The thing I cannot fathom is why quarters are so huge, considering they’re nearly valueless. Then you need whole stacks of $1 bills to pay anything relevant. I find both constantly cluttering up my wallet.
> I find both constantly cluttering up my wallet.
The majority of Americans do not have an ongoing problem of having too much cash in their wallet, even if you consider single dollars to be practically irrelevant. Most people would rather have their money in aggregate take up an inconvenient amount of space rather than having there be a risk of losing it because it's so physically small.
Because if you start with $1000 in fifties, say, the first time you buy something (not using hundreds because many places don't like them), you'll get smaller bills back in change, but the next thing you buy you can probably use some of the smaller bills, so you'll never end up with 50 ones.
I like to keep a balance of $5-10 in ones, and the rest in twenties, with $5/10 sometimes appearing.
The only time I keep cash is for tipping, my wife and I travel a lot.
I use cash because it contributes to the local neighborhood economy more than not using cash.
I use cash because I do not want to risk a banking app being broken by a non-banking app.
I use cash because I do not trust banking apps to keep to themselves instead of infecting the whole device with spyware to "verify who you are".
I use cash because not using cash charges extra (often-hidden) fees while using cash often comes with extra discounts.
I use cash because the modern economy is a give-business-money-for-nothing-because-fuck-you economy and I don't want to contribute to that.
There are many reasons to use cash. Pick one or many but stop thinking that cash is worse than a tech solution.
Taking the amount budgeted for petty cash means you only spend that much "that's spent already", which makes it easier to stick to a budget (because you can't spend cash you're not holding). if the problem is overspending, and there's a budget, there's not generally a problem with underspending that amount, so the idea that it forces more spending isn't a problem (for some people).
Given news reports that (some people in) GenZ has trouble after joining the workforce with computer skills later generations take for granted, and other reports on how much GenZ is unable to save, I doubt it's an age thing. Some people are just better with physical objects vs digital. (Some people do just deal with it just fine, mind you.)
My (step)son has had his own bank account - joint with myself and my wife since he was 9 years old. I transferred his allowance to it. Before he was 12, he had to ask us for his balance - which he did frequently - because he couldn’t get his own sign in.
Since then, he has had his own sign in. He is 22 now and we still have the same joint account with him.
It has overdraft protection to a savings account with $500 in it that we all use for overdraft protection.
I know he checks his account often because when it does slightly overdraft and things are pending. He transfers money from his own savings account that is separate from ours to catch it.
I taught him good money habits from the day that we became a family.
By the time the card fails a transaction and is getting denied because the card, I'm already at the whatever store and have to give up the purchase in a hugely embarrassing way. A physical bit of cash that you have in your wallet and at home is, well, physically present and simply feels light when you're running low. A debit or credit card with a number in some app does not do that.
2fa is a large blocker here, and while it's understandable from a security practice (so I'm not any to turn that off), it's enough friction to not be convenient, and that's assuming you configure the banking app on your phone because you're not scared of attacks to your phone SMS (which you should be).
So the people who are too lazy to check their app are okay with going to an ATM?
If I start overspending, I get alerts both when my balance gets low and when money is deducted from my savings account used as overdraft.
I rarely get to that point and even when I do, I catch it before the offending transaction posts.
You have your threat model and I have mine.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254303493?sortBy=rank
Not enabling biometrics in the banking app means adding FaceID isn't enough.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> So the people who are too lazy to check their app are okay with going to an ATM?
If we're at the point we're calling people names I'm not sure further discussion will be productive. The ATM is on the way to the subway (which has poor reception), and we're talking about once a month here. It also uses a different part of my brain because I physically walk past to jog my brain (and walking does it in a way that driving past the freeway exit does not).
Again, what's a number that's on a phone, even if it's being texted to you, going to do for physically altering the size and weight and feel of a debit/credit card? That's just another text that gets recieved and disappears from my brain until it's too late.
I'm glad you've got a system that works for you, but the only thing that works about debit/credit card money is I end up spending more money than I would with cash. Changing habits to spend less money works by using cash works in a way that I couldn't get to work with a debit/credit card. (There are some places that don't take cash so I need to use debit/credit, but, for now at least, that's not the norm.)
Apple mitigated that issue last year.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/120340
> The ATM is on the way to the subway (which has poor reception), and we're talking about once a month here.
And my phone is always on my person. You don’t need “reception” to use your debit card.
> Changing habits to spend less money works by using cash works in a way that I couldn't get to work with a debit/credit card
And yet my 80 year old mom can as far as debit cards and my 82 year old dad just started using Apple Pay. He had a really old Android before that couldn’t use Google Pay
That much is useful, thanks!
Back then, there was a two to three day delay.
The merchant gets all except for a 2% fee when you don’t use cash. Cash handling also has cost - theft both from employees and outside actors - too.
> I use cash because I do not want to risk a banking app being broken by a non-banking app.
When has Apple Pay or Google pay ever been “broken”? Do you not use a bank at all or not use any banking apps or websites?
> I use cash because not using cash charges extra (often-hidden) fees while using cash often comes with extra discounts.
There are very few places in the US that up charge for credit card transactions. Mostly gas stations and then mostly only for gas.
> I use cash because the modern economy is a give-business-money-for-nothing-because-fuck-you economy and I don't want to contribute to that.
You don’t think the merchant network does anything? Even if you are opposed to credit card transaction fees are you also opposed to debit transaction fees which are much lower and where there is a legsl cap?
I do use a credit card pretty often too, but I always have a little cash on me and I use it at least weekly.
> my cell phone ... running a custom OS
Both very good points. Thank you for speaking up :)
If someone is anti-battery, they shouldn't use credit cards here. Although, cash registers are usually on a UPS too.
Not that cash is necessarily a lot better. I can't remember what sci-fi character made the observation that "all currency is mutual delusion", but I observe the truth of that. I've thought it was in Hyperion, but have not been able to find it.
Are you going to get an EV too? Yes we keep some cash because we travel a lot and use cash for tips.
Having an electric vehicle is NOT the benefit you think it is here.
You could just as easily have an internal combustion engine and spare fuel tanks. My car holds about 12 gallons of fuel and I have three 5-gallon fuel jugs ready to do. I use the fuel jugs for my lawnmower to keep the fuel fresh, but the jugs serve just as well during an emergency. And the benefit over an electric vehicle: I can put the fuel jugs into the tank or the trunk and just go.
If your EV is drained... good luck getting it charged when you're given an evacuation order.
Places running out of gas? That's a consequence of poor planning or a just-in-time economy (take your pick) on the gas stations, and a consequence of poor planning or a just-in-time economy on the people buying fuel from gas stations when they should have fueled up before the emergency.
Not everyone can buy fuel jugs. Good luck storing fuel jugs anywhere safe when you're living in an urban environment. It's the same for EV batteries too.
We only had it for six months (SixT month to month car subscription) while trying to decide what our next move was. We didn’t know whether we were going to stay in Florida all year or travel half the year and rent our place out and stay at home half the year or not.
We had just come off of a year of doing the digital nomad thing and flying one way across the country.
OK fair enough
I actually see it quite often here in the Twin Cities at small stores, bars, restaurants. A 1~3% discount for cash.
> The merchant gets all except for a 2% fee when you don’t use cash. Cash handling also has cost - theft both from employees and outside actors - too.
I've asked quite a few merchants that take both whether they have a preference for cash vs card. Most (~90%) say they don't care either way. The remainder all say they prefer cash. I've never had one reply they prefer a card to cash. Also, when making large (like four- or five-figure) transactions with people like home contractors, they all request payment via personal check, to avoid the card fees eating a huge chunk of the transaction.
I also dislike the idea of all transactions being trackable/identifiable. I think there's value in being able to perform anonymous transactions.
For reference, I have a card that gives me 3 points back for all restaurants and another card that gives me 2 points back for all other purchases.
Doing the simplest thing possible and transferring those points to Delta for flights nets me 1.3% for each point meaning I will at least get 2.6% back on general purchases or almost 4% back worse case on restaurants.
If they have to accept cash or credit cards, yes they will prefer cash. But there are reasons that some places don’t accept cash at all. It’s because of employee theft. But it’s harder to steal cash at restaurants and bars because everyone gets receipts.
The usual theft from bars come from bartenders pouring more expensive liquors and charging for cheaper liquor and then accepting larger tips.
Merchants are prevented by their contract from charging the transaction fee to the customer using the card. Therefore all customers pay the fees though increased merchant prices, even those using cash.
I resent paying for peoples credit card "benefits" - actually they're payoffs - every time I use cash.
This hasn’t been true for over a decade
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharging...
> Can I add a surcharge to card transactions?
> As a result of a legal settlement to resolve claims brought by a group of U.S. merchants, merchants in the U.S. and U.S. territories may add a surcharge to certain credit card transactions, starting January 27, 2013. Merchants who choose to surcharge must follow
> I resent paying for peoples credit card "benefits" - actually they're payoffs - every time I use cash.
You really think retailers would reduce their prices by the amount of credit card fees if they didn’t pay them?
What kind of question is that? You were literally given an example, in this thread, about how some retailers do just that.
People spend more money and tip higher when they use credit cards than cash….
And you think that's a good thing?
The “local business” more than makes up for credit card fees via increased spending. They know their margins and the minimum amount needed to make a credit card transaction worthwhile. That’s why many have minimum transaction amount to use a credit card.
Sure thing bud. Keep cherry-picking the business side of things.
> Those credit card perks are directly subsidized by the handling fees they charge your local businesses
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/credit-cards...
> they come from the business you're buying from. For local businesses
Which is not true.
And some of the reasons - like security and losing money - is tin foil hat territory.
Oh. Where does it come from then?
Dunno, don't care. I'm not going to mix my banking stuff with my non-banking stuff.
Not being "broken" publicly doesn't mean it's bug-free. You and I both know that Apple Pay and Google Pay are both written with software and enabled via hardware. That doesn't mean it's bug-free. That doesn't mean it can't be broken.
Why risk it? It's not worth losing your livelihood over a very slight convenience.
Would you put a needle into your eye if everyone around you, except for your doctor, told you that you'll see better afterward? No of course not, you're not stupid. Would you put a needle into your eye if your doctor told you to? No, of course not, you are not trained for it. So why would you install a banking app which grants access to your finances, and which cannot be proven to be secure against other apps running on the same device? Of course that's your choice, and I choose to not put that risk in my life.
At least with cash or a debit/credit card, the risk is physically separated.
> Do you not use a bank at all or not use any banking apps or websites?
I wish that were the case. Alas, banks are practically a requirement even for local communities. You'd be stupid to put all of your cash under your mattress or in your home. You'd be stupid to walk around all day every day with a significant chunk of cash/change. Keep excess cash in the bank or investments keeps it separated from the risk that your house is broken into or burns down, and separated from the risk of being mugged.
Banks are regulated (in all countries I can think of) and federally insured in the US (I dunno about other countries' monetary insurances or policies). So if it's a separation of risk, then why undo all of that by walking around with all of your money in your phone? It's exactly the same problem but now in a brand-new electronic domain with little or no regulation at all. That's a stupid thing to do.
So no, I do not use banking apps. Just as I don't put work shit on my phone, I also do not put banking shit on my phone. My phone is where non-technical people talk to me, and is high risk for incoming malware. Your employer doesn't want that, your bank doesn't want that.
For the same reasons, I only open banking websites on a dedicated computer for the same reason.
> There are very few places in the US that up charge for credit card transactions
You already stated that "the merchant gets all except for a 2% fee". So (unless you want to argue that places take the fee at a loss) all places charge it, but many simply don't include that charge as a line-item on your receipt.
It is therefore "often-hidden", which you quoted but ignored.
> You don’t think the merchant network does anything?
I didn't say that at all. The merchant network does help prevent fraud and I use my CC for items that I worry could be fraudulent. I simply don't buy from Amazon because fraudulent activity is too high and it's not worth the hassle. But on the other hand: medical costs, computers, digital services, and even local vendors can be shady as fuck.
But there are plenty of places where you can build trust with your community. Your grocery store with perishable foods is in my experience much less likely to defraud you, specifically because you're able to look at and inspect items before purchase.
> are you also opposed to debit transaction fees which are much lower and where there is a legsl cap?
That's twice now that you're putting words in my message that weren't there. Maybe you should read my message again in a few hours after your next meal.
You're stuck thinking about fees. No, the fees themselves aren't what I'm worried about. I'm worried about shit companies like Amazon who have no moral qualms about mixing fraudulent items with authentic items. I'm hateful of companies like Google who have absolutely no interest in providing help or support to the real people that they harm. I'm resentful of "businesses" who steal your data and get you addicted to stupid shit, just so they can make a profit off of you. I'm distrustful of any "business" who only takes sales online, sends spam, steals or abuses data about you, uses dark patterns for "engagement" to get people to do what the business wants them to...
It's not all doom and gloom. I use a lot of cash, but I don't use exclusively cash. I have debit cards and credit cards and they definitely serve their purposes too. But cash is way more useful than some people on Hacker News want you to believe: if someone is talking against cash then there's a high likelihood that person either has an agenda that won't benefit you or is naive enough to advance someone else's agenda that won't benefit you.
If you are really concerned with security, you should also be concerned with the security of your bank. Do you keep all of your money under your mattress?
> Why risk it? It's not worth losing your livelihood over a very slight convenience.
You realize that no one has ever lost money in an FDIC insured bank account because of either fraud or a bug in client software.
Do you also never use credit cards or debit cards? There have also been security issues with POS terminals and large retailers.
> Would you put a needle into your eye if your doctor told you to? No, of course not, you are not trained for it. So why would you install a banking app which grants access to your finances, and which cannot be proven to be secure against other apps running on the same device?
So do you fly when no one has proven with a 100% certainty that the plane won’t crash? Do you get in a car? Take medicines that haven’t proven not to have side effects? Would you go to the hospital knowing there is a chance you can get an infection that antibiotics can’t cure?
Yes, of course. There are reasons I don't bank with every bank under the sun.
> Do you keep all of your money under your mattress?
No. Do you?
I'm starting to think you're not having this conversation in good faith.
> You realize that no one has ever lost money in an FDIC insured bank account because of either fraud or a bug in client software.
You can claim that all you want.
Meanwhile time is money and dealing with banking issues takes time out of my day. Meanwhile FDIC is insured via taxpayer money and so my taxes absolutely cover the fraud perpetuated by whoever.
Nice trolling in the thread.
> So do you...
I fly because flying is regulated.
I drive because driving is regulated.
I take medicines that are regulated.
I don't go to hospitals in the U.S. Fuck that noise.
I'm done talking to a troll.
But you have an issue with the security of Apple and Google but you don’t have an issue with the security of your bank?
You haven’t seen the quality of software developers at the typical bank have you?
> I'm starting to think you're not having this conversation in good faith.
Your threat model is not backed up by any evidence
> You can claim that all you want.
Is my claim false?
> Meanwhile time is money and dealing with banking issues takes time out of my day.
And which banking issues have you had to deal with because the supposed insecurity of Apple and Android with respect to the banking apps?
> Meanwhile FDIC is insured via taxpayer money and so my taxes absolutely cover the fraud perpetuated by whoever.
Your funds aren’t insured by taxpayer money. Banks pay into the system based on the deposits they have.
And if you trust the fraud protection of your bank? Why are you worried about supposedly insecure phones that would cause fraud even though that hasn’t happen since the modern phone?
> I fly because flying is regulated. >I drive because driving is regulated. > I take medicines that are regulated.
And banks aren’t regulated? What is the threat model you are guarding against?
> I don't go to hospitals in the U.S. Fuck that noise.
You mentioned the FDIC which only governs the US. If you are in a car accident or have an illness, you are going to get treated outside of the US?
> > You can claim that all you want.
> Is my claim false?
Yes.
My family specifically have lost money due to fraud, non-recoverable from the bank.
Many people have lost money from bank bailouts which only occurred because certain banks were fraudulently packaging mortgages. That's happened more than once.
Apple and Google are not regulated.
My bank is. Here, let me quote it:
> > Banks are regulated (in all countries I can think of) and federally insured in the US
-> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42612390
> Your threat model is not backed up by any evidence
Isn't it? Let's see.
1. Spam is indistinguishable from spearphishing. It seems nobody understands this.
2. Working in high tech or finance results in higher amounts of targeted spearphishing.
3. Working with people in journalism or political activity results in higher risk of malware.
4. Having friends or family with criminal history or mental problems results in extreme loss of privacy.
5. Having ex-friends or ex-family (eg, divorce) with threats of physical harm results in a sensitivity to privacy. For example, having your name mentioned in court proceedings, even when you are not there, is publicly searchable and gives a reasonable estimate of your location. There's a reason that Witness Protection programs exist and it takes some extra levels of threats to make it into that.
6. "Security" software is often shady ([0], [1], [2], need I go on?)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVG_(software)#Controversy
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McAfee#Controversies
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender#Criticisms
So with that in mind, consider the following threat model built upon those:
7. "Businesses" who don't have a way for a real person to resolve an issue, such as Google. Let me know what phone number to call when my Gmail account is suspended because someone else tried to hack their way in, would you?
8. "Businesses" who use shady practices to steal data without consent. Let me know how to selectively share single data-points of contact information to a single app, would you? I want this app to have an email address, that app to have a phone number, the other app to have a different email address, blah blah. Good luck.
9. "Businesses" which abuse interstate or international policies to maximize profits. One state says it's illegal to hold data? No problem, hold that data in a different state!
10. "Businesses" which flagrantly disregard laws and fight tooth-and-nail to prevent loopholes from being closed. Every single billion-dollar "business" does this, including Apple. Just look at how much pushback Apple had against Europe enacting sane privacy laws.
11. "Businesses" which consider my work to be their work. Good luck getting paid for art when the art is stolen wholesale. Want to make a website with cool stuff? Good luck keeping bots from scraping it and putting advertisements up with no profit for you.
Don't presume that your threat model applies to everyone.
> And which banking issues have you had to deal with because the supposed insecurity of Apple and Android with respect to the banking apps?
None because I don't use them.
I have had banking issues, even without apps. So why add to the flavor?
One issue that I'm willing to share: create a technical-oriented business whose name reflects SQL injection. Something like `select * from \' -- or drop table systable;`. The local municipality was fine with that name. The local bank? Well suddenly their system crashed when trying to create the account for the business. That was a not-fun fun day.
Hell, another issue even unrelated to banking. Another regulated industry, telecom. I had an issue with T-Mobile wherein I could not log in to their website at all using Private Browsing in Firefox on Linux. I could log in with Firefox on Linux without Private Mode. T-Mobile's statement was that this is intentional. After over a year, T-Mobile quietly fixed the problem. There was literally no* technical reason whatsoever to be unable to log in. I had to call every month to make a payment, and also ask for a refund of the call-in-fee because I could not access the website. That's both a lot of time for anyone and also easily troublesome for someone without mental faculties to navigate the stupidity of T-Mobile bureaucracy.
> Your funds aren’t insured by taxpayer money. Banks pay into the system based on the deposits they have.
K. Wanna talk about bank bailouts? Too-big-to-fail?
> And if you trust the fraud protection of your bank?
No, I don't trust the fraud protection of my bank. I trust the fraud protection of the FDIC.
> And banks aren’t regulated?
I literally said that banks are regulated.
> If you are in a car accident or have an illness, you are going to get treated outside of the US?
If I can get outside of the US, sure. Otherwise I will surely die. That's the effect of capitalism's hyper-optimization for profit at the cost of real lives. Ever wonder why so many people are upset with insurance companies?
Outside of serious injury or illness then there are plenty, but fewer every year, non-hospital doctors offices around me who I can rely on to give me a sane price for normal health maintenance. Unfortunately, "normal health maintenance" is not private if you're coming with insurance.