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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

I feel like this fails to consider my own valuing of my time.

Free Chocolate? Sure.

13¢ chocolate? I've gotta try to make change? An awkward amount no less. 3 pennies? They are getting hard to come by. I didn't even want a chocolate. I don't have any cash on me. Do you take card?

For instance, when I'm buying something off Facebook marketplace, if the items not a multiple of $20 bills and $50 bills, the denominations I can get from the ATM, I'm far less likely to buy it because I have to stop somewhere else on my way to the seller and try and make change. It's a pain in the butt.

I have literally overpaid for things from marketplace by a dollar or two to avoid making change.

But if my only options are 1¢ chocolate versus 13¢ chocolate, those are on way closer footing because either way I have to dig my wallet out.

I'd still take the Hershey kiss though because it tastes better.

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Sorry I'm from Sweden and our banks have a service called Swish where we can send money on the phone. Paying in cash is extremely uncommon now a days. Every time I've bought or sold something on FB Marketplace the last decade I've used Swish. I thought you had something similar called Venmo in the US?

Yes, we have phone-based payments in the US, too.

Some people will want cash for in person transactions but it's more rare. In the US you run into a lot of people who don't trust phones, technology, tech companies, the government, or any other number of reasons to demand physical payments.

> Some people will want cash for in person transactions but it's more rare. In the US you run into a lot of people who don't trust phones, technology, tech companies, the government

No, it's because majority of digital payment systems can be abused. Stolen accounts, payment disputes and more can cause a seller to lose the item and the money.

Cash is very, very hard to counterfeit, and there's inexpensive devices[1] to virtually guarantee a bill is genuine. There's no post-transaction fraud scheme that works once cash had exchanged hands.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/PG-MONEY-TESTER-PEN/5487005062

> There's no post-transaction fraud scheme that works once cash had exchanged hands.

Yes but it is vulnerable to other fraud schemes, like misrepresentation or theft.

But yeah, when faced with the possibility of fraud many people instinctively retreat from the unknown (technology) to the easily understood realities of cold hard cash. Its biggest advantage is ease of understanding.

I assert it's more than that. Even Zelle can be susceptible to post-transaction fraud schemes.

Yes, someone can steal your cash - but they can also steal your item.

Setting aside theft - cash is simply the most secure way to ensure you keep your money post-transaction. There is no fraud mechanism to abuse, and no way to reclaim cash once in-hand.

For anything of value, the "old school" rules of meeting in a very public place and only accepting cash are still really sound.

Of course there is fraud risk with cash, it is just all on the buyers end of the transaction.

People are still getting scammed with cash every day with fake/locked/misrepresented/stolen items being sold on marketplace sites.

All of the legitimate reasons to reverse a reversible transaction is a fraud vector that cash is vulnerable to. That’s why reversible transactions exist.

> fake/locked/misrepresented/stolen items being sold on marketplace sites

100% of the risks you mention are still true with digital transactions. The difference is with cash, you close the door on literal fraudulent transaction claims or stolen accounts. It's vastly safer than digital transactions for in-person sales.

To be blunt - with cash, the buyer can't go home and file an unauthorized/fraud complaint with anyone - the seller has cash-in-hand, is anonymous, and the transaction is non-reversible. That's a benefit for these types of transactions, and one you seem to be overlooking.

If you're selling your couch on Facebook Marketplace - cash is king.

Yes, I understand that buyers can fraudulently file chargebacks with some forms of digital payment. I never said otherwise.

I am disputing your repeated and false claim that there are no fraud vectors with cash.

No payment method prevents fraud.

Venmo isn't really something I'd consider a "bank service"; it was its own company for a bit, and I think now it's owned by PayPal.

The closest thing here is probably Zelle, but at least with my bank's app, the interface is a bit of a pain. This basically is just another form of what the parent commenter said; how much do I value my own time and convenience compared to what I'd be getting?

The US sits in a strange incentive landscape.

Since the government and corporations aggressively spy on everyone, and since government programs are often incompetent or overfunded or underfunded or corrupted or evil, there is (justly) little faith in the government.

Cash works fine. It can't be censored easily, it can't be tracked easily. ATMs have it.

When I trust the phones, I'll use phone payments.

The problem in the US is too many options. In the US, Venmo, PayPal, Zelle and CashApp are all pretty popular. And there are others.

They’re easy if the one you use is the same one the other person is using. If you’re a Venmo person and you want to transact with a CashApp person, well one of you have to download and set up a new payment app or pay cash.

Wow, never thought about the fact that the system deteriorates from having more than one option

Before people read too much into this, just be aware that Ariely has been caught out a number of times falsifying data or even making up entire studies that he then writes about in publications. Not saying this was the case here, but you'd want to look for corroboration in sources not involving him. TFA mentions a few, but most of it is from Ariely.

> the denominations I can get from the ATM

Is this for real? We can request 5s and 10s from the atm, along with 20s and 50s.

Many ATMs in the US just spit out 20s, though there are some where you can specify your bills.

precisely!

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