Privacy zealots act like perfect anonymity at all times is a human right and we should always work towards it at any cost, when really I think most people agree it's more of a privilege that should only be available under certain circumstances (in your own home, for example).
Right now, the payment industry is very consolidated and Visa/Mastercard have a monopoly on transaction processing. It's expensive, and a privacy nightmare. Maybe when there is a government sponsored option that doesn't sell your information to anyone who wants it it'll be fine, but until then- No.
There's also the big reason that there is large parts of our population that don't have access to the regular banking system for one reason or another. Once you get black marks on your banking record and get kicked out, it will be very hard to get back in.
Getting the unbanked and underbanked is a similar policy issue: support the post office operating as a bank with reasonable fees, as is done in other countries. What’s it cost to maintain deposit accounts at scale for Americans unbanked? Roughly $5MM-$10MM a year in administration expenses. This is a rounding error in the federal budget.
Without third parties who exchange money for something, money itself cannot exist. So the concept of money "strictly without any third party at all" doesn't make much sense.
Water is worth more when you’re thirsty.
As long as the cash is available, the two of you are able to have an exchange.
If another payment processor is involved, that freedom changes dramatically.
1. You must have another means of transacting, bank card, etc
2. Seller must have a way to process your transaction and hopefully his way accepts what you have to offer (Visa, etc).
3. The way to process the transaction must have some type of connection available to report success.
4. If for any reason the payment methods involved don’t think one of you should be allowed to proceed...it denies the transaction.
Ultimately, this adds a lot more friction to the process and requires someone else give permission before the transaction is allowed to proceed.
Cash itself is just streamlined bartering. No 3rd parties means no 3rd parties involved in allowing the transaction to move forward aside from the 2 involved.
And you can turn around and use that cash in another cash transaction, and so on and so on, forever...without another a bank or anything else ever being involved.
Why have an original take when you can argue against a ridiculous straw man?
And if you are about to say "as long as they have a warrant..." keep in mind that the warrant is likely to access privacy-violating information that should not have been collected in the first place (according to privacy advocates).
> If you disagree, please share how you believe detective work is compatible with strong privacy.
Detective work seemed to happen just fine before digital money when there was only cash. Blanket surveillance didn't happen because it was impossible or too costly to do. I'm not saying anything about this theoretical "strong privacy".
> Cash has its own problems though - it's much easier to use it to avoid taxes, launder money, etc. when using cash.
Why should law abiding citizens have their rights taken away because some people abuse it? We have the second amendment protecting rights that are arguably much more dangerous, despite how they're abused by criminals. In my opinion, privacy advocates are asking for something much less, and with much less potential for violence -- the ability to make a purchase when they're perfectly law abiding, without some rando recording that, and having it leaked on the Internet for god knows what to happen with it.
Cops wanting access to people's private data is just lazy. They already have access to my cell location records, financial records, surveillance cameras, the testimony of any business that I've visited, and all my public social media. If they want to arrest me for something, they have all the info they need from public channels, they don't also need to intercept my boyfriend's butt pics.
What really makes an investigator's job impossible is when two people meet in the same place and have a private conversation. Are we saying that the digital equivalent of that shouldn't be allowed?