases, or to avoid trading fomites during Covid. But ideally I want to transact in cash. Make the decision to spend a given amount of money exactly once, and not suffer the same transaction multiple times as I see my agglomerated statements at the end of the month.
With friends, no fucking Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, or whatever fly by night crap is popular this week that undoubtably forces some nonconsentual "terms" at me. Never mind creating yet another insecure account that has to be checked every month lest I end up responsible for a company's negligence. Cash - we settle and then we forget about it. Sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower, most of the time it evens out, sometimes it doesn't but we assume it does and move on with our lives.
Like maaaaaybe in the far future if phones are ever personal computing devices that represent individuals, and we have the security properties granted by systems like Monero, and software designed for end users and not surveillance companies, then I'd be happy to settle with digital money. But it's foolish to jump the gun and pretend that any of the junk currently being pushed by surveillance companies represents that sort of idyllic future in any way.
I think another big problem with digital versus paper money is that you can't just transmute money from cash to cashless without you having an institution involved along the way. I can't take a picture of a dollar bill and add it to my venmo account, unless I go buy a venmo gift card from a merchant, or I open an account with a bank and deposit the cash through their physical bank branch or an ATM network they've partnered with. Even with crypto, you are relying on some other institution like the echange or the bitcoin ATM or whatever to turn that dollar bill into a digital currency.
Well any conversion between different stores of value intrinsically requires a counterparty. Counterparties will tend towards centralization out of convenience - it's not like you're going to stand up in a bar and announce "Does anybody want to trade X for Y?" when you're trying to settle up with a friend. If your sets of preferred payment methods are incompatible, most likely you'll just split the bill and let the venue sort it out on the back end.
There's a period when you don't have all the required paperwork, and it's really hard to open a bank account, or sign up for payment services.
Many banks in Germany use the same ID verification tool, and it does not recognise all passport types. Some banks require a residence permit or registration certificate, both of which can be hard to get.
If you have a bank account, it can still be shut down or restricted because of your government back home. This happened to Americans in 2019 and to Russians recently.
It's also a pain for visitors who need to join the system.
At last, phones get lost or break. When I lost mine, it took me two weeks to regain access to everything, in part because of 2FA catch-22s. At least I had money to replace it.
For those not in the know, what happened in 2019 with Americans? A quick search showed something about N26 bank leaving the US but not much else about it.
The poor, I can understand, when they don't have bank accounts.
But the elderly? If you're receiving social security checks and paying utility bills, surely you have a bank account and a debit card?
> The elderly are less able to manage cashless payment methods, especially without transition support. If local authorities or utility companies do not support cash...
Since when have utility companies ever accepted cash? The elderly have spent their whole lives paying utilities by check. And they've been using ATM cards for decades. If they can use an ATM card they can use a debit card, since they're the same card.
This article throws "elderly" into the headline but gives zero actual evidence for that group.
Actually this is a pretty interesting question. I ended up looking this up, per Brookings [^1]:
> check-cashing outlets provide a range of convenient payment services in one location. They cash paychecks, sell low-cost money orders with stamped envelopes for making long-distance payments, and serve as agents for utility bill payments and electronic money transfer services, such as Western Union
So unbanked people have to use (often high-cost) proxies to participate in these sorts of economies. Probably contributes to their unbanked status since it's hard to save enough to open a checking account when fees constantly eat into savings.
As to the point about elderly, according to the FDIC survey [^2], the under/un-banked rates among older age groups is actually lower than, say, the 25-34 year old age group. However, I think OP's post still stands because 1. If your retired being unbanked is arguably worse, as if you have to use the previously mentioned check-cashing outlets, you're going to eat through any savings you have a lot faster, and 2. there's a technological argument as well, and if smartphone adoption becomes more and more a requirement towards accessing finances, then technical literacy rates become a new barrier and that tends to be associated with younger populations.
This is exactly correct, and there are companies out there that prey on this.
Many companies will set kiosks in areas with a large number of unbanked so they'll go to these kiosks at the local 7/11 or whathaveyou and then charge anywhere from $3-$5 fees.
But it gets worse. If someone has a $100 bill and they put in $3, that kiosk will take that $3 as a payment fee and apply $0 towards the bill itself. Not only that, it happens more than you'd think.
People flat don't understand the predatory nature of many of these companies.
Call them and ask, my power company has several offices in the area that accept cash. My ISP doesn't, but will direct you to a Western Union office where you can pay with cash, all you need is your account number. Other utility companies let you pay with cash at various contracted 'payment agencies', which they can direct you to if you ask.
As far as I'm aware, utility bills are all debts (money owed for a service already given), so they're required by law to accept cash one way or the other. It's not the same as going to a shop and putting items in your cart; there is no debt in that case so they aren't required to accept cash.
(Also, in practice, mailing cash is a lot more reliable than most people make it out to be.)
I pay my utility bills (water, gas) with cash: I just go to the convenience store at the corner of my street, hand them the bill I got in the mail, give them cash, they then stamp the card and give it back to me. This is in Japan though.
Yeah, different countries have drastically different practices for paying bills. In Brazil, for example, you don't post them by mail or at convenience stores -- you pay them at the bank!
But in the US, the normal way was always by check in the mail, until online bill pay took over.
Checks... how quaint. It's utterly amazing that a "first world" country still uses slips of paper with a signature as a way of transferring funds, as if it's still 1700 or something.
There's a difference between cashless and technology/smartphone only.
You can have a cashless society that still uses checks, debit cards, credit cards, money orders, cashiers checks, wire transfers etc. All these can be managed or used by visiting a local branch or with a phone call.
Plenty of people still pay their rent with checks and I've never been at a sit down restaurant in the US where I could pay with Apple/Google Pay but I can of course use my CC/Debit Card.
All of the methods listed above work without power as one commenter suggested would be an issue. Its really not...
Overdraft fees are egregious but they're also something you can opt out of and is just another form of credit.
All you need to participate to this degree is a bank account that offers a debit card which is accessible and possible to the vast majority of the population including the elderly - they're not hoarding all their cash under their mattress. In the US to open an account at any major bank is an ID and maybe an initial deposit whether that be a cash/check/incoming transfer etc.
It has never been easier to go to a library/school/friend's place and sign up for a free bank account that will ship you a debit card that will also reimburse you for ATM withdrawal fees.
The group that should really be the focus is the underbanked - often those less fortunate.
Including seniors in this category of 'discrimination' feels odd - I know of some who have no problem paying their bills, shopping, living life etc without a smart phone or computer.
Society can't be beholden to the past forever - progress is made and individuals have to choose to participate if they want to use new things that are accessible only through certain tools.
This isn't any different from when we moved from the telegraph to the telephone - you had to go and buy a landline to participate. The same is true of getting a passport to fly/sail to different countries as countries also further add requirements for updated passports and IDs (a la Real ID requirements in the US).
The worst part is that very often you can introduce solutions for special circumstances but instead some remote edgecase is holding everyone back.
When you talk about less parking spots people will shout you are taking away the parking spots for the disabled.
Ok then only get rid of normal parking lots and add more parking lots for people with special needs and make it easier for them to apply for access.
I'm not against cash I just think that it is standing in the way of negative interest rate policy. The IMF suggested an exchange rate Vs cash and that the central bank should pick it's interest rate policy to minimize inflation to exactly zero and only cash will keep inflating.
I've never witnessed this. I still do not own a smartphone. I am actually about to activate one for the first time but I have never needed a phone for anything other than calling or texting someone. I admit that texting on my T9 keypad is a PITA but I rarely text. I had a couple throw-away phones with keypads that were nice but they are hard to find sidekick, etc...
What specific services do you depend on that require a smart phone?
For me its two factor authentication at work. The building was constructed in such a way that there is somehow no cell service at all in the building. I had a smartphone all this time but not the actual two factor app, I would have it call my phone and do a keypress but that only worked when I was working from home. When I go into the office, those calls don't go through, neither does texting a list of codes.
There are other things in life that are certainly a lot more convenient with a smart phone. I rely on public transit, bussing and trains, and if I didn't have a smartphone that would make it a lot more difficult to navigate. Sure I could pull up a paper map of the bus routes and estimate what routing might be the most optimal to get to my destination by hand, and call up the transit agency operator line with my buss stop ID to ask when the next bus is slated to appear, but its infinitely easier to just use google maps and be done with it. When I am on the first bus and anticipating transferring to another bus, unless I knew that bus stop ID for the transfer point ahead of time I cannot call ahead and know when my transfer bus is arriving, for example.
Well, not something I use a lot but Uber/Lyft. I don't need to use my banking app but otherwise I'd have to drive to an ATM to deposit a check. Again, not essential, but there would be a lot more friction when traveling than otherwise.
(And certainly there are a lot of things on the web that are hard to go without and I assume the typical case where someone doesn't have a smartphone doesn't have easy access to a computer either.)
If you think of it like that, then it's awfully inconvenient. But what you do, what I think most of us used to do, is pair that errand with another, like grocery shopping. Chances are fairly good there is an in-network ATM in route to the grocery store, if not at the grocery store. It only adds a minute, maybe a few minutes, to a trip you were going to make anyway.
> but otherwise I'd have to drive to an ATM to deposit a check
Are cheques really that common in the US still? In Ireland, and as far as I'm aware, the rest of the EU, it's rare to see a cheque at all these days. Almost everything is paid either on cards or some other form of electronic transfer.
Not really. Happens enough that you can't call it a surprise to see one, but they're only used in certain niches at this point. I write a check about once a year, for some edge case like I'm paying a contractor who refuses to just get Venmo or equivalent.
Even where they are used (as someone mentioned, you do occasionally see elderly folks write them at the grocery store) they tend to be just a slightly different version of a debit card w/o PIN -- the stores now can instantly run them, there's no way to float one.
I've written about 25 checks for "one-off stuff" in the last year or so, -not including- the checks that pay my electric utility, Internet, trash, water/sewer, auto insurance, and so on. Property taxes are check-only in my area. A lot of kid stuff at school like PTA, reading activities, sports and such are cash or check only. Home maintenance things like painters, gardeners, pool service, trash hauling take checks only. I can't see a way to get along without physical checks, at least in the USA, unless you take a big sweaty wad of cash everywhere you go.
Where in the heck do you live?
Even my kids school had a portal for payments. My yard guy does get paid by check. But I do that via bill pay and the bank sends a check. Even independent painters take Venmo cash app or PayPal
> they tend to be just a slightly different version of a debit card w/o PIN -- the stores now can instantly run them, there's no way to float one.
That's actually the most surprising thing I've heard in this thread. Having that ability would probably go some way toward explaining their longevity. Like I said in another comment, I don't even know if a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here, mostly because they wouldn't have the ability to run them.
Yeah. I don't know the details and I very rarely see them in stores. But there's some sort of system that, as parent says, basically immediately locks the funds so (as I understand it), there's no risk to the store.
I assume things like car dealerships use the system as well. When I bought a car recently I just gave them a personal check which they were fine with. In the past I had to go to my bank and get a cashier's check.
You don't even generally see signs about returned check fees these days.
They're not super-common in general for most use cases but they're still the most straightforward way to make personal payments (other than in-person cash payments) without going through some process that's more involved than giving someone a piece of paper.
Common enough. Ignoring the ones that I never see because my bank writes and delivers them for me, I still periodically get payments for things like FSA as a check. I also write maybe a couple dozen a year for various home service stuff.
(That said, I probably only deposit 5 or 6 checks a year. So putting them in an ATM at the bank wouldn't be a horrible inconvenience. And they are getting less and less common.)
Yes, sadly they're pretty common. My wife's side business is almost always paid with a check. I regularly, but not frequently, receive doctors bills or similar without online payment options, so I have to write ~12 checks/year. My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well. Sane for some random laborers (lawn, paint) who are working by word of mouth (and not employed by a larger firm). And it's pretty common for elderly people to use them to pay for groceries.
I guess my counter-question is what does the rest of the world do for doctors bills or paying laborers who don't accept payment via Paypal/Venmo?
Here in Ecuador it's mainly cash, but it's becoming more common to just do a normal bank transfer from a mobile phone. The banking app of my bank here (Pichincha) has a built-in option to share the payment as a .jpg via Whatsapp (or any messaging app) as a sort of confirmation to the recipient.
In the Netherlands banking apps let you create "Payment Requests", which is basically a URL you can share with someone to have them pay you (you can pre-fill the amount they need to pay). Typically, if you open such an URL on your phone, it will let you jump into your banking app of _your_ bank to make the actual payment (even if the payment request is from a different bank than the on you're using).
> And it's pretty common for elderly people to use them to pay for groceries.
Interesting. I'm not even sure a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here.
> My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well
Here it'd be either cash in hand, or a bank transfer (same as rent, really). All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. You can sometimes run into issues if their bank account is in a different country to the bank you're transferring from—it's unlawful to discriminate between IBANs in different countries, although it tends to goes unpunished—but there's usually workarounds to that.
All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit.
What is this dark magic?!?! lol. The US is comically awful at consumer banking.
And actually just to add to the last question of your comment. We'd also pay for doctors bills by either cash, card, or direct debit. Healthcare in Ireland isn't perfect (long waiting times—but you can go private for quicker care), but it's relatively cheap (free under a certain income, in the cases of certain long-term medical conditions, and above a certain age), and heavily subsidized.
My sister recently had a stay in hospital, and then later an emergency room visit. As far as I'm aware, it all totaled less than €200 (half of which will be refunded by insurance, and another 20% of the remainder as a tax credit), which was all paid for partially by card (to the GP who referred us to the hospital), and partially by bank transfer (to the hospital).
You still get printed bills with the bank account number to send the money to in Germany; only big change in the past decade is that that bank account number is a long IBAN number with the bank’s ID and a checksum rolled in.
I mean, they still exist here in Ireland, my biological grandmother sent me one last christmas; it's still sitting on my desk and I haven't gotten around to cashing it.
If your grandmother balances her checking account every month, it's extra work for her to have outstanding checks.
Also, people at the poverty level often don't know how much money they have to spend for the month until their rent and utility payments are deducted from their account. (they don't do math)
> Also, people at the poverty level [..] (they don't do math)
I'm sorry, but what the fuck sort of paternalistic and defeatist attitude toward education is that?
EDIT: I would like to apologize, I swore in my previous edit of this comment. I did not swear enough. Seriously what the absolute fuck sort of attitude is that toward people and swearing?
'I like to use' is not the same as 'mandatory.' You can call a taxi, you can beg a lift, you can hitchhike, you can walk, you can drive.
The Netherlands has a supermarket (Marqt) which does not accept cash. Thankfully, there are alternatives. Marqt is also so expensive that you're either a yuppie with a debit card or can afford to pay a shopper if you're getting your food there.
That seems rather circular. By definition Uber is a (supposedly) improved taxi service built on mobile computing/data service. If you were transported back in time before smartphones were common/socially essential, Uber wouldn't exist at all.
That would be like an older person complaining they "have to have a smartphone" to see pictures of their grandkids, when it's actually the other around. Because smartphones exist, they can see pictures they otherwise would not have seen at all because no one would have driven to the store, printed them out, and mailed them (or had a camera to take them with) without that technology.
Contrast that to something like parking, where using a phone app provides convenience and decreased operating costs, but the service itself is in no way dependent on people having phones.
>Contrast that to something like parking, where using a phone app provides convenience and decreased operating costs, but the service itself is in no way dependent on people having phones.
Well, if you can no longer pay for something that you used to be able to pay for with coins, you've lost something with a smartphone requirement.
Otherwise I get your argument but, if instead of smartphone, you say computer--now say that you don't really need a computer. You can phone people on your landline but many people won't pick up. OK, you can't use Amazon but there are local stores you can get to. And so forth. At some point, it's probably not like you'll starve but you're cut off from a lot of modern interaction.
Uber/Lyft are so much more reliable than a standard taxi. Before the ridesharing apps, I'd had several experiences of trying to call a taxi company to come pick me up (this is in San Francisco). It never arrived after repeated calls to the dispatcher, saying "it's on the way." If they're overbooked, they simply ignore the requests and you have no remedy other than to call another taxi company, which is likely similarly impacted.
Some restaurants link to their non-optimized printing quality PDF. A few restaurants have made me download a 20 MB PDF, sometimes, while consuming my small and expensive roaming package.
> while consuming my small and expensive roaming package.
I'm curious. Do you get roaming charges having cross state-lines in the US, or do you have a nation-wide data package? Here in the EU, I'm on a plan that gives me unlimited data anywhere in europe, for around 30€ a month.
Roaming isn't really correlated with political boundaries like state lines here in the US. It tends to be when you're in a rural area that only a competing service has bothered to put up towers in.
I go to rural areas all the time. I have yet to see roaming charges and I have T-mobile. I don’t have data roaming charges anywhere in the world - just slower data outside of North America.
> Here in the EU, I'm on a plan that gives me unlimited data anywhere
Interesting. But those plans are not everywhere. I believe that the EU law is having a cap of (currently) 2€/GB for data consumption beyond the amount allowed outside home borders, which is computed by some providers as a proportion of the monthly fee.
I've also seen where you have make your order on the website and then they deliver it to your table. I'm not sure if there was even any other way to order and pay.
I succumbed to the smartphone in 2019 because my university expected it, both formally (2 factor authentication for student email/canvas/registration account) and informally (professor deciding to use an online quiz game as a fun way to review material and give extra points).
Additionally every bank has an app and some of them don't have branches in every city so they say "just deposit checks via mobile"
We went to an amusement park this summer and they no longer give out paper maps of the park. We had to squint at the online map on the tiny screens of our phones.
It was a shame because I would have liked to give out maps to the kids so they could navigate/orient themselves.
A few days afterward, I actually went to the trouble of printing nice legal-sized color versions of the map at Staples to give to the kids as mementos. Sure enough, they loved looking at and discussing those maps just like I did as a kid.
Next time we go I'm printing maps ahead of time so we can have them while we're there.
US sports are already headed there. Proprietary apps help them control (eliminate) the secondary market in two ways: they broker transactions between people (app-to-app) and prevent scalpers from transacting paper tickets.
MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL all do this with league-branded apps and/or partnerships with Ticketmaster, etc
With my current MLB tickets I can take a screen shot of the ticket and text it to somebody else. Much easier than a ticketmaster transfer. The world cup is using a time base code to prevent any transfer of tickets.
Being able to call an Uber or Lyft when I need it has made it much easier to live without a vehicle. I have tried to call a cab company using the phone before, but even they have transitioned to using apps for dispatch now.
Would add airports. If I’m not checking a bag, I can walk straight to security, do an iris scan at CLEAR and show my digital boarding pass to security and at the gate.
That said, there are manual workarounds to almost everything requiring a smartphone. They’re simply less efficient.
OTOH it only takes you thirty seconds to transmute your confirmation number into a paper boarding pass at the check in stations, which are empty now that everyone uses apple/android wallet. Maybe that would actually be better even if you have a smartphone, if you are concerned about battery life or roaming charges.
In the US--I can't speak to CLEAR--but even with TSA Pre you have to show your ID. (I'm not sure they've even looked at my boarding pass when I've flown recently. I assume the computers are correlating my ID with the flight reservation in the system.)
If I can conveniently print out a boarding pass either at home or at the airport I tend to do so. That way I'm not fiddling with my phone when I don't need to.
(I think I've seen it the other way around in London at least.)
> I can walk straight to security, do an iris scan at CLEAR
I'm sorry, what? Outside the US I just show my boarding card prior to going through security. I'm pretty sure my ID doesn't get checked until I board the plane, so hearing that you show biometrics is a bit jarring.
I was in the US a few weeks ago, but I can't remember if I had to show ID when going through security on leaving. I tend to work on autopilot when navigating airports.
It's been a while since I have flown anywhere, but I don't think we check ID at the gate here? So it's not really any better or worse, it's just at a different point in the process.
You might be right. I'll be honest, my approach to airports and flying is to have a few drinks once I get past security and then sleep my way as best I can through the flight. I can't remember if my passport was checked when I boarded on leaving Seattle.
I have one but didn't want it be a barrier to my funds. So I called the bank and they hit a button that it is no longer required. Perhaps email for second factor?
I've been using email for the last few years, and just this month my bank made a change so that you MUST use a phone call or SMS. NO getting around it. Can't even use something like an authentication app... so I MUST have a SIM with an actual number.
Yes. Absolutely. It also is more error prone and a dangerously distopic way for governments or corporations to target an individual since governments only seem to get stronger through surveillance and the codification of emergency powers that become permanent.
I love the convenience but it needs to be an option, not an obligation.
Digital currencies that are functionally equivalent to cash are now possible, using agent-based systems. The zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption is scalable, if only a pseudo-random subset of the nodes need to prove the transfers are correct.
Anything less privacy- and liberty-conserving is a strict downgrade from cash.
Why should anyone prefer some band of zealots controlling their financial lives?
>if only a pseudo-random subset of the nodes need to prove the transfers are correct
How is the pseudo-random subset selected, assuming the presence of an adversary controlling part of the transaction data and a significant percentage of nodes?
In the implementations I’ve designed - both parties to the transaction control the content of the transaction payload,so it’s hash is not determined by either party (the attacker, in particular).
The subset of hosts is determined by the hash of the transaction.
The people arguing for a cashless society should come to China. A rare protest happened during the party Congress here and hundreds of thousands of WeChat users who shared the photos were banned from the platform. For those who dont know, Wechat is an essential app and service in China used for everything from identification and payments. This is what you are promoting.
Also discriminates against folks that would like a semblance of privacy as well. Been trying to get rid of my smartphone while every service and product around is trying to make it the only option.
Related, last night I started watching this B-movie on Netflix, called "Johnny Mnemonic." (Had never seen it despite being a Bill and Ted fan.)
From the 90s but set in 2021. In it there is a criminal underbelly consisting of folks who reject oppressive technology called the "Lo-Teks" ... and I thought wait a minute, that's me! That's my gang. Even get to hang out with Ice-T. :-D
I think there is a huge shadow economy with cash money only. If I look to some people running businesses. It's quite common to occasionally do something in cash without paying taxes on it. Used to buy things like gasoline for boats, car restoration, art and more. I think when this shadow economy is gone, some people will have a harder time living a luxury life. Maybe in the end it will be better to have this shadow world.
Part of it is because visa and mastercard charge these big fees for their service that make it difficult for small businesses to cover costs and be competitive. A few restaurants by me that are legit brick and mortars (versus stands), have card service, still offer a cash discount of 4%. For stuff like food trucks or table setups on the sidewalks, I don't blame them for going all cash and flying under the radar from the IRS, considering how difficult it is to establish a small business in this county and maintain everything in order as far as the local/state/federal government are concerned. Its almost like the laws are designed to make it difficult unless you have a 'fixer' on your side telling you what forms to file and how to deal with things from the government, just based on people I know who run businesses here and have had to use fixers themselves to understand the byzantine tax process or other licensing issues.
> I think there is a huge shadow economy with cash money only.
Oh yes absolutely. The number of $100 bills are more than $1 bills and less than 20% are in circulation inside US [1], meaning significant portion of that is being used for shadow economy. I am pro cash, but the US could probably print less $100 bills. Of course, there is also other currencies, financial instruments and crypto that can be used instead of $100 bills.
> Maybe in the end it will be better to have this shadow world.
It's hard to tell, but we do know that forcibly trying to remove the shadow economy is extremely tough on normal people while bigger players are already diversified with alternatives (gold, crypto, other currency) to have much impact. See India for recent example [2].
Another issue is places like ticketed venues making cash-free a term of sale. You can't buy anything with cash in places like Citi Field or Hershey Park.
I'm running into this. A family member is in the hospital, but she took care of all the bills and whatnot. Her husband is having a very hard time figuring out how to pay bills, etc. I've been helping him out but the situation is teaching me how hard it is to do things for someone outside of technology these days.
Or those with bad credit. I have had two coworkers that couldn't deposit anything to their accounts because the banks would automatically charge their pending loans.
One of them was a victim of identity theft in which a five figure loan was made on her name, and the other had a legal order due to a debt from her ex-fiancee due to a cancelled wedding.
The point being made is the legal system sometimes chooses losers, whether the fault of the system or their own. We remove the escape hatch for those losers.
If you really want to argue that the legal system makes no mistakes then do it in front of the graves of those who were wrongly sentenced to death.
Where did I say that the legal system makes no mistakes? I don’t know about you but I live in a society that chose to have a legal framework that we all abide by even if it will never be perfect. Just like you can’t choose to not go to prison because you think the verdict is unjust, you shouldn’t be able to avoid a monetary judgment. If I think paying taxes is unjust, can I stop paying? No.
Judgements in the long-term are fine. Sometimes you need to eat right now, and having every cent scooped/locked up is too draconian. That's why "garnishing wages" is often done instead.
I would prefer to be able to pay without my name attached to every payment but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do. I do not want the right to a bank account, I want the right to pay anonimously in cash.
For me, it's not even about the privacy, but about preserving my cognitive space and refusing to deal with paperwork and process I don't see as necessary, such as forms, statements, fees, annoying websites, and so on.
Given PSD2, its lackings and its bad implementations, some of us going towards the right of not having one - it is just the right of not being involved in lunacies.
Some places in Africa, you get paid in 'minutes' on your phone. Some app lets you transfer this credit, and thus it's used as some sort of cashless payment.
If I remember it right.
So anyway it seems the article's question can be answered with a resounding No! if folks in Africa see this as cheaper than ordinary currency.
The experience in Africa and Asia does seem to suggest that, like it or not, many people who are clearly poor appear able to deal with cashless transactions just fine. Of course, arguably it's become more the norm in some places (and maybe cash is more problematic) so people just deal with it.
The problem lies in credit card system, which discriminates against poor. As long as the cashless system is not built on top of a credit card, it does not have the problem. Look, a person with volatile currency can use bitcoin to protect himself, other financial instruments to do so normally only available for the very rich.
Africa had this running via SMS on flip phones over a decade ago, no app needed. You didn't have payment terminals much of anywhere outside the big cities, so that's just how electronic payments on the ground tended to work.
> Does cashless society discriminate against the poor and elderly?
Of course it does. But so did society that started adopting the telephone, or automobiles, for people who didn't have money to buy telephones or cars, or didn't want to get on board the technological change. And what doesn't discriminate against poor people, by the way? The poor are always getting the short end of the stick. You come up with ways to help them, but railing against a new technology because it disadvantages some has never worked.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of cashless, but whatever the technology is, life adopts it and moves on. People have to deal. Or they die and get replaced with people who do. You will never get 100.000% of the people on something that takes away what you used to rely on.
> society that started adopting the telephone, or automobiles
Personal telephony and mechanized personal transportation have been empowering assets, extras, while transactions in the market are basics - you live and could live without cars and phones, while living without money is a completely different enterprise.
> railing against a new technology because it [has] disadvantages
That is not what the article is doing. And the real disadvantages are beyond «the discrimination of the poor and the elderly».
> People have to deal
A circular assumption in which "history justifies history" and explicitly poses nothing.
My mom has developed an eye problem, that - while not making her totally blind - makes impossible for her to use Pos' and ATM's, let alone the (crappy) bank website or app. (with a lot of difficulties, in the "right" lighting, in the comfort or her house, she can still read the screen and type on her devices).
She is "technologically advanced" (within limits, she has an iPad and Facebook and e-mail, and a smartphone and Whatsapp and can use them).
Since a couple of years she doesn't use anymore her card(s) simply because she cannot see the Pos or ATM display or keypad, and she has switched (back) to cash-only for the small day-to-day payments, while I manage all the other ones.
If shops started to implement cashless only she would be severely affected, and deprived of the little things she now still enjoys doing, like going out to get a coffee, buy some groceries, etc.
Ever since I read all the hand wringing about how higher gas & energy prices are regressive & hurt the poor I’ve come to the same viewpoint as you. It’s not like I prefer high energy prices, but in a capitalist system that’s pretty much the system working as designed.
I mean yes, I'm not trying to be cruel or unsympathetic. We should help and minimize the harm to people who are being left behind.
But equally, gasoline used to cost $1/gallon. People used to communicate by mail and have to use pay phones.
Then people came to be expected to buy more efficient cars, pay more for gasoline, and communicate electronically. And by the way, many people who aren't dealing successfully with things getting more expensive are because they're being very inefficient. Think of all the houses and cars that were totally inefficient before higher energy prices caused them to upgrade?
India, has during the covid lockdown silently developed and implemented world's largest National digital payment system called ['UPI'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface). Although, India is far from cashless, but this year the amount of money transacted through UPI crossed 1 billion USD for the first time, even though most of the transactions through UPI are low value transactions.
Now-a-days, it's really common to see your typical vegetable vendor (basically a single person establishment, selling his goods in a mobile platform with 4 wheels) display a UPI QR code for payment. Google Pay in India has integrated their systems with UPI and are among one of the biggest payment services.
> but this year the amount of money transacted through UPI crossed 1 billion USD for the first time
You're off by a few zeroes. UPI transactions totalled 1 trillion USD last year. Figures from last month can be seen on their website - nearly $135 billion for September 2022.[1]
That's right.. but the use wasn't widespread.
The demonetization exercise and in quick succession to it, the covid lockdown helped UPI up the scale, exponentially.
Many immigrants form vast-spanning yet tight social networks in their host nations. I know religious immigrant leaders who easily get mutiple times the road mileage I used to get in my peak >1-hour-commute years. These in promptu institutions provide an immense benefit to their community by organzing activities, giving assistance in their dealings with the broader society and maintaining a sense of home. Organizing this costs money and it is entirely funded by donations from the community. Put frankly, a cashless society would mean these communities would be taxed out of existence.
Another interesting question: what does it to to youth?
If you grow up with the idea of "money" as a stack of coins and notes that disappear as they're consumed, does it create a different perspective on spending and saving than seeing it primarily as a score on a screen?
I can recall a bit of a parenting crisis back in the '80s, where there was concern that children wouldn't learn to read an analog clock face; there's probably some knock-on factors about understanding fractions and modulo arithmetic. I'd expect similar needs for physical money; change making is fast mental math.
I think we need a law that states cashless (in-person) PoS systems may only exist iff the cashless "currency" used is void of any fees (both for buyer and seller). Not to be confused with current systems that are cash or card.
Every time I read something like this I'm surprised to hear about businesses preferencing credit card users. While I can understand it happens (in flight purchases being the most obvious I've seen), my experience has mostly been either cash & card are both taken, or cash is preferenced - sometimes via a minimum order to run a credit card, sometimes via a small fee, or in the extreme, some businesses only take cash.
And I'm talking about in San Francisco. Where we are far too proud of our tech & tech literacy. I don't think I've seen a single credit card only business in town... Though maybe I'm just oblivious.
Card only brick-and-mortar stores are banned in SF[1], although it’s not strictly enforced. There’s definitely a lot of places that are card preferred though, especially post Covid.
It does but even if it didn't, it shouldn't discriminate against anybody. Cash is an essential thing, almost like the air you use to speak and breathe, food and basic hygiene. Even known criminals, even terrorists as long as they are allowed to live, should have an unconditional right to exchange some basic amounts of money to take care of themselves and be capable of productive interactions with the surrounding world.
If I could pay for something completely with something I know and not what I have. I would feel I could leave my house without keys and without a phone or bank card.
So need some form of secure identity that can scale and be secure even on insecure terminals.
Perhaps a combination of password, mobile phone number, PIN and email. Then you could verify the transaction with the email or phone. But you could also opt to not use phone and email for a less attestation that you transacted.
You can often pay with something you wear (with Apple Pay). But I would never depend on it so I do carry a small wallet. And I need keys for my car (which is probably just as well).
It's not cashless society that discriminates, in a large part, it's the government and it's post 9/11 KYC/AML (over) regulations that do.
If not for those, you could trivially purchase a Visa/Mastercard prepaid card at every convenience store, shrink-wrapped, no signup / personal details necessary, and then top it up with cash.
> many restaurants refuse to accept cash due to combination of incentives from credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard and desire to create a frictionless experience for high-value customers
This is puzzling... How does refusal to accept cash from X create a frictionless experience for Y?
It also discriminates across the middle class - it enables to nickel and dime them like never before (never mind the privacy implication and total government control of your wallet and purchases aspects)...
I can't imagine we'll have banknotes and coins in 100 years from now. Cash is neither efficient nor environmentally friendly. The efforts around helping the marginalized groups should be focused on getting them a debit card not keeping cash around.
Giving the state and large corporations an unelected veto power (without due process!) over your ability to transact is an express train to a society without anyone having the ability to meaningfully dissent.
I am curious, shouldn't our thought process be more aligned with "how can we create checks and balances so that government doesn't get to use this whenever they please?" Like, what's stopping "the government" to call a swat/missile strike to your house because they don't like you, except for these checks and balances? Surely they have all other ingredients necessary? As far as I understand government already has other ways of making your life incredibly inconvenient, so why should we try to halt what most people see as technological progress instead of trying to legislate responsible uses of governmental power?
Once again, genuinely confused about why one of these approaches are being talked about a lot more on this thread. If I am missing something very obvious, I would appreciate a pointer.
They can’t really swat everyone who does something they don’t like, that doesn’t scale.
It’s why private arms ownership (in the millions) and ability to use cash (also in the millions) IS one of the (only effective) checks and balances.
The idea of the state having effective state-based checks and balances to restrain the power of the state is nonsense. We tried that and got a military-industrial takeover of all 3 branches via universal communications surveillance of every single judge, congressperson, and chief executive/cabinet by unelected military spies. There are people in the USG who know the location tracklogs and call history, iMessage history, iCloud Photos, email contents, and fb/wa/ig DM contents of every single mistress, sex worker, bag man, and drug dealer that services every individual member of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as their entire personal and professional staff, and can threaten or blackmail any of them at will. In theory there are checks and balances over these spies, but in practice once they have that kind of power, they have enough power to keep abuses of same out of the newspaper.
It’s like the police stopping police crime; it is a nice idea in theory but does not happen in the real world.
To maintain a free society you must maintain the practical ability for millions to do things that are legal but that the state REALLY does not want them to do. Payments are #1 on that list as they enable publishing and organizing.
Also, the USG does call in missile strikes on US citizens (as well as their entire families) that they simply don't like, and checks and balances don't stop that at all:
Another angle to diffuse their power here is the idea of radical transparency.
Once everything is public, and you have nothing to hide, it is very difficult to be blackmailed or coerced in the traditional ways govts have thought about this tactic.
You're not going to find hundreds of people to staff a legislature (or the tens of thousands that comprise their personal and professional staff) that aren't vulnerable to extortion by disclosing their use of sex workers, drugs, deviant behavior, illicit cash payments to cover up same, etc - nor should you! It's just not going to happen. Furthermore, even if you believe in such systems, you want to optimize for leadership, vision, and fairness, not unextortability. Otherwise you just get a calcified bunch of squares running things.
Any governing body large enough to manage all of the affairs of a country of hundreds of millions or billions of people is going to comprise in the thousands of people, and there will be dirt for the finding on almost all of them. Remember, you don't need actual proof - you just need enough circumstantial evidence that the threat of cancellation/impeachment/resignation/etc is credible.
Oh, another reason: using payment cards means that every transaction is linked to your identity. If the state doesn't like you, it's very hard for them to stop you from buying a hot dog from a street vendor for $5 in cash. It's very easy for them to point-and-click stop you from transacting (without due process) if everything is card payment only. With the way most people buy mobile service (identity-payment-card-linked), this makes it possible to e.g. deny transactions (including purchase of food) to everyone that was in a certain street protest.
The ways they have of making your life inconvenient escalate to making your life completely unlivable (e.g. unable to buy food/clothing/shelter, or ride a bus) in the absence of anonymous payment systems.
BSA/PATRIOT make it illegal to issue payment cards in the US that aren't strong identity-linked.
Cash isn't so much useful because it's cash, it's useful because it's not linked to identity. If anyone could buy prepaid payment cards that didn't require identity, then this would be much less of an issue (but would still link multiple transactions together in time and space, which is its own privacy issue).
If there is no need to have third-party controlled video cameras in your bedroom, and you can opt-out of the "service", you do not need to regulate their use.
Of course laws against abuse should be developed so that when you need the service you are protected - but the main thing is that the service is not forced on you.
We already live in that world. Try paying your taxes in anything that isn't USD. Why is that relevant? Because you need to pay sales tax or VAT or income tax on almost every transaction which means even if you barter you are going to need dollars to pay the taxes. If the economic system does not provide you enough currency to pay your taxes then nothing else gets done even if you introduce your own superior currency.
What is being proposed by CBDC, and digital ID, health pass, social media, etc (even some proposals to roll all into one) means that there will literally be an API (wrapping the other APIs) that can categorize and punish (future policy will use it to do it no doubt... "Carrot and stick") people by the tens of millions, effortlessly and automatically, based on what happens to one part of the aforementioned being seamlessly linked to the rest.
So yes, right now they can "unperson" someone in a targeted fashion across a dozen (for now) unlinked channels working together in different ways, which we just see happening to people we consider undesirable, extreme, or hateful etc.
But they cannot do that in a serious and automated way at scale across all channels to a more average person (right now the more manual approach is too much effort). They are currently proposing+building APIs that enable it at scale.
Currently, all I can do is politely decline and insist that I neither have the Play nor Apple store; I still find it uncomfortable even giving away my phone number. I couldn't even get into my gym the other day, since they'd transitioned to app sign-in only (phasing out barcode tags); I'm forced to beg the attendant to look me up by phone number every time.
*EDIT: I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic