Comment by luiscleto | Hacker News Reader

Comment by luiscleto | Hacker News Reader

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> Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless

But if places are forced to accept cash, people who haven't adhered to cashless forms of payments have no incentive to swap. If it is a significant part of the market, then cash-accepting places should still out-compete cashless. If being cashless is such an advantage that the reverse is true, then people should be given incentives to change. This feels to me like a government action that goes against economic interests (whether or not it should still be done is another question, but I'd personally vote against this regulation if given the option).

I find a more interesting argument against this to be the fact that cashless payments actually depend on a corporation or third party entity doing the payment for you. Which, lacking appropriate regulation, would give them the power to ban certain people or business from doing transactions altogether (think China social credit systems).

edit: Regarding the first point, I just mean the government seems to be taking action in the wrong area just for appearances, when the issue would be investigating why people don't have cashless payment options and promoting change there

For me, how much action government should take in these transitions comes down to how much societal benefit comes from having the transition take place.

With energy transition it's obvious: cleaner environment/planet, new industries with safe jobs, elimination of a dangerous job, a healthier population. So it's beneficial for the government to help make the transition happen quicker, and support the people negatively affected by it.

If there are societal benefits towards getting everyone to be cashless (I'm not an expert in this, I simply choose cashless because it's more convenient for me, although I suspect there are larger benefits), then the government should take the same role. Help the transition happen, and support those that will struggle with it. If they're not going to help the transition, or if there are no larger societal benefits with the transition, then the people that still depend on the older option should still be able to depend on it.

> With energy transition it's obvious

Is it obvious though? I find it's more ideological than an actual well thought out plan: https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

Which to me seems to be the case for most scenarios where government adds regulations on the market for the "greater good". In general I favor letting the market decide where things should head.

I'm not against government intervention to help those affected by changes catch up and adapt (even though I often disagree with the policies put in place to achieve this). But I do tend to oppose when the government tries to force the market's direction instead. If people drive the market to want to go cashless, the effort should be in helping everyone do so.

Cash levels the playing field. You don't have to ask a 3rd party "pretty please, let me make this purchase, Visa" (credit) in order to use it. You don't have to pay monthly fees to a bank for a checking account (debit) to use it. You don't need an app and smartphone to use cash. Cash is better for your privacy, it minimizes the paper trail about what you buy where, which is really nobody's business but your own.

I've done a 180 on this one. Used to use a credit card for everything, now using cash more and more whenever possible. Credit is convenient, often provides valuable benefits (miles, cash back) and gives you a nice convenient summary of your monthly spending, but in exchange you're inserting an un-wanted 3rd party into every transaction who skims off value for themselves and then turns around and sells your private data all over the place. This trade-off is making less and less sense to me.

I also take issue with the third party in the middle. But in the end, if everyone wants to go that way, and you're adding extra costs by not doing so, why should everyone else have to pay for it? Ultimately there could be less cash-accepting places and driving higher costs than their cashless counterparts. You would still be able to use cash, but you'd be the one paying for it to exist, and not everyone else who has opted for cashless. Which seems fairer to me.

Unless we collectively decide to take action against giving payment providers that much power and private data, but I don't think that was the driving force behind this policy.

Adding extra costs by using cash? Credit card companies take %3 of every transaction.

Adding costs doesn't mean it is more expensive to you specifically. Just for the economy in general. There are advantages to having cashless payments only. One that comes to mind would be for places in dangerous neighborhoods (which affect low income households more)

>But if places are forced to accept cash, people who haven't adhered to cashless forms of payments have no incentive to swap.

And why should they swap? What advantage cashless brings instead of being a solution in search of a problem (and facilitating total surveillance)?

They shouldn't unless it becomes an economic advantage to do so. That's the point of the free market. I don't think it's the government's place to force it in either direction.

What prevents a large player forcing their hand on the "free market"?

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