{"id":8365,"date":"2019-10-09T11:43:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T15:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8365"},"modified":"2019-10-09T12:02:26","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T16:02:26","slug":"cashless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8365","title":{"rendered":"Cashless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commenting on my Obsolete Tech That Refuses to Die<\/a> post, Johnathan Mantey<\/a> remarked that a technology that is having a hard time obtaining traction is cashless transactions and he pointed me to a USA Today article on going cashless<\/a>. There are two sides to the idea of going cashless. The first side is that of consumers like you and me. We can pretty much be cashless. I haven\u2019t used actual cash in some years. My only \u201ccash-based\u201d transactions are the occasional checks I write to those two small business I mentioned in the Obsolete Tech post. Everything else is Apple Pay or a physical credit card.<\/p>\n

The other side is the merchants\u2019. Although I\u2019ve never encountered one, some merchants are refusing to take cash. You can see why it\u2019s an attractive option for them. Beyond the obvious benefit of speeding up checkout, it also means the establishment doesn\u2019t have cash lying around to attract armed robbers, their employees don\u2019t have to spend time reconciling cash balances, and no one has to carry cash to the bank for deposit.<\/p>\n

But there is a downside. Some people\u2014mostly poor people\u2014don\u2019t have bank accounts, let alone credit cards. Refusing to take cash prohibits these people from taking advantage of a merchant\u2019s services, whatever they are. Naturally, this created an opportunity for politicians to pander that was not ignored. Rather than find creative solutions to the problem\u2014see the solution used by Atlanta\u2019s Mercedes Benz stadium discussed in the USA Today article\u2014they simply passed laws outlawing the practice.<\/p>\n

Really, they needn\u2019t have bothered. Most merchants who tried the cashless option have decided to take cash after all. They feel it\u2019s more equitable and many of their customers\u2014even those who did<\/i> have credit cards\u2014objected to the cashless policy.<\/p>\n

From the credit-card-using consumers\u2019 point of view, it doesn\u2019t matter. I very<\/i> rarely see anyone using cash at supermarkets or other \u201ceveryday\u201d places let alone in upscale establishments. The amount of time I\u2019ve spent waiting in line for someone to pay in cash is negligible. The conclusion, I think, is that going cashless is mostly an advantage for merchants.<\/p>\n

That said, there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t move to a cashless society. The advantages to merchants, and ultimately consumers, are manifest. Sweden has shown that it can be done<\/a>. We can do it here in the US too. We\u2019ll achieve a cash-free society when we start finding solutions to the problems instead of pandering. So never.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commenting on my Obsolete Tech That Refuses to Die post, Johnathan Mantey remarked that a technology that is having a hard time obtaining traction is cashless transactions and he pointed me to a USA Today article on going cashless. There … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[201],"class_list":["post-8365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-cashless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8367,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8365\/revisions\/8367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}