{"id":8431,"date":"2019-11-08T11:36:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8431"},"modified":"2019-11-08T11:36:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:36:22","slug":"paypal-says-the-death-of-cash-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8431","title":{"rendered":"PayPal Says the Death of Cash Is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently wrote a couple of posts, here<\/a> and here<\/a>, about how we are moving to an essentially cashless society and the problems and backlash it\u2019s bringing. The TL;DR is that it\u2019s now possible to live your life pretty much without handling actual cash\u2014I know I do\u2014and that many merchants started adopting a \u201cno cash\u201d policy. Those policies were met with resistance for a variety of reasons that are discussed in the two posts.<\/p>\n

Having written those posts, I keep seeing, in accordance with Baader-Meinhoff, articles about going cashless and the backlash against it. The latest is a CNBC<\/a> article on PayPal CFO John Rainey who says that the death of cash has arrived<\/a>. It was killed, he says, by the rise of digital payments and smart phones. PayPal sees itself as a enabler\u2014through such services as Venmo<\/a>\u2014of the new cashless society.<\/p>\n

If you recall my previous posts, you know that the principal argument against a cashless society is that many poor people don\u2019t have access to banks1<\/a><\/sup> or credit cards. Rainey notes that 70% of these people do<\/i> have a mobile device and says that PayPal is going to solve the cashless problem by bringing the power of a bank branch and its financial services to those devices. It\u2019s not clear from Rainey\u2019s remarks exactly how this would work without a bank or bank-like institution holding the funds to be transferred. It will be interesting to hear more details.<\/p>\n

\n

Footnotes:<\/h2>\n
\n
1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n
\n

\nAs soon as Irreal achieves world domination, use of the term \u201cunbanked\u201d or any of its derivatives will be a capital offense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently wrote a couple of posts, here and here, about how we are moving to an essentially cashless society and the problems and backlash it\u2019s bringing. The TL;DR is that it\u2019s now possible to live your life pretty much … 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":[201,111],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-cashless","tag-digital-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","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=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8432,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}