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Comment by paulgerhardt | Hacker News Reader

On average credit cards have almost 2x the volume of germs as cash[1], but in this era I would be more concerned about the POS terminal itself.

Even with contactless cards or Apple Pay I still have to touch the same screen the previous customers (even just to tip). I would expect the terminal to be as dirty as a typical public door handle.

There may be a hygiene case for using QR codes as is universal now in China - but until we solve the privacy concerns I wouldn’t argue for it.

[1] https://lendedu.com/blog/dirty-money-credit-cards/

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The number of germs isn't a useful measure. A credit card is probably full of your own germs, while cash comes to you with a representative sample of other peoples' microbiota. A screen could be effectively wiped even for every single customer, or you could wash/disinfect that one fingertip, or use one of the strawberries you are paying for (remember not to eat it).

Why do you have to touch the screen? Here in Australia, I never make physical contact with anything.

There are still prompts on the terminal like “credit or debit” or “please enter your PIN” or “type your phone number for reward card points” or “push X if you want orphans to starve”. (Safeway has the last one commonly.)

The US is very far behind when it comes to payments. It's still quite common for someone to take your card and swipe it and want a signature.

Every time I go down there from Canada I get confused and feel like I've gone back in time 8 years.

When my dad comes from Canada to the US, he still has to touch it because he has to enter a PIN. But at most stores, when I use the chip from my US card, I don't have to touch the terminal at all.

> On average credit cards have almost 2x the volume of germs as cash[1]

They measured this by surface area, which makes zero sense in this context. You need to measure by value spent. If I need to spend $200 over a week in multiple errands, how many germs for a card vs cash? The credit card is always the same germs while the notes are new germs every time they change hand and can spread nasty stuff much more easily.

QR is a pain compared to contactless payments. The problem I have is that I have a transit card as well as a credit card, so I can’t just slap the back of my phone (which has both cards) onto the POS.

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