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>I'm also very concerned about privacy, I'm that sort of HN person - never had a Facebook account, run self-hosted email for 20 years, use Signal for messaging as much as I can, etc. But I don't think cash is a good solution to privacy. I'd rather see laws and (better) cryptocurrencies as the privacy toolkit.

We wont see those. Instead we'll see more enchroachment of privacy - because cash was actually the solution: existing for millenia, trusted, no transaction fees, no monitoring of purchases, non remotely invalidated, not requiring fancy technology to use, works from buying a car to getting some help as a beggar on the streets.

>That at least is illegal here.

Would that ever stopped companies pulling that shit?

The fees of cash are considerable for many businesses. At least where I live returning money to the bank is not free.

I share to a large degree this viewpoint that I'd rather see laws and better technology as a solution to the ever connected and tracked future that we live in. I try to use cash in Sweden since we don't have those laws yet, but replacing paper, metal and cashiers would be good if the drawbacks could be resolved.

The laws we already have do not work. A large part of Swedish intelligence policy is to trade information with partners like the US, and I would consider it extremely unlikely that highly valuable data like bank transactions was not part of that. The US intelligence policy in turn is known to use such information occasionally for commercial purposes, when it has a national impact.

The Swedish courts are also not trained to deal with low-value evidence data. There is an assumption that if data exists, it must do so because there was a reason someone deemed it worth gathering. This assumption breaks apart when data is always collected as a default, which means courts would need to be retrained when this kind of data is presented as evidence (we are slowly getting there but still very far from where I would feel safe). It also makes investigatory contexts dangerous, especially if records are part of fishing operations where single bit errors in storing, retrieving, copying and relaying records can have extreme effects. This include swish which records are very common in court hearings. In some cases it seems that only a single swish record is enough for someone to get charged with a crime, with the accused having to provide evidence to prove that they are innocent.

> I really don't like cash and am happy to see it basically dead in the country.

What would you do in case of a emergency or natural distaster? Basically a situation where any of the following is not available for any period of time: power, network, financial infrastructure, access to digital devices.

1. On personal level: Maybe your wallet and phone was stolen

2. Region: Power/Network is down

3. National level: the whole infrastructure is down or under attack

Have you been in such situation or thought about it?

This is usually the go-to arguments for cash, though I think it is not the right ones. The right argument is privacy.

These things can be handled easily: In case of an emergency you can just revert to writing credit notes to each other, which is is spirit the same as cash (contracts denoting that someone owes you something).

> On personal level: Maybe your wallet and phone was stolen

This is the same as forgetting to withdraw money and an unfortunate accident. It is also handled quite well already, as modern people have credit cards in their wallet, in their phone and on their watch. So there is already a 3-way backup that needs to break.

> It is also handled quite well already, as modern people have credit cards in their wallet, in their phone and on their watch. So there is already a 3-way backup that needs to break.

Personally, I'd not use the word 'backup' if you can lose all three in a single accident. Also, these are just different forms of access, none of these would work if the infrastructure is down. It seems you dodged my points.

I'm not advocating for cash, more like warning that an online-only system isn't resilient enough in the first place.

In the scenarios I provided, if cash doesn't exist (as per OP wishes), the only solution I see would be going back to trading goods/services. What valuable possession/skills does a person have.

Such robustness is currently a subject of government studies and planning. It's definitely an area of concern.

A personal-level outage is a problem but less so than with cash. I have three separate items on me I can use to pay - my card holder with bank cards, my phone and my watch. That's more redundancy than with cash, which is one item (wallet).

Power or network outages aren't a big issue. I've experienced those and it's smooth. Most payment machines work fine without power (batteries) or without network because they then store the transactions locally and send them later. I've even had lunch when the lunch restaurant was having IT problems and couldn't accept any payments - they noted how many people came on paper and I came back the next day to pay, as I'm sure the vast majority of patrons did.

Bank or card issuer outages are handled by using another card or payment method. If some bank's cards aren't working (uncommon but it happens), mobile payments generally work still, and most people have more than one card.

Major national level outages are a concern. It would be impossible to buy e.g. a train ticket as those require immediate payment, so if somehow Internet was down nationwide, you couldn't get a train ticket online or at the ticket machines. This is one major goal that the e-krona (state-issued digital currency) project is meant to address as e-krona is intended to also work offline.

For you last point regarding national level outages: I am quite sure that trains companies would instantiate emergency systems in that case – maybe just by letting people travel for free. Such an event is also not expected to last for long.

Quite possibly, yes. There's also the consideration that such an outage would likely be part of an even bigger problem.

Over here, like most of Europe, we're pretty safe from natural disasters aside from storms causing local power outages. There are no earthquakes, tsunamis or similarly destructive events. So a hypothetical situation where payments are down nationwide for a significant period of time would almost certainly be part of an even larger disaster where a lot of infrastructure is non-functional due to military attack or something akin to a complete crash of all computers.

Not a natural disaster, but there's something similar happening for about 10 days in Central America.

The largest Telco was hit by ransomware and this has affected most of their systems. They are unable to receive electronic and card payments, or sell digital packages, it seems their billing, CRM and Helpdesk systems are down.

So all prepaid users are able to use the inrernet and call for free.

> I have three separate items on me I can use to pay - my card holder with bank cards, my phone and my watch. That's more redundancy than with cash, which is one item (wallet).

All of which are electronic and depend on centralized services. Bank notes and coins work offline and without electricity.

Not too long ago, a restaurant I went to with a coworker had an Internet outage and no card or mobile payment would go through. I paid for the whole bill since I was the only one carrying cash, then we went to the nearest ATM to reimburse me.

I always carry cash. I don't use it often but it always works, even if everything else fails.

The hardware/software infrastructure for cards and mobile payments is separate. We get card outages or Swish (mobile) outages occasionally, I don't remember any that affected both. Card payments are expected to work offline.

We're so dependent on IT systems that even cash doesn't always work. One of the most significant outages we've ever experienced was when Coop, a grocery store chain, had to close all its stores for a couple days because of an IT outage. It didn't help that the stores accept cash - the payments still couldn't be registered, receipts couldn't be printed, so the stores were completely unable to function.

We clearly need a robust fallback solution. Some kind of payment system that can work despite centralized outages (a bank's systems failing) or local outages at the merchant. But that shouldn't be cash. The practice of exchanging fragile, filthy pieces of paper whose ownership you cannot prove once outside your possession belongs to the past, we can do much better now.

This is a real concern, but even if I keep cash for use in an emergency, stores and banks would also need to be prepared to handle cash in an emergency and I doubt they are today (since no one uses cash).

Telling people they need to use a less convenient payment method only to keep it alive for an emergency also seems doomed to fail.

The correct solution is probably to force banks and critical stores to always accept cash + encourage people to keep some cash for an emergency. But changing the banknotes (and making the previous ones invalid) every 10 years doesn’t help with encouraging people to save cash at home. That’s another one of those US-isms that blow peoples minds: that dollar bills of any age are legal tender. That and the use of paper checks. I think it was the mid 80’s the last time I saw a check.

> Telling people they need to use a less convenient payment method only to keep it alive for an emergency also seems doomed to fail.

Who said that? Certainly not me

Personally, I'm not advocating for cash. I just think it's stupid to brag about eliminating cash while putting all your savings and trust in a fragile system and infrastructure . There's nothing revolutionary about that.

People should have options and backups.

I meant that (Telling people to use cash more to keep the system afloat) would be one potential solution to the problem, but not one I think would work.

I think people should not have to use cash, and I certainly won’t. But I do think society must have a resilient payment system - even if only as backup.

> I do think society must have a resilient payment system - even if only as backup

On that note we can agree. The goal is having a resilient system where you can access your funds when you need it most.

See my other comment for backstory:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39239919

> That’s another one of those US-isms that blow peoples minds: that dollar bills of any age are legal tender.

That's not so impressive when the National Bank of Sweden for instance is legally obliged to exchange any banknotes it issued for current ones, regardless of their age. You can theoretically get current money in exchange for a 17th century obligation or certificate issued by the bank, though even early 20th century notes are worth more as collection items than their nominal value.

They do, but it's a hassle and means people are reluctant to keep money in their mattresses (which might be a good thing). It's unfortunate when it comes to resilience however. Realizing after the big two-week-blackout that the 10x SEK500 bills you stuffed away for this emergency are invalid and would need to be posted to the central bank before you can eat, is not a good experience.

This is the same Sweden that issued a bogus arrest warrant for Assange?

If you think they won’t point and click seize your assets and freeze your accounts prior to trial for publishing the wrong thing, you’re crazy.

Cash is the backup, and must be preserved. Electronic payments can be centrally censored.

> I really don't like cash and am happy to see it basically dead in the country.

That's fine for you but some of us need to buy illegal drugs.