
Will Cash Disappear? - known
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/14/business/dealbook/cashless-economy.html
======
aidenn0
Cash has diminished so greatly over my lifetime. When I was a kid, I remember
my grandfather would carry over $1000 in cash on business trips, since he
could charge basically just the hotel and _some_ restaurants. Even at hotel
and restaurants, tips were cash only. He would keep maybe $100 in his billfold
and the rest would be 100 dollar bills hidden about his person.

This was the mid 80s.

$100 in tens and twenties would be nearly $300 in twenties and fifties. Ten
100 dollar bills would now need to be thirty (or we would need a 300 dollar
note). If my grandfather went on three trips in the same calendar month,
inflation adjusted for 2017, he'd get audited by the Bank Secrecy act ($10k in
cash transfers in the same month).

For cash to get relegated to a curiosity at this point only requires the
government to not change anything (larger denominations, increase the limits
for triggering money laundering audits &c.)

~~~
RickS
This highlights a really fascinating problem that I'd love to know more about,
if anyone has info:

Are regulatory thresholds (cash or otherwise) pinned to inflation or some kind
of purchasing index? Do they all just tighten around our neck at ~3% year? I'm
not cynical enough to assume this is by design, but perhaps am enough to think
that once it's in there, the bug becomes a feature in the eyes of regulators.

~~~
aidenn0
In the US, most aren't, but some are. When they are tied to inflation it's
usually the CPI.

In some cases not tying it to the CPI appears to be lack of foresight, in
other cases it's a compromise, just like e.g. tax cuts that expire.

The party that wishes to not raise the threshold is hoping that they will have
more political clout down the road, the party that does have power can
conserve political capital and get a "win" in the eyes of their constituency.

------
AnimalMuppet
On an earlier go-round with this topic here on HN, somebody said that cash
matters because it means that nobody else can stop your transaction. Credit
cards, checks, Paypal... in each case there's a third party that has the power
to block the payment, but with cash, nobody (other than the two parties
involved) can do anything to block it. That can be a really big deal, in some
circumstances.

I forget who said it, or I'd give them credit...

~~~
purplerabbit
If my understanding is correct, cryptocurrency transactions cannot be blocked
either. So this advantage may not be exclusive to cash, assuming you have an
internet connection.

~~~
onion2k
Right now the median BTC transaction fee is about $10. I don't think many
people would accept that on every transaction they do. Any way around it
(pooling transactions for example) would mean losing the 'cannot be blocked'
benefit.

~~~
aboodman
The transaction fee for Bitcoin Cash is like ten cents. High transaction fees
have nothing to do with crypto currencies fundamentally.

~~~
MrRadar
Except that they do. Right now each Bitcoin transaction uses the same amount
of energy as the average household does in a _week_ (255 kWH according to
[https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-
consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption) which is
more than I personally use in a month). Even assuming you're mining with very
low-cost electricity ($0.04/kWH) that's $10.20... or about the cost of a BTC
transaction according to the grandparent post. This high energy use is the
cost of being decentralized, centralized systems like Visa, Mastercard, and
ACH use _much_ less energy per transaction than that.

~~~
aboodman
There are multiple existence proofs that you are wrong: Bitcoin Cash,
Ethereum, etc.

------
mc32
It probably will, for the most part, and, along with it, a little corner of
privacy. It's a small one, and defeatable, but it takes effort on the
adversary's part to gather that info, rather than being real time and
retrievable at whim.

~~~
sametmax
> It's a small one

I beg to differ. No cash means:

\- kids will have even less opportunities to be kids. We are creating a word
where they can't screw around. It's terrible for their growth.

\- you have no workaround for any situation that doesn't fit the box
perfectly. No way to speeds things up. Removing by passes mean a rigid and
unforgivable system.

\- you remove any possibility to try alternative systems, since by definition
alternatives don't work in the way the current one does. Actually they often
offend the current system. But you need those alternative to exists over-wise,
you get stuck.

\- of course, it also means morality is going to become law. Unable to hide,
people leaving differently will be exposed.

\- you'll get dependent on electronics. It means you need to have the
privilege to have access to equipment and services otherwise you are excluded
from society. Also in case of infrastructure failure, society is on hold.

This not a "little corner of privacy", it's "a huge part of what's allow us to
function in this imperfect world".

An imperfect system needs workarounds. It's very important. Otherwise you'll
get worst than a Gilliam's Brazil dystopia.

~~~
alkonaut
> kids will have even less opportunities to be kids. We are creating a word
> where they can't screw around.

How is the screwing around related to cash? Can you elaborate?

> An imperfect system needs workarounds.

Can you give an example?

~~~
sametmax
> How is the screwing around related to cash? Can you elaborate?

Kids need to do forbidden things hidden from adults to grow. They need
experiment. Make mistakes. Create their own set of values and ability to solve
problem independently. Without cash, it increases the number of things they
can't do without their parents. E.G: buying birth control, consuming illegal
products, going out in places the parents disagree with, etc.

No parents are perfect. All of them are wrong on some things, and have some
kind of unbalance in the way they interact with the children. It's life.
Growing for kids mean learning from their parents, and learning to distance
themself from their parents. Two sides of the same coin.

> An imperfect system needs workarounds.

Say you are in an saoudi dictatorship. Without cash, paying for drinks at a
secret gay bar becomes very hard. It's the same for us. They are many things
our system frown uppon. That doesn't mean it's bad.

Another thing: you are an administrator, and you know you can fix the school
door now with cash and create a fake paper trail later. Or pay the right way
and wait 6 months.

Obviously our system should be fixed. Cash is not the solution. But changing
the system is a hard, long and unreliable process. So meanwhile, cash helps to
get along.

~~~
alkonaut
> Without cash, it increases the number of things they can't do without their
> parents.

I always had a debit card and bank account, and in my teens I withdrew cash
and spent it. You are probably right that I would have thought twice about
some of those spends if I knew my parents could see the transactions (which
they would since I wasn't 18).

> Say you are in an saoudi dictatorship. Without cash, paying for drinks at a
> secret gay bar becomes very hard. It's the same for us.

Can't disagree here: eletronic money with a paper trail requires not just
stable and trustworthy government and public institutions, it requires some
trust also that _future_ governments and institutions are trustworthy. The
tradeoff between convenience and privacy is always a factor, and if lack of
privacy is lack of security then the choice is clear.

I think the solution to many of these problems is simply "cash on card". You
have a debit card connected to your bank account, but you can transfer a sum
to "virtual cash" on the card. That then works like cash, but without the
cash. It could be cryptographically based for example, and would mean the
receiver of the transaction doeesn't see the source. And on a statement from
the account it only shows up as the withdrawal when the e-cash was purchased.

------
m00s3
One data point: As a Canadian, I rarely have cash in my pocket. I can go
months at a time without handling cash. Mainly I encounter it these days when
I buy & sell stuff privately (via Used.ca or Facebook or whatever). Otherwise
I basically use Visa/Apple Pay for everything.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Beggars are gonna have a very hard time.

~~~
televod
I've seen a panhandler (in the US) flying a sign sporting a GoFundMe campaign
URL.

I could see phone-to-phone contactless payment becoming commonplace in the
same scenario.

------
oicu812
I don't want to go cashless and would like the return of the $500 dollar bill.

[http://time.com/money/5008950/bring-back-500-bill-cash-
cashl...](http://time.com/money/5008950/bring-back-500-bill-cash-cashless/)

~~~
ghaff
I’d settle for $100 bills for travel not being a hassle to obtain. Go into a
teller and they often don’t have any or at most one or two in many banks.

------
dosshell
Also, many stores in Sweden does not accept cash.

All stores I have visited the last year accepted card or Swish but around 15 %
of them did not accept cash. The argument is that cash is expensive to handle
and it increases the risk of robbery.

I have only heard about some old people (bank trust issue) and people with
economic problems (no credit card) that feel like this is a problem.

~~~
pwinnski
I'm not sure it's legal to refuse cash in the U.S., but I still can't remember
the last time I used it anywhere but a pop-up food stand.

~~~
icebraining
Yeap, it's legal: _" There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a
private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as
for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop
their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State
law which says otherwise."_

[https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Currency/Pages...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx)

~~~
ghaff
However, some states apparently block it. For example, there's a law in
Massachusetts that apparently prohibits accepting credit only.

------
yladiz
In my lifetime I doubt that cash will go away, even in the highly developed
countries that I've lived in. In the US and Europe it's used in smaller
transactions, like a concert or dance event, where paying with card is
significantly slower than cash, and beyond that you can definitely find cash
only places, especially outside of a major city. If you travel outside of the
US or Europe, many places deal only with cash, like Thailand or central Asia.
I know that it's posited as better against corruption, but there are still
some people that don't want a bank account and would prefer checks/cash for
their pay and I don't see that going away anytime soon unless it becomes
illegal (which won't happen).

------
upofadown
People that buy and pay for things online don't (and mostly can't) use cash.
So without separating out the online and offline purchases this could be
misleading.

I do so few transactions offline that I just use cash for those few, low
value, transactions. Since there are many places in the physical world that
just take cash I might as well just use the one thing. I have a working debit
card (the bank pretty much insists) but the added convenience isn't worth the
low risk of getting it skimmed and the small loss of privacy.

Eventually we will have to start making a distinction between electronic cash
and the physical kind. Cash is still a distinct sort of thing, no matter what
physical form it takes.

------
brett40324
One thing that comes to mind after reading all the comments, is the seemingly
very healthy and lucrative ATM business. Also, in the US, cashier's checks,
money orders, and sending money via services like Western Union accept cash
only. Most? state lottery sales are cash only as well. With these industries
and use cases, i lean toward the notion that "cash is king" and will exist as
paper notes and metal coinage for another 2 or 3? decades.

------
aivarsk
On a funny note I showed this slide in a talk about why mobile payments will
never replace cash and cards:
[https://i.imgur.com/l8OyoeD.png](https://i.imgur.com/l8OyoeD.png)

------
SurrealSoul
Man, I drove through Chicago recently and all their toll booths are cash only.
I hope this change goes nation wide fast

~~~
ghaff
That water's way past the bridge. The strong trend is hugely toward
eliminating all cash at toll booths. It's also largely academic from a privacy
perspective because they're taking pictures of your license plate anyway.

~~~
AskewEgret
Yes, exactly.

The toll roads in Illinois aren't actually cash-only. They just don't accept
credit cards at the toll booth because of the long transaction times.

If you want to pay by credit card, just go through the toll booth. You get 7
days to pay via credit card or personal check with no penalty!

[1] [https://www.illinoistollway.com/tolling-
information/unpaid-t...](https://www.illinoistollway.com/tolling-
information/unpaid-tolls)

------
santaclaus
That would be so awesome, but even in the tech-centric bay I still come across
lots of cash only places.

~~~
Casseres
Not awesome for those value privacy. There are companies out their building
profiles about you based on what you buy.

Target may know when someone is pregnant even before that person tells her own
family.

~~~
GFischer
Very famous case:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targ...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#2497be416668)

------
rb808
Cash is pretty popular in Puerto Rico right now. I doubt it will disappear.

~~~
alkonaut
Disaster is both a good time to have cash, and a bad time. Cash could be
destroyed or lost. And most of us don't have "cash" we have bank accounts and
ATMs. By the time we realize the disaster struck and the infrastructure is
gone, the ATMs are already empty.

It might actually be faster to get cell phone networks back up than it is to
get the infrastructure behind ATM's back (roads, people distributing money and
so on). So until then, only the preppers with enough cash for a long period of
time have cash. That said, if I lived in an area where there was any risk at
all of flood, earthquake or tropical weather, I'd have a large wad of cash
somewhere.

