All payment terminals down in the Netherlands | Hacker News Reader

All payment terminals down in the Netherlands

allestoringen.nl

21 pointspaulmist15 comments

More amusing given many stores in the Netherlands no longer accept cash.

While it maybe expedient for merchants, this worrying trend discriminates against the unbanked and creates a Hobson's choice requiring the leaving of metadata that can be used and abused.

> While it maybe expedient for merchants...

Expediency is a gross over-simplification of why the cashless society is a growing tend.

For example, it costs more wealth than the value of lower denominational coins to produce said coins.[1] There's a correlation between the decrease in financial-related crimes and cashless vendors.[2] It is believed that cashless systems lead to less tax evasion.[3]

Having said this, I agree with the remainder of your statement - that it has the potential to discriminate against people who don't have and/or are unable to obtain bank accounts.

[1] - https://archive.is/T7nz8

[2] - https://archive.is/MMY2b

[3] - https://archive.is/lCfNX

> Expediency is a gross over-simplification

What's your problem? You selectively quoted a fraction of my statement and threw in a strawman.

Merchants don't want to keep registers to be stolen from cashiers, to be robbed, to have to deal with counting cash, or deal with deposits. That's 4 good reasons in their minds, and I've dealt with all of these. Have you?

> What's your problem?

No problem. Why the hostility?

> You selectively quoted a fraction of my statement and threw in a strawman.

I disagreed with the first part of your statement and agreed with the second part. Are you only reading to respond and not to comprehend? Also, how are studies or facts "a strawman".

What does dealing with those 4 things have to do with your initial gross oversimplification?

Counting the drawer and deposits take maybe 15 minutes a day. Its not difficult. Been running a small business for 10 mins and never had an issue with cash. God forbid someone robs us of the 300 bucks in the drawer. They can have it and insurance will cover it.

At least in the Netherlands there are programs through which you can get a bank account, even if you are otherwise severely disadvantaged. https://www.basisbankrekening.nl/

Don’t know about this specific program but there is an often overlooked disadvantaged category - immigrants (and I’m talking about legal immigrants). A typical catch-22 - to open a bank account you need an utility are a tax bill and to rent a place to live (and a month later get the first bill) you need a bank account. And good luck getting a proof of address if you are using short term rental where bills are paid by a landlord.

Banking is part of EU universal services. The privacy issue is troubling but large banks in EU can't refuse to offer a minimal free account for everyone.

They can close it if you overdraw it too much, which tends to happen when you're poor. Hence people remain unbanked. Not to mention being homeless and having no where to receive mail. They may not refuse but where are they gonna mail your cards?

In the US, anyone can receive mail even without an address or a post office box. It's called General Delivery.

The format is:

    John Q. Smith
    General Delivery
    Fort Wayne, IA 46806

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-General-Delivery

Furthermore, there are free and reduce rate PO Boxes available in limited circumstances:

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Is-there-mail-service-for-the...

And, for cases where "PO Boxes aren't accepted", there is a new format street address of the post office works with a PMB or # second line.

https://postalpro.usps.com/PBSA

Interesting. In the US, we don't even have free healthcare unless we're dying from immediate injury, but then we're billed an amount that requires declaring bankruptcy.

If any European would help a poor American claim asylum on political persecution, personal safety, and humanitarian grounds, let me know. Did you know that Social Security recipients in the State of Texas aren't even determined in Texas? SSA outsources DDS to Arkansas.

What's stopping you from migrating?

While we may not have free healthcare we have clinics that are pretty cheap and found throughout most areas. I'm not surprised that SSA is screwed up here just like the unemployment stuff.

If you can claim all that why haven't you already?

Did this last for 1 hour?

I wonder how long it would have to last in a cashless society for people to revert back to paper IOU’s.

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