
In Germany, the use of cash has become a proxy for concerns about trust, privacy - ShadowFaxSam
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-06/germany-is-still-obsessed-with-cash
======
mpweiher
It's not a proxy, it's real.

German retailers have "discount cards", which give you a little off in return
for the ability to use your data.

If you pay with a card, they don't need to do that, they already have your
info, what you bought, when etc.

No thanks, I want my relationship with shops to be simple: I give you money,
you give me product.

And of course cash has the added benefit of being _tangible_. It's in your
wallet, then it's not. Spending more means taking out more bills, or bigger
bills.

~~~
collinf
Unrelated, but this reminds me of one of my favourite Mitch Hedberg bits.

“I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't
need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the
doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this.
I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a
doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that
doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home.
...Under "D".'

Really funny when you think about how this joke aged in this era of rampant
privacy abuse.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWx6uA5aCrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWx6uA5aCrE)

~~~
jocoda
It's also to prevent fraud by the cashier. Any transaction without a paper
trail showing proof of purchase makes it easy for staff to simply pocket the
cash.

~~~
amorphid
> It's also to prevent fraud by the cashier

Example:

\- cashier says you owe $X

\- you pay in cash

\- cashier gives you receipt

\- after you leave, cashier voids the transaction & pockets the cash

There are plenty of ways the cashier can get caught, but catching then be a
non-trivial exercise. It depends on the products being sold, quality of
systems to prevent fraud, etc.

~~~
pixl97
Voiding a transaction leaves a paper trail. Many registers require manager
keys to void. Not producing a receipt requires no paper trail.

~~~
AdamM12
Worked at a popular teen retailer in HS. Friend of mine would have his friends
(not including me) come in and return items. He'd simply give them the item
back, pocket the cash/gift card. Got caught by fraud prevention due to high
return count.

------
ShadowFaxSam
>Yet for many Germans, the convenience of electronic payment is beside the
point. Rather, the use of cash has, to a surprising extent, become a proxy for
profound concerns about trust, privacy, and the role of the state.

I've been banging my head against the table since moving to Germany about the
lack of convenience with cash payments and the need to constantly visit the
ATM. Yet the economy is doing just fine.

~~~
CogitoCogito
Personally I find the push in Sweden to only use card much more annoying. Cash
tends to fail much more rarely for me than cards. Of course there's no reason
why they can't coexist but since much of the official point of cashless is
tracking, cash will always be bad for those pushing for increased
surveillance.

Incidentally when I lived in Berlin I used to only use cash and I never found
it a bother. My bank had ATMs in many places and it really wasn't very hard to
keep cash around. I've always found it a little odd when people talk about
ATMs as being inconvenient when historically they're probably as convenient as
they've ever been. Of course it is always easier not to have to go to an ATM,
but today it really isn't that hard unless you have some tiny ATM network.

Regardless, having both cash and cashless is definitely the best of both
worlds. Convenience, redundancy, autonomy. I wish people would stop
unnecessarily view the two methods as incompatible when they complement each
other so well.

~~~
chatmasta
I don’t think the view is that they are incompatible with each other, but
rather that cash is incompatible with the motives of payment processors and
banks.

~~~
petre
Add to that the motives of state institutions who can freely put their fingers
in the honey jar (your bank account).

------
zhdc1
In my experience, it has little to do with public trust and a lot to do with
payment processor fees and an older population (which includes middle aged and
older shop owners) having an aversion to paying in anything other than cash.

A cashless bakery opened up here recently, and it was a big enough deal to
make several newspapers.

~~~
lars_francke
As a fellow german I couldn't agree more.

I only have anecdotal evidence (but to be fair I didn't see any evidence in
the article either that this cash-focus in Germany is really based on
privacy/trust issues) but I have never heard anyone use cash for privacy/trust
reasons.

You're looked at funny if you want to pay small amounts by card here.

Part of the reason I think where historically high costs attached to credit
card payments but the girocard system has been pretty cheap all along. Another
issue I see is that it sometimes takes ages for the machines to do their
thing.

I've been wondering for a while what the reason could be when using PINs. When
I lived in Switzerland I remember things working like this at a supermarket:
1) You put all your stuff on the belt at the register 2) While your stuff is
being scanned you can already put your card in the machine, enter your PIN and
press okay once 3) When everything's scanned you only have to press ok again
and the transaction is finished

In Germany it's different. You first have to wait for the whole
scanning/entering into the register process to be finished before you can even
put your card in the machine.

Hoping contactless payment will make this easier.

~~~
wolfgke
> I only have anecdotal evidence (but to be fair I didn't see any evidence in
> the article either that this cash-focus in Germany is really based on
> privacy/trust issues) but I have never heard anyone use cash for
> privacy/trust reasons.

I know quite some in Germany (and see myself among them). "Ironically" I
observe that the people who are most vocally privacy-minded (also concerning
cash) - at least in my cicrcle - often have studied computer science (or a
related subject) or are at least very interested in computer science topics,
while the people who argue very vocally that paying via credit card/NFC/... is
so much more convenient are not the kind of people who are very interested in
computer science topics.

~~~
freeflight
> while the people who argue very vocally that paying via credit card/NFC/...
> is so much more convenient are not the kind of people that is very
> interested in computer science topics.

They are usually also among those folks who don't think anybody would be
interested in their data along the lines of "What are they even gonna do with
it? Why should I care" firmly belonging to the "Nothing to hide, so I got
nothing to fear" camp.

------
perlgeek
Cash is _fast_.

Traditional direct debit payment takes around 20 seconds or so.

An experienced cashier is much faster in giving you your change if you pay
cash.

There is a newish "instant" payment with NFC chips, that doesn't require a PIN
or a signature if you pay less than 20 €. It's much faster (maybe 5 seconds?),
but it's not available everywhere yet. Certainly not at shops where you
typically only spend small amounts (bakery, small Asian fast-food places
etc.).

~~~
leokennis
Really? Reeaallly?

When not paying contactless (which takes less than 5 seconds like you
mentioned), paying by debit card takes 6 seconds: enter card, mash 4 number
PIN, push OK. And after that 0 seconds spent on change, fumbling with bills
and coins etc.

What I noticed in Germany though, is that many store clerks insist on taking
your card, then putting it in the machine, handing it to you, then take it
back from you when you’ve entered the PIN. Yes, if you do it 1920’s style then
it takes longer than a cash transaction...

~~~
perlgeek
> Really? Reeaallly?

Yes, unfortunately. I don't know if many shops have shitty Internet connection
(sometimes the card reader even displays "ISDN dialup" in the status field)
and/or the online clearing takes so long, but it really is annoyingly slow
most of the time.

------
antris
As I understand it, German obsession with privacy and cash stems largely from
WW2. Information that the government had about its citizens were used to round
up Jews to put them in ghettos and concentration camps.

It's a lesson that I wish the rest of the world had had as well.

~~~
thomascarney
Germany still requires that you register your residence, name, age and
religion within two weeks of moving to a new place.

Often, you even have to provide proof from a landlord that you do live there.

The German obsession with privacy has a LOT to do with making life difficult
for tech companies, rather than the privacy of its citizens per say.

~~~
no_identd
>Germany still requires that you register your residence, name, age and
religion within two weeks of moving to a new place.

>Often, you even have to provide proof from a landlord that you do live there.

You left out the part where persons wishing to access those government records
need to provide justification, a fee, and the access gets logged.
Unfortunately, government employees accessing those records aren't as tightly
regulated (although it's gotten better, iirc).

So no, it has nothing to do with some __intention of __ 'making life difficult
for tech companies'.

~~~
thomascarney
I would argue it's fair to say that the current regulations were formulated
with the intent to restrict the activities of tech companies.

At the same time, though, you might see the problem of having the government
collect data on religion (even if safeguards are in place today).

Tomorrow the AfD might be in power, and they might use that data for purposes
beyond those envisioned today.

More broadly, I feel, while great to restrict tech companies, there are also
very real dangers from the state collecting data.

------
matthiasl
I wonder how well you could track cash if you wanted to.

ATMs could OCR and log the serial numbers of bills they dispense, and they
obviously know who they're dispensing to. Banks could do the same with
incoming cash at the end of the business day.

The tracking would be weaker than with electronic payments since some notes
will be re-used after being given as change, but it'd still be useful to a
government that wants to track its population.

~~~
psadri
I wonder what would happen if you took a black marker to the serial numbers?
Perhaps modern bills have other means of encoding their serial numbers.

~~~
liveoneggs
they are probably printed with special inks, requiring a special marker to
fool magnetic-scanning or somesuch. It would also be easy to reject the
validity/authenticity of paper money with an illegible serial number.

------
alleskleber
In my experience some Germans are quite skeptical about technology when it
comes to money. Cash is so simple, nothing can go wrong. Cash just works -
always. Privacy is more of a bonus point. It's used as an argument a lot but I
think Germans are so used to carry cash, it's just not perceived as a major
annoyance.

------
1ba9115454
I don't think it's that Germans want to only use cash, I think it's more that
the payment systems in Germany are not great.

Lot's of bars/beer gardens/shops can't take cards.

German banks seem to use their own system called EC card which is not usable
anywhere else in the world.

You can't use an EC card to buy stuff online you have to make a bank transfer.

~~~
PinguTS
EC/Maestro works anywhere in Europe and in most parts of the world. It even
works in US at the ATM.

~~~
harperlee
But the converse is not true; when europeans go to Germany they can't pay with
cards that are normally accepted elsewhere. That is a major nuisance.

~~~
krageon
I've been in Germany recently (with a card that is normally accepted
elsewhere) and everything worked just fine. When was the last time you were
there?

~~~
rkachowski
I live in Berlin, I would say the majority places will refuse to accept
anything other than EC card

------
beagle3
The article is unashamedly biased in favor of electronic transactions. It
ignores (or I missed it) dissenting voices in Sweden[0], and quotes Ken Rogoff
about buying apartments in cash (and thus avoiding tax), which doesn't sound
applicable to Germany which has a precise, essentially authoritative real
estate registry system (that is, if your home is not registered to you in the
registry, it is not YOUR home). Some countries require you to list the
transaction price/details, with proof of it is not within the norm; I don't
know if that is required or not in Germany, but such a requirement will do
more against property value taxation fraud than a cashless society.

It also seems to mention but downplay the part history plays here; Every
german has friend or family with stories about the abuse of power in east
germany (and older ones in Nazi germany as well).

It's a question of "when", not "if" centrally controlled electronic cash will
be abused - precedents already exist - and the collective German memory is
still too strong to ignore the implications (the way the rest of the western
world evidently does ignore).

[0]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43645676](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43645676)

~~~
pgeorgi
> Some countries require you to list the transaction price/details, with proof
> of it is not within the norm; I don't know if that is required or not in
> Germany,

There's the real estate sales tax that's a percentage of the sale. You're also
required to have a notary set up the whole procedure (to make sure that
everybody gets precisely what was agreed upon, or to initiate a rollback -
there's about 0 chance that somebody goes out of the transaction without
getting what is theirs) who is on the hook for making sure that everything
fits together.

------
rb808
I know a few small business owners in Europe and they all prefer cash as a way
to avoid the hefty sales & income taxes. They want cash sales, pay some
employees under the table, do their own spending in cash - even new cars and
property. The last thing anyone wants is an electronic record of money going
in and out.

So yes its privacy but not in the way the article talks about.

~~~
krageon
There is definitely a subsection of small business owners that operate that
way (partially), but the overwhelming majority of cash flow is aboveboard (you
can report cash to the tax authority, and yes this also happens) in my
experience. To give you another anecdotal piece of data.

------
therealmarv
In Germany (or better to say German banks) it's still common to not get any
instant phone notification on card payments. In many other EU countries it's
common to get at least SMS.

Actually I also distrust systems where you need to verify your card payments
at the end of the month.

------
aswanson
Conversely, I recall social trust being so high in Switzerland than when we
comes at a restaurant, my coworker just handed the waiter a business card, and
he took the name down to bill the company our tab.

~~~
zhdc1
I wouldn't be surprised if there's already an agreement in place between that
restaurant and your company.

I agree that social trust is very high in Switzerland, but I don't know if
it's that high (at least, I've never seen someone pay over here with a
business card).

------
BjoernKW
While many people claim to be using cash for privacy reasons the same people
often are absolutely fine with using a digital loyalty card called Payback
(I'm not making this up. This is the actual name ...), which is widely used in
Germany.

So, I suppose this is not so much about privacy at all but rather about
laziness or stubbornness.

~~~
sveme
I doubt that the privacy-conscious would use payback - that‘s mostly used by
seniors and moms. That cash-paying people use payback does not imply that
privacy-conscious people that pay cash use payback. Non sequitur.

~~~
BjoernKW
I have no exact numbers but from personal experience I can tell you that it's
by no means just seniors and "moms" but people of all age brackets who use
this. Then again, privacy-mindedness isn't necessarily related to age anyway.

------
PinguTS
Cash is cool. Cash is anonymously. Cash is independent from any payment
processor. Cash has no payment fees. Cash does not require power, so it is
somehow environment friendly. Cash is just cool.

~~~
philfrasty
"Cash has no payment fees" This is simply not true. Take a business for
example:

1.) have a cashbox (or multiple)

2.) guard cashbox

3.) every evening count money in cashbox

4.) hope the cash you took in is still in the cashbox

5.) if not 4) --> accounting nightmare + fire employee

6.) bring cash to bank

~~~
PinguTS
A cash-free business:

1.) have a terminal that supports all the different card types

2.) guard the IT infrastructure according to the PCI rules (have you ever
needed to implement those, especially for small shop owners with no IT know-
how)

3.) every day/week/month accounting of the payments to the corresponding
receipts

4.) hope that the customer doesn't initiate a reimbursement

5.) if not 4) --> accounting nightmare + loss of the reimbursed money

6.) spending weekends (small business) for the required IT infrastructure

~~~
h1d
1) What's the concern here?

2) Why does the seller have to guard the payment processor's IT
infrastructure?

3) Certainly faster than counting cash on top of counting the reciepts.

4) The problem doesn't exactly lie in the cash less system. Dealing with
complaint is your business' problem.

5) Reversing 1 entry isnt a nightmare.

6) Are you developing your own solution or something?

------
expertentipp
...while loyalty cards, points, and systems are thriving... old population and
retailers unwilling to take over the transactions fees. Dont’t make any
philosophies out of it. The same reasons why the internet is so shit in this
country.

------
birdmanjeremy
Portugal is the lowest on the list. In my experience, it's also heavily biased
towards cash, at least compared to the US. Perhaps the "value in Euros" is
skewed because it's cheaper in Portugal than Germany?

------
georgeecollins
Studies show that you tend to be more frugle when you spend in cash. There is
a reason why casinos give you chips. I always try to use cash when I can.

------
jessaustin
I'm confused. Yesterday I learned that Japan had too much cash. TIL Germany
has too much cash. I hear on a regular basis that USA has too much cash, and
don't get them started on the checks...

Where on earth is it, that fortunate land in which the happy people have
gotten rid of their cash? Surely their economy is booming, and everyone is
happy to have sacrificed the advantages of cash so as to optimize that
fundamentally important transaction: hipsters buying overpriced coffee-related
beverages without tipping.

------
coinerone
At least, Germany is not as bad as Japan!

------
no_identd
Having read most of the comments here, I come to the conclusion that y'all
need to start comprehending the difference between 'cash' and 'bank money',
and no, I don't mean the conspiracy theory laden bullshit spread around by the
most terrible Zeitgeist movies. I mean the real deal. Here, a paper on it:

[http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue80/Huber80.pdf](http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue80/Huber80.pdf)
Huber, Joseph - Split-circuit reserve banking - functioning, dysfunctions and
future perspectives

Abstract: "This paper first provides a detailed outline of how the present
money system works. This then serves as a backdrop to discuss a number of
orthodox fallacies and heterodox flaws in money theory, followed by a summary
of the dysfunctions of split-circuit reserve banking and a brief outlook on
the perspective of a single-circuit sovereign money system."

Keywords; monetary economics, money theory, credit creation, banking theory,
fractional reserve banking, monetary policy, monetary reform

One may find comments on the paper here:

[https://rwer.wordpress.com/comments-on-rwer-issue-
no-80/](https://rwer.wordpress.com/comments-on-rwer-issue-no-80/)

I'll quote part of the paper here, and I'd strongly recommend reading all of
it if you want to have any understanding of modern economics __at all __:

"[...]

Modern money is non-cash

As far as traditional solid cash (banknotes and coins) is still in use, cash
circulation represents a third circuit. In contrast to precious-metal coins,
and like reserves, cash is token fiat money today. But rather than circulating
between central bank accounts (reserves) or between bank accounts (bankmoney),
traditional solid cash circulates from hand to hand in public circulation,
without needing banks, or central banks respectively, as a trusted third
party. Regarding the future of money, modern digital cash based on some form
of blockchain technology might become a modern equivalent of traditional cash
(notwithstanding the question of who will issue and control the stock of such
digital currency). In any case, in a basically cashless money system based on
money-on-account, traditional cash is no longer of defining relevance.

Within the frame of reserve banking, cash and money-on-account must not be
confused as is done by negligent speak, and even by official accounting
standards.¹ At source, modern money is non-cash, a credit entry into a
respective account. In the split-circuit structure, this applies to both
bankmoney and central bank money. Traditional solid cash (coins, notes) has
become a residual technical subset of the bankmoney in circulation, withdrawn
from or exchanged back into a bank giro account.

Since about the 1920 – 60s, when bankmoney was definitely driving out solid
cash in the course of the general dissemination of cashless payment practices,
cash has no longer been constitutive of the money system. Cash now represents
about 3 – 15% of the stock of money (M1), depending on the country, and a
continued declining share in the long run. When referring to broad money
aggregates (M2/3/4 which include, for example, deposit savings and money
market fund shares) cash amounts to only 2 – 10%. Accordingly, cash can now
largely be excluded from monetary system analysis (in spite of its present
role as an effective hindrance to misguided negative interest rate policies of
central banks). The means of payment that dominates everything today is
bankmoney with its share of 90 – 98% in the entire money supply.

[...]

\---

¹ Cf. Financial Accounting Standards Board: FASB Accounting Standards
Codification, Topic 305-2011, Cash and Cash Equivalents. The same in US GAAP
(Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). For a critical assessment see
Schemmann, Michael. 2012. Accounting Perversion in Bank Financial Statements.
The Root Cause of Financial Crises, IICPA Publications.

[...]

[...]"

------
Grollicus
Americans always cry about taxes but then they pay an 8% premium on everything
to their payment processor. As long as the money doesn't go to the state its
okay, right?

~~~
mnx
8%? What? That can't be true.

~~~
kuschku
Visa and MasterCard hover around 2-3%, but AMEX often goes up to 7-8% for
certain goods, yes.

Credit cards are a massive cost to society and should be replaced.

~~~
mnx
Ok, so AMEX is unreasonably expensive. That 2-3% is exactly what I expect -
maybe even a little lower, esp. for bigger merchants. Why would anybody accept
such an expensive card?

~~~
kuschku
That's exactly the problem. Why would any merchant pay 10x, even 50x more for
a card than they pay for cash?

If each customer had to pay extra depending on their method of payment — 0.2%
for cash, 0.125% for EC, 2% for MasterCard, 7% for VISA — no one would use
credit cards anymore. Especially for big purchases.

Reality is, as long as merchants can not give cash-only discounts, CC owners
leech off of the cash payers.

~~~
Nasrudith
They can already actually. It was ruled legal to pass on the expenses
durectly/discount cash transactions. However they usually don't do so for
several reasons. I have only seen a few gas stations do so and they are low
margin businesses.

One is logistical and consumer expectations of maintaining two price lists
Another is that credit cards get them more sales and spare them from
accidental structuring horror stories. A third reason is security - credit
cards leave less cash in the register for a robber to steal and harder to
steal from the tills.

------
OhHeyItsE
This is good for Bitcoin.

[...right?]

------
TulliusCicero
Yeah and it's obnoxious as hell. When I moved to Munich from the bay area,
suddenly having to actively manage cash and coins on a daily basis felt like
I'd stepped through a portal to a few decades ago. So many places being cash-
only is very much "WHAT YEAR IS IT??"

Some Germans defend it as "well Germans just prefer their privacy" but they
still sign up for loyalty card programs and they _are_ adopting cards for
payment, just very slowly for how otherwise-developed they are. This isn't
really a stance borne out of principled concerns, it comes from a general
skepticism/paranoia of consumer technology/innovations.

I see the same thing with how many German institutions still rely on mailing
physical letters whereas the equivalent American ones switched to emails a
decade+ ago. For example, the Grundschule my son will start at next year
needed to tell us about an appointment. Did they use an email, perhaps one
they gathered from an earlier appointment we'd had there? Of course not, they
mailed a letter, a letter that _didn 't come until the day of the
appointment_, which they then berated my wife on the phone for missing.

Other examples: to create an online account for my health insurance provider,
they sent me a code to confirm the account...using an actual letter for the
code. Same deal for recharging an Aldi-Talk SIM, you need to have them mail a
letter to your address, and then and only then may you pay (via bank
transfer). And the websites I've looked at for the Grundschulen (elementary
schools) look like they were made by a high schooler in 2006, whereas when I
look at ones for school districts for my nephews and nieces in the states,
they actually appear reasonably modern. Or when I got photos from people in my
son's kindergarten, only one person did sending them over a photo/file-sharing
service, the others were a flash drive, a CD, many emails with one or more
photos attached, and also someone just handing me their whole camera.

tl;dr Germany is surprisingly backwards when it comes to consumer technology

~~~
sveme
Health insurance -> physical letter: security.

Kindergarten photos: wouldn‘t want pictures of my kids to end up on the web
either, maybe slight, but I guess justified paranoia.

AldiTalk: anonymous phones have been illegalized by law a couple of years
back. Maybe that? But you could always just recharge via SMS or the web? Don‘t
understand that particular point.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> Kindergarten photos: wouldn‘t want pictures of my kids to end up on the web
> either, maybe slight, but I guess justified paranoia.

I mean, using a file-sharing service (which one person did) isn't really
different from emailing them to me. It's just more convenient/advanced.

> But you could always just recharge via SMS or the web? Don‘t understand that
> particular point.

At least when I was using it, no. You had to get a letter first to setup a
bank transfer method of payment, _then_ you could pay online using the web or
app. Otherwise you had to actually go to an Aldi. My wife still does this
because she's still on Alditalk and hasn't bothered to get the letter.

~~~
wolfgke
> I mean, using a file-sharing service (which one person did) isn't really
> different from emailing them to me. It's just more convenient/advanced.

You should also avoid mailing them around. Better rent some personal
webspace/server (rule of thumb: if you do not pay for it, you are not the
customer, but the product), put it there and create for everybody who should
have access to the data a private account.

EDIT: If you _must_ mail the data around, encrypt it beforehand.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> Better rent some personal webspace/server (rule of thumb: if you do not pay
> for it, you are not the customer, but the product), put it there and create
> for everybody who should have access to the data a private account.

There needs to be a name for this kind of suggestion on places like Hacker
News, where someone suggests renting your own server or compiling the program
from source yourself or anything else that is very obviously beyond the
interest and/or capabilities of the average user.

> EDIT: If you must mail the data around, encrypt it beforehand.

Haha, yes!

~~~
wolfgke
> There needs to be a name for this kind of suggestion on places like Hacker
> News, where someone suggests renting your own server or compiling the
> program from source yourself or anything else that is very obviously beyond
> the interest and/or capabilities of the average user.

I admit that things like server adminstration etc. have to become much easier,
so that more "average" people are able to do that (and with this I do not
mean: "drop another level of abstraction upon GNU/Linux").

But I know people who openly stop communicating with people who do not respect
their privacy in terms of communication, since for example this means that
these people are willing to extradite them to three latter agencies.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> I admit that things like server adminstration etc. have to become much
> easier, so that more "average" people are able to do that (and with this I
> do not mean: "drop another level of abstraction upon GNU/Linux").

Nah, they don't have to. Because the current setup works fine for regular
users. It's principled, privacy-conscious/free-software-promoting power users
like yourself that _want_ them to care even though they really don't give a
shit.

> But I know people who openly stop communicating with people who do not
> respect their privacy in terms of communication, since for example this
> means that these people are willing to extradite them to three latter
> agencies.

You must have some interesting associates, I've never met someone like this.

~~~
wolfgke
> You must have some interesting associates, I've never met someone like this.

Indeed. :-) In some sense I seem to have a tendency to attract some specific
breed of people (that is very hard to describe: let's outline them 'really
smart people who have not found their place (yet) and are often somewhat
quirky') "magnetically". :-)

------
xstartup
This seems to be an odd case.

At one place we get to hear about "GDPR" and how it's "delayed gratification",
"society first".

Then there is this obsession with cash. Where "society first" does not apply.

Cashless society can easily track terrorist funding, corruption, illegitimate
cash dealings used in trafficking, drug deals etc...

This kinda seems hypocritical to me.

No wonder Germany is the largest human trafficking country.

~~~
wolfgke
> At one place we get to hear about "GDPR" and how it's "delayed
> gratification", "society first".

> Then there is this obsession with cash. Where "society first" does not
> apply.

Both are not about "society first" (and I have never heard this term with
respect to GDPR), but "privacy first".

------
vrex
I noticed this is very weird but I'm young (in my early 20s) and I only use my
card to withdraw money from the ATM. Wherever I go, if it is in a restaurant,
a store or the pharmacy I only pay in cash.

For me personally it has not just something to do with privacy, for me cash is
more real than my debit card. When I shop with cash I spend less money, I know
how much money I have to spend the next X days etc. I can never imagine myself
not using cash

