I’m not ever touching Swedish money again

At one point all of my transactions were done electronically (for convenience) until I moved to the UK. Since moving to the UK I've actually started using cash a lot more, I love the feel of coins and banknotes and it comes with a freedom.

Having 100% of transactions known by your bank, what you bought and where, it's yet another avenue in which bigger organisations get to know every little thing about you and over which you have no longer have control of. It's just another one of those things where society picks convenience at the dispense of freedom.

And now that virtually everything gets tracked, people are slowly becoming like little rats in a cage, continually monitored and always at the dispense of some faceless organisation. I don't like the implications of going fully electronic. It's just another movement forward to a society in which it's citizens are completely and utterly subordinated and at the whims of people privileged with more control.

I am a 95% electronic banking user. I have a wallet that fits my 2 cards and basically nothing else. I have had cash probably 5-10 times in the last year, and usually spend it to be rid of it, or lose it. I was completely stumped when traveling in the US recently. There is absolutely no way to avoid cash - the amount of tipping that is required makes you a bit of a tosser is you don't do it, and the US is very much cash based. Busses, shops, taxis etc, all cash. I was only in California, but it was a very big change handling cash again, after most my life without it. It felt sort of unsafe...

Freedom of economic initiative requires the ability to perform anonymous (and in many cases this means cash) transactions (think small merchants who cannot be bothererd by the Administration). Yes, socialism is against this but the State's role should be subsidiary not omniscent and all-powerful.

I prefer to pay cash, and let companies do their own marketing research, thanks.