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Additionally, cash is an equalizer for the unbanked/underbanked. Financial institutions take advantage of and punish their least profitable customers. Those who can barely afford overdraft fees, monthly checking account fees, etc. are the only ones who are forced to pay them.
Yes, blockchain technologies can solve some of these problems, but there will always be those who are outside of the banking system, lose/don't have a smartphone, etc. Greenbacks are tangible to the person standing in line to cash a paycheck at Western Union - Ethereum isn't.
People have been paying with plastic since the late 80s. Its free, safe and its easier for the tax man to collect. I used to work night shifts in retail. You don't want to deal with cash.
I've had my Barclaycard since 1972, when I was 16.
I think it's probably fine to let the business decide whatever means of payment they want to accept.
Once upon a time the customer was always right. A business was supposed to serve the customer's needs and did what was necessary to achieve that. Now the business can insert multiple middlemen with commissions and transaction fees and the damn customers can just fall into line. Sharpish please, and no complaints or we'll close your account.
Do we not see a problem travelling down this road? Or do we have to return to barter and hacksilver to decide perhaps cash was useful?
This is going to sound glib, but I assure you that it's offered genuinely: you don't have to do anything.
I would make a point of not supporting such a business but if I'm in a minority and cashless catches on...
The thing we're dealing with here isn't Visa, it's the businesses themselves. They've reached a point where dealing with Visa is cheaper than dealing with cash.
Further, I'm in the minority on a whole bunch of topics, but that's not evidence that a harm or an injury has taken place.
If we end up cashless it will be the poor and elderly who will have the most difficulty. Even now, well over 10 years after the switch, it's reasonably common to see elderly folks in supermarket or bank struggling with chip and PIN.
Like the bit says, even when the phrase was becoming popularized, people saw the inherent flaw in it.
The customer is right, within reason.
You are complaining about a cashless business, one that won't accept the minted currency of the nation.
Which could be a fair complaint.
But if we are to hold to the maxim that the customer is always right, then if I insist on paying in bits of string, then I'm right. If I insist that the value of what I'm taking is far less than you think, then I'm right. At some point, you have to admit that there is a line.
And businesses don't want to insert middlemen, they're dealing with them just like we are. But they're getting to the point where the cost of dealing with those middlemen are less than or equal to dealing with hard cash.
Businesses do want to insert middlemen where they can externalise something else. Either to move another cost or process to the customer or to reduce staff. We've seen the near abolition of customer service by adopting customer service departments that move the activity onto dedicated, and lowly paid staff or outsourced entirely.
For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. In the UK business could not charge extra for taking cards. The second cash costs more it's OK to abandon it and go Visa/MC only?
Yes, it seems they do want to insert middlemen. Visa of course are encouraging this.
But they're choosing their customers with this action. If you can't buy stuff from them, you are not a customer.
> For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time.
Because those were the customers who were spending the money. They didn't have to, they chose to. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that fast food establishments refused to take them. That is a recent change.
What's the benefit of inserting the middlemen?
You may want to pay in bitcoin, nickels, or with bushels of corn, but that doesn't mean any of them are practical or desirable for the business owner on the other end.
Another reductio ad absurdum? Like I replied to bena before you, with well known adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to permit payment in corn. Corn is not the currency in general use, cash is. Do you take every slogan and adage entirely literally?
No, it isn't. That's the point.
1) walmart charges 3% for all purchases outside of walmart
2) walmart charges 1$ for all purchses
3) walmart charges 5$ monthly maintenance fee
4) walmart charges 3$ to 5$ per deposit
5) even to check account status costs 50cents
Holding cash has none of these costs. I am not surprised that there is a large contingent of society that doesn't trust cards and banks.
You also have proper debit cards without fees and anonymous: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/nerdwallets-best-pre...
1) Bank account is a right https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...
2) debit and credit card fees are capped very low http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-e...
This does not remedy privacy issues, but in general is more democratic way of doing things. Card payment cap also effectively killed cashback cards and premium credit cards that largerly favour rich.
True, they try to compensate by pulling some other shitties. Like the old "Do you want to pay in your home currency?" crap.
Worst are ATMs, which offer you to "conveniently guarantee a fixed exchange rate", which can be over 10% of the amount retrieved and - needless to say - which you should never accept.
I have to stop, wait, find my wallet, make sure it has a card with a balance on it, know what that balance is, make sure the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier), and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places?
Just because your cash register is an iPad, doesn't mean you can't handle real money too. What's really going on? Why would a restaurant prefer anything over cash? In my experience, food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books, within a certain margin. So there must be some kind of motive to hook into a payment provider.
If farmers markets, bake sales and lemonade stands can handle a simple cash box, any restaurant certainly can.
But really, we know Dos Toros is a franchise with more than just an iPad for a register, so for sure they're doing something with customer data behind the scenes. Although how much is that worth to a burrito joint? Perhaps it's free payment processing in exchange for exclusive cashless operations plus a data agreement.
This is a gross exaggeration.
> I have to stop, wait, find my wallet
Because you just cram bills in your pocket. No. You'll have to get your wallet regardless. And your wallet hold more than just your credit cards, it holds your license and any other bits you'll need when out and about. Don't act like the wallet exists solely to facilitate credit cards.
> make sure it has a card with a balance on it
This is entirely a different problem. And one that is on you. This is something I don't think about. If you are juggling that many cards, especially ones where you've reached the limit or don't have funds in the account to cover an expense you plan on, that just sounds like poor money management. Your option in a cash-based society would be simple starvation.
> make the card isn't damaged (demagnetized, scuffed chip contacts, curled up in the heat of the clothes drier)
Are you that careless? Also, cash can be damaged by washing machines and such as well. I've never really had to worry about whether or not my card is damaged.
> know what that balance is
Probably the only salient point in that entire block of nonsense. You'd need to kind of remember your balance if you use it daily. But then again, when I was poor, that number was always in my head. And it's not like it would be much different than a checkbook if you wanted to keep track.
> and if I don't have this singleton plastic token that I cannot easily replace or trade, I can't go to certain places?
And? There are all sorts of tokens that restrict your ability to go places that you aren't complaining about.
> food service normally loves cash, because they can report it differently. Tips are quasi-off-the-books
Aka, fraud.
I pay cash for everything but gas, except online purchases. I've been operating this way for most of life.
Treating people as if they're degenerates or below intellectually average for not using plastic (or staying away from Facebook) is uncalled for.
I don't think there's anything wrong with choosing not to use plastic and I didn't say there was.
That's who he's "treating... as if they're degenerates or below intellectually average", people who think "bringing a wallet" is this massive undertaking that requires a paragraph to describe.
Another thing is I can give $20 to a reasonably responsible child and ask them to fetch me a burrito. It's not a good idea to do that with a credit or debit card; I would have authorized them, but if challenged they may not be able to complete the transaction and may have trouble bringing my card back.
Because there is a dramatic reduction in costs from going completely cashless. You don't have to pay for security for cash-on-hand. You don't have to pay for an armored car to transport cash to a bank. If you don't want to pay for an armored car, you don't have to pay (and trust) an employee to do it for you, else paying with your time by doing it yourself. You can serve more customers in less time because you no longer have to make change with each transaction, and you no longer have the cognitive load of ensuring that the bank gives you enough change and in the correct amount on each bank trip so that you can make change for your customers. Because you don't need to trust your employees with cash anymore, you have reduced the risk associated with the hiring of an individual employee, which makes it easier to hire ex-convicts - and in many areas, that (unfortunately) makes it dramatically easier to hire people, period.
Sure, these costs are balanced out by the formal costs associated with card processing fees and no longer being able to partially hide income from the taxman. But the flip side is the improvement in trust between management and labor, which overall ought to make cashless businesses better workplaces.
I was recently in a cashless place that suddenly lost internet access as the cashier(?) was ringing up my food. With no way to charge me I was given my lunch for free and everyone in the line behind me was forced to wait.
If something like this doesn’t exist, it seems like a good startup opportunity.
After a quick search, it looks like someone in Portland tried to do something along these lines: https://www.atmmarketplace.com/news/reverse-atm-caters-to-po...
It doesn’t look like it went anywhere, online info on the company is scant apart from a few press releases.
Basically you’re just talking about offering a physical cash-friendly terminal to the digital economy. Maybe someone should try that angle. Counterfeit and money laundering will be huge issues. It’s hard to anonymously launder money at scale with storebought prepaid cards, because of the humans in the sales loop (which also allow non-money-laundering transactions to happen anonymously). A workable compromise might be to require a SSN/PIN combo at the reverse ATM.
As for counterfeit: sophisticated scanners? I think many banks allow you to deposit cash or checks at their larger, bank-branded ATMs. Perhaps that technology is available. You’ll probably just end up buying “counterfeit insurance” and then try to get whatever tech will drive your premiums down.
The last checking account I opened just took $5 to open the account (technically a "membership" fee at a credit union). No any proof of employment, income, ar assets was needed [0], and I left with a debit card that day. Total time involvement was maybe 15 minutes.
[0] I just re-checked and all that is needed is SSN, Government ID, and the initial deposit (as low as $5, can be paid with cash, debit, credit, or check)
Also, what could be called credit-union deserts. Lots of people don't have access to a credit union, and the large banks charge huge fees on poor people (see "the high cost of being poor"[0]). Past that, some of the above poor people have had terrible experiences with banks and want nothing to do with them. It easily adds up to that ~10% mentioned in the article.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
Some banks are doing these Pre-paid-ish cards now. I know Chase has Liquid, other banks may call it something else. For the most part, it functions mostly like a debit card backed by an actual checking account. But the requirements are far lower. They don't give a flying fuck who you are. You can even get checks to access the funds on the card.
And for like 90% of the time, you'll never realize you don't actually have a checking account. You won't realize that your money isn't technically backed by the bank. Then that 10% of the time will make your life inconvenient.
So I'd say that access to a card-based payment method doesn't seem insurmountable. But an actual checking account could still be out of the reach of some people.
I want a fee-free electronic wallet that is anonymous.
Also, we really need a law saying that the credit card companies (and others in the toolchain) can't use our data for anything but payment processing. I'm sick of being tracked by my transactions.
Transaction fees need to come way down for plastic to beat cash on small sales.
They do have plans which include a fixed per-transaction fee on top of a (lower) percentage, but for a coffee shop I'd guess it's worth paying the higher percentage instead.
Industry average of net income before taxes and net profit after taxes is 1-3% [1]
Independent grocers report net profit of 0.98% [2]
[0] https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/albertsons-compa...
[1] https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket-facts/grocery-s...
[2] http://www.nationalgrocers.org/docs/default-source/0---defau...
But no so if the cashier is your employee. Keeping track of all small deals and ensuring most of them reaches your bank account and not your employee pocket might appear even bigger problem. I know some small dining places where profits 3x skyrocketed since they introduced cards payments (in such places most of the profit comes from small things with crazy margins, such as tea or coffee)
that's for paypal/square, which usually mean card not present, low volume and flat (fee) rate. bigger merchants usually go with a payment processor that offers interchange+, which significantly reduces the fees. a quick check of https://www.adyen.com/pricing/full-list?navItem=northamerica says that visa cards only pay $0.12 + interchange (1 or 2%).
edit: visa interchange rates https://www.helcim.com/us/visa-interchange-rates/
>Interchange++ consists of the following components:
>Interchange fee charged by the banks who issued the card
>Scheme fee charged by the card schemes
>Applicable acquirer markup
More than likely, you'll pay $0.12 + 1.7% interchange on average for card fees + 1.x% in Adyen's fees if you're a small business.
It takes serious volume to get steep discounts, and the entire industry is full of snakes. If your business does enough volume, keep shopping around and pitting people against each other.
I recently renegotiated our rate down to interchange + 2 basis points. (0.02%) along with very reasonable terminal fees, the whole process took several months.
My advice? Focus on growing before optimizing these things.
The largest bank in our country let’s you link you can card (we have a national card that’s both a debit and a credit card in one without really being either), regardless of what bank you use, and they let you use it for free. You can instantly and feelers send money to anyone with the app, you can also use it like Apple/google pay completely feeless. Small business can get a free recipient thingie but larger business have to pay the bank for usage, so for them it works like a regular digital payment system.
Anyway, the real currency is data. The cash register scanner tracks every individual item you buy, the time, the location and so on and because this app is universal, our largest bank knows a lot more about our habbits than google does.
It’s the same for CC companies. They know what you buy at the pharmacy, they know how much alcohol you buy and so on.
Sorry for the bad English, I’m not even sure what stuff like the scanner at cash registers is called in my own language so it’s hard to translate to English.
http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/no-credit-debit-card-fees-e...
Thus, I would dare to state transaction fees are a local political issue, not universal problem. Transaction fees can come down to near zero.
More: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-2162_en.htm
That's despite my whole career being in tech and once thinking such views were the preserve of the tinfoil hat wearers.
Most of the upsides are for the companies, the potential downsides are for the consumers. I don't much like that balance for a tiny bit more convenience.
In germany, I pay almost everything either in cash or via bank transfer, usually pull. I got a prepaid card a while ago, mostly to pay for american services (seriously, I only ever pay to american corporations with it). My debit card (EC card) is almost universal and directly connected to the bank account, no credit needed.
CC is barely supported, EC is a lot better in terms of coverage. Even then I usually apologize when using the card for anything below 100€ or so at my local supermarket.
I don't see much reason to go CC or EC fully, I always keep some cash in my wallet, not too much but enough to hold me over for a week. If I need more I go to the Bank's ATM and get more. Easy.
Cash-free payment would also be fairly illegal, a business must accept cash payments (though a limit of 50 coins is there, notes are unrestricted) for any purchase in person (online businesses don't have to IIRC).
Then there's consumer credit history/score. Americans like to buy houses (it's de facto subsidized by the government through implicitly government guaranteed 30 year fixed rate loans). A high credit score can mean the difference of tens of thousands of dollars over the term of the mortgage. If you have no credit history, you get the worse possible rate. Housing choice determines school district, and therefore whether your children get a good excellent so-so or bad education. House prices are highly correlated with school quality - public schools are free but you have to be able to afford residency. The worse neighborhoods have shootings at night, rampant drug abuse and gangs, burglary/robbery, lack of jobs/grocery stores/medical service/non-convenience retail.
Credit score usage has metastasized into many more facets of life than originally intended. Even if you want to only rent housing, the landlord will check your credit. Good landlords only reject for evictions or out of control debt that suggests you cannot afford rent, but some decide based off score e.g. if your score is below 20th percentile you will not get approved. You cannot get electricity/water/natural gas turned on without a credit check unless you place a large security deposit. Some companies will not hire you if you have bad credit! Those with bad credit have to pay up to double for car insurance.
Of course many people like to spend beyond their means. But even responsible people put themselves at a disadvantage by not participating in the credit system.
It makes a lot of things much smoother overall. Basically, no one questions me once they run the credit check. And if they do, it's more like "Are you sure you don't want another? Something else?"
Contrast that with some people I know who have sub-700 scores. Things are just that much more of a hassle. We were comparing car notes and stuff. And my (now) wife was talking about the company handling her auto loan and I was asking where she got her car because I usually get the loan through the manufacturer's credit house (i.e. if I buy a Honda, I'm paying Honda financial). And she got her car through a dealer, but they had to do a little more work to find her the most favorable loan. Basically people are eager to give me a recurring bill while they're a little more reticent to deal with her.
And it's mostly because she has little to no credit history. I advised her: get a credit card with as high a limit as you can and then just forget about it. I have a $15,000 limit card that I just never use. It exists mainly so my overall use is a lower percentage. I don't think she's ever had a credit card. And I think her previous vehicles were purchased through less direct channels or legally purchased by someone else that she paid for (like her mother got the loan, but she paid it). I think this may be her first vehicle that she's purchased at a dealer.
The U.S. used to have coinage limits as well, but tied to dollar amounts rather than total coins, but those were stricken to make all coinage legal tender.
Which is even funnier when you think about it. Because originally coinage was the tender. It was stamped and minted precious metals of a certain weight.
Bills were basically receipts or scrip that represented those metals. Essentially a token saying "Dude, it's cool, I do really have this money somewhere". And now the big hubaloo is the switch to electronic payments and people are freaking out because it's not real because it's not paper, which also isn't real. Just a representation of credit you have that's backed by the government that issued the bill.
And I wouldn't say it's a need, it's more of a convenience. Instead of mucking about with bills and coins, counting out change, etc, I just swipe or insert. No need to keep anything organized, etc. No need to pop off and find an ATM every week. And I'm not saying it's an earth-shattering difference. It's more like the convenience of going out to eat rather than cooking for the night. But in this case, I'm doing it almost every night.
And I kind of went through the same phases you're describing. When debit cards were becoming ubiquitous, you'd use them for the "big" things. Going out to a "proper" restaurant, stuff that cost more than the cash in your wallet, etc. And yeah, it was like "Ugh, I'm buying a soda with my card, awkward. Sorry". When the first fast food places installed card readers it was like "This is weird. Buying a Big Mac with a card."
But now, the situation is nearly flipped. It's more like when I go through the drive through, if we have to do the cash passing game, I feel bad. The card is simple. Hand one thing over, get it back with a slip of paper.
I get 1.5%-2% cash back with everything purchased with it. I'd be losing money by using a debit card instead. Not to mention the $500 they gave me just for signing up for it.
I also don't to worry about when I get paid. I might only have $100 left in my checking account when I need to buy groceries if the day I get paid falls at a weird time. I don't have to worry about that sort of thing with a credit card, although it is much less of an issue now that I actually have savings than it was when I was in college.
If someone steals my debit card or my cash and uses it, my money is gone. My bank would probably refund me the stolen money if my debit card was used fraudulently, but until that happens I'm still out however much of my own money.
If they steal my credit card, who cares? I'll call the bank and cancel it and in the mean time, none of my actual money has been touched.
> If I need more I go to the Bank's ATM and get more. Easy.
Not having to go to an ATM is even easier than having to go to an ATM.
Cashback almost always is connected with some form of datamining. The 500$ bonus is usually paid back in form of hidden fees somewhere. No money is free.
I don't want to spend money I don't have, ever. And regarding if my card gets stolen, European EC cards are very safe. They aren't CCs where you can just start grabbing cash, you need the pin too and the banks are very aggressive on putting temporary blocks on any transactions (as part of EC, any totally blocked transactions are billed instead and fully transparent for you).
Going to the ATM is easy and it means I have a very good feeling of my weekly and monthly spendings just by looking at how often and how much I use the ATM.
Also while you don’t want to take on debt you can’t pay, there’s nothing too complex about debt and credit. Businesses all largely do their accounting like that, and if you really zoom out, all money is a system of debt and credit: the $20 note in my pocket is credit from my company, since I gave them my labor, they owed me. My company in turn was owed by one of its customers for services my company offered. The customer might have gotten money from their company, and so on.
I'm aware how credit works, but I prefer not to rely on credits for my life, I prefer spending only money I have right now.
> MasterCard is analysing transaction data to help marketers direct targeted advertising at consumers, after launching a controversial initiative to make money from its vast database of retail purchases.
Using cash is currently the only way to opt out of this kind of tracking. Being credit card-only is also being anti-consumer-privacy.
Also, I think "no overdraft fees" is just as wrong as overly punitive overdraft fees. If there were no overdraft fees, credit cards and small loans just wouldn't be a thing. Just overdraft your account and treat it as an interest free loan.
When you overdraft, you are no longer dealing with your money. You're dealing with someone else's money.
So if I have $100 in my account and a pending debit of $50, if I try to make a purchase of $60, it'll get approved because I have $100 in my account.
Now, there are potential things it could do, like treat pending debits like cleared debits. I mean, when I check my balance on my app, it shows the balance with the pending transactions accounted for.
And that does prevent overdrafts from ATMs and debit cards, but there are other debits to the account that could cause overdraft.
It's practically a no-win scenario. If I have an automatic payment to my electric company and I don't have the funds in my account to pay it, I'm fucked no matter which way you look at it. Either I overdraft or my electricity gets shut off due to non-payment.
Anyone should be able to open a bank account without a credit check or abusive fees. A checking account is not credit. Allowing overdrafts to become abusing loads is credit, under terms that could easily be seen as usurious.
Allowing overdrafts because of pending debits is also just a decision that the bank makes. They don't have to do that.
A lot of these things that shouldn't be issues are issues because they're still operating as if there are still people who are managing most of this and physical checks and credit slips are being passed around.
Refusing to honor checks drawn against accounts with insufficient funds has been around for ages, even when everything actually was managed by passing around physical checks.
However, lobbyists from Visa and MasterCard would saddle the program with all sorts of concessions to incumbent payment processors that would make the program cumbersome to use, stifle adoption, and ultimately reinforce their dominant positions.
[0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2014...
The national student card (which can be used to obtain discounts at museums and other cultural places) now also doubles up as a Postepay, so now basically every kid owns a free debit card that can use physically or online as he wants.
Something like this can really speed up card's adoption while avoiding discrimination and in fact this is what I've seen since I was a kid and I had to borrow my dad's card: now all my little cousins own their own little yellow debit card in their name and even use it often in their daily life.
- Most (or maybe all) beggars accept mobile payment by WeChat and/or AliPay
- I cannot recall any time in the past year where a shop, fruit stall or street vendor could not accept mobile payment
- There is a high-end food court nearby where none of the restaurants accept cash. If you can't pay by card/mobile, you need to go to a special counter on the ground floor, and exchange cash for some type of voucher
- My haircuts cost 40 RMB (about 6 USD). I tried to pay with a 100 RMB note, expecting a 50 and a 10 in change, of which I would give the 10 back as a tip. The barber struggled to find the right change, as it's so uncommon for people to pay with cash. So I paid via WeChat, and handed him some extra cash for a tip.
For varying definitions of "ahead" in this context.
Being monitored, followed, tracked, tabulated, bought and sold doesn't sound like "ahead."
Take the overdraft fee, a punishment for desperate or careless customers that netted banks $15 billion in 2016. As many as half of overdraft fees aren’t assessed at an ATM, where customers can see their balance, but at the point of sale—debit card transactions at the counters of shops and restaurants. And the majority of overdraft fees, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported in 2014, came on transactions of $24 or under. Not people stretching to make a big purchase, in other words. Just trying to get lunch.
Those fees are a big source of revenue for the banks. Nothing about convenience for the customer.
Say you have $100 in your account and 5 pending transactions: $6, $12, $1, $30, and $95. In that chronological order. The bank clears the $95 first, then the $6 which overdrafts you, then the rest, overdrafting you 3 more times. Whereas if they processed chronologically, you'd only overdraft the $95.
Regardless, the person whose account it is does bear some responsibility for overdrafting, even for lunch.
The privacy benefits of cash are a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
Canadians can use the first 3 of their postal code.
It was in Florida where I ran into the problem... Definitely no sign where I was :)
That's a good thing. As people are learning in other countries like Sweden.
Privacy is a big deal to me. Plus downtime. Cash always works.
Handling it is sometimes a PITA, but I must say we have a long way to go before electronic systems work well universally.
Ordinary people are confused by them, and there are many janky, ultra cheapo type readers out there.
For me personally, I leave my mobile unconnected to any payment system. I don't need or want that.
I will and do use cards, but it is not very often.
The falsity of this statement is the entire point of the article.
I agree with you otherwise, I think, but this sentence is, now, in this time, unambiguously false.
Cash does not have downtime, and it can be used by anyone.
Now, someone making a business choice to refuse legal tender does not speak to the robustness of said tender, only their choices.
As long as things are good, payment systems running, networks up, that choice can be compelling. When those things are not true, the fall back is what?
Not do business?
Queue transactions and exchange the info needed?
Refer customer elsewhere?
People making cash not work is different from cash not always working.
I agree with you as well, in that "always" needs qualification. Fair enough.
Either way, I will very seriously reconsider most purchases where cash is not an option. It is likely I don't need whatever it is.
But not at the store the article is talking about.
Which is the point of the article.
And now that I know, I'm going to Advocate others don't either.
Very glad I agreed "always" needed to be qualified. The crowd here is sharp, and we benefit mutually from it.
- Gas stations offering cash discounts
- Stores requiring minimum purchases for cards
- Restaurants adding a service fee to use a card
I don't think I every came upon these three items a decade ago, and now they seem standard.
Minimum purchase amounts were way more common when debit cards were becoming a thing.
Basically, you'll find these things mostly in poorer places nowadays where even the store/restaurant owners are struggling and those card fees add up.