Predicting A Future Free Of Dollar Bills | Hacker News Reader

Predicting A Future Free Of Dollar Bills

techcrunch.com

13 pointsbrmunk27 comments

The whole time I was reading this all I could think was "man, this reads like a bad advertisement."

Then I noticed the disclaimer (horribly placed; I skipped over it the first time because it looked like a caption text for the banner image): Editor’s note: Simon Black is CEO at London-based Sage Pay.

edit: So, this is a long-form advertisement for a payment processing company. Why do people still read tech crunch?

Also, biometrics for payment? Christ, because payment processing hardware/support/service isn't expensive enough already! And has the past decade of massive privacy violations by both the private and public sectors taught us nothing?

Quite. Additionally:

"...will also make fraud virtually impossible..."

I'm pretty sure this line is trotted out every time a new payment technology is introduced. But one that's tied to some irrevocable, personally-assigned 'key'... yup: nothing could possibly go wrong there!

Not to mention my very favorite "feature" of being non-revokable. Well, only once per finger. And you only got a finite amount of them by nature. It'll be so much fun when the payment database gets compromised!

I always thought most biometrics vendors were fishy, and this is no exception.

The fact that it reads like an advertisement and was written by a CEO of a payment processor, doesn't make it less relevant. He makes some valid points. Points many here might not like, but the masses do.

What's really ironic is they will be taken out of business by Bitcoin (or its more successful successors).

> Why go to the hassle of carrying loose change when you can swipe a card to make a purchase within seconds?

- Because cash is anonymous, and card transaction violate my freedom.

- Because credit card companies charge 2-4%. And therefore raise the prices for everyone.

- Because only cash is legal tender.

> A further benefit for us is that it will give us peace of mind as there will be less concern over having money stolen.

I one steels my purse, I only lose the cash I have at hand. But if one steels my credit card, they can rob my complete bank account. Also credit cards are insecure by design, compared to EuroCheck cards. You do mot even to remember a 4 digit PIN to use them. The card number and expiration date is enough to rob me.

"Because credit card companies charge 2-4%. And therefore raise the prices for everyone."

And you think those armoured vehicles that transport the cash away from the shops do it for free?

Many small businesses do not use these services due to that cost. I know many people who run small stores that casually walk a couple of thousand dollars to the bank after a good day.

Hell, I used to work at a pub that had it's staff carry over $100k to the bank every Monday morning, though that amount is arguably grossly irresponsible both from a business perspective and with regards to staff safety.

> - Because credit card companies charge 2-4%. And therefore raise the prices for everyone.

The author is the CEO of a payment processing company, so distracting from this is pretty much the exclusive reason the article even exists.

I totally agree with you. I live in a small town and always use cash to save my local merchants the costs of credit card transactions.

The privacy issues of using credit cards is of slightly less concern to me, but is still a valid issue.

I hope cash will last for 50 years or so (at looking at how legacy systems are maintained it is realistic). One less point of identification - one less point of attack on a person. And I'm not even paranoid, massive spying on people using metadata and selling it to the highest bidder is already real today.

And situation of leaving stuff due to lack of cash is actually good for majority of people - you either a) monitor for finances before starting activity that involves payments, and then you do this regularly everywhere. Or b) you learn to discard and don't buy most useless products on the market. It's a win-win.

And situation of leaving stuff due to lack of cash is actually good for majority of people

I agree. My significant other is very poor at handling money but there are so many things companies and banks do to make it easy for them to spend money in a cash-free way. Overdrafts, clothes stores offering a 'card' which give you a discount but then lets you run up a balance, and similar bullshit. It's gotten so bad I'm going to get them a chargecard they put money on at the start of the money and then use like cash..

From the article:

"By removing cash, you reduce the chances of becoming a target of crime"

Reality:

"By removing cash, you increase the chances of becoming a tax criminal"

My suspicion is everyone will be a trivially detected tax criminal by design, but if you just vote the right way and keep your head down and avoid offending anyone in power and stay out of politics unless invited, that punishment will never be unleashed. It'll be a form of control. I can do without increased .gov control, we have enough, thanks.

Furthermore I predict we'll pretend the database is closed and private even though it'll be wide open to all .gov and by extension .com. Go to the wrong person's yard sale (perhaps an ex employee), HR will make sure you never get an interview, etc.

This approach - giving your identity to prove you're going to pay for the item - seems overly careless in the age of privacy violations. Another system - where you can only give the proof, without the identity - would be better, but it's unclear at the moment how that could be reached.

Besides, putting an item on the shelf in case you don't have enough cash has another nice feature - an opportunity to think twice if you really need that item in the first place. If you pay too easily, it's harder to save.

I hope the author is correct, at least for more advanced forms of payment by plastic. I'm skeptical for the US though. Contactless cards are hard to come by and several issuers stopped sending them even though the terminals are present. We don't even have widely-available chip-and-PIN (and the few issuers of those cards almost entirely make them default to chip-and-signature).

Most cards in the UK are contactless now but I can genuinely say I've never seen anyone ever make a contactless transaction. I have tried myself a few times but it failed the first time (operator had no idea why) and the other times it felt more awkward and took more time than doing it the "standard" way.

I think we'll get there with it, but socially it's currently about as popular as the self-check out line back in 2001 or the self-ordering kiosk at KFC now (which I always use to jump the line while everyone else is standing around.. seriously, why?)

I'm struggling to recall if I've seen anyone else use them, but I make perhaps one contactless payment a week. The convenience shops and fast-food places in train stations seemed to be the first adopters, and now even my local pub has the facility.

Having them in pubs can be quite dangerous -- the payment part of the transaction is so insignificant I'm sure the whole process fires off my 'free beer?!' neurons every time I walk away from the bar.

And this is another in a list of things that drive me batty about US banking. I had a contactless debit card, issued by Chase Bank, years ago. They renewed it with the non-NFC version and won't give anyone (apart from accounts opened in 4 states, even if you now live in one of those states) an NFC card.

Chip and PIN is even worse. My employer gives me a company American Express that has a chip and I got a PIN. Because Amex marks their cards as "signature priority," most places ask for a signature and a lot of unattended kiosks break, even in Europe. I can't even get a chip/PIN debit card.

Why does banking here have to suck so bad compared to every other developed banking system?

It's definitely a matter of getting used to it. I moved from Canada where contactless has been standard for a couple of years now and being unable to get a contactless UK card for now I'm super annoyed every time I have to punch in PINs to pay £1 - £3 for something small. The extra 30 seconds just feel totally unnecessary.

Why not just use cash? Unlike in the US and Canada, the coinage is actually worth enough to buy real things with pocket change.

A few coins are much heavier and thicker than a card, for one. Just tapping a card is faster than picking out coins then waiting for change. And when paying with card I know I won't get any two pence coins back.

> seriously, why?

Well, you are at KFC. Half the people are putting off the torture for as long as possible, and the other half... well, they're about to willingly eat KFC :-)

I'm hoping for the return of coins. In Norway, I hear that they are planning to introduce a 50kr (equivalent of €5) coin.

That would be one way to push the poor, the homeless and those who want privacy even further to the margins of society.

The headline sounds great - I much prefer dollar coins

From financial perspective dollar coins make sense, as they are cheaper. But from the weight in my pocket, I much prefer dollar bills.

Is it true that 1% of people (by any large geographic measure) have used Bitcoin in the last month?

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