
Currency is popular again, especially the $100 bill - ilamont
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-27/cash-is-more-popular-than-ever
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seibelj
Every time you swipe your credit card innumerable processes and algorithms
begin to parse and reevaluate your personality profile. Every purchase you
make changes their opinion and assessment of your shopping habits and needs.

Google may start showing ads for pet food if you bought something at PetSmart.
Your bank may start sending you car loan ads if you spend at the repair shop.
Everything has a side effect.

Cash is great because it is very simple. I gave you money for product, no one
knows anything else. Sometimes it’s nice not to be data mined for buying a cup
of coffee.

~~~
scottLobster
Yeah, but I get paid for that in a combination of cash back and points.

I limit my credit card information sharing as much as the privacy preferences
allow, but I'm not about to give up hundreds or thousands of dollars a year in
value because Google might show me an ad I won't click on anyway.

~~~
Spooky23
I had the same concern and tracked it. In my family’s case, making cash our
primary spending vehicle reduced our 2018 spending 7% vs 2017 when we were
card focused.

The value of the credit card point is about 2% best case. Points exist to
create a fomo attachment to the card.

~~~
ellisv
Was this because of using cash or simply paying more attention to spending?

I’d love to see a well done research paper to get a sense of the expected
value of cash vs credit.

~~~
orf
It's pretty obvious and well known that if you disassociate the cost of
something from the actual monetary value, people find it harder to conflate
the two.

This is the reason that you didn't buy a $20 XBox game, you brought a game
with 1,700 Microsoft points.

You don't buy this skin for a game for $14, that's way too expensive! Who
would pay that! However when it's on sale for 3,200 Riot points? That's a
great deal!

If you wanted to strike a death blow to the micropayments industry you'd just
need to force them to put the actual monetary price against each loot box/gem
bundle/whatever rather than obscuring it with a made up currency that nobody
can evaluate cost against.

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CPLX
Interesting topic, but seems like they left out one possible explanation.

Things in general are more expensive. So over time usage of higher
denomination bills will increase.

Eventually a $100 bill is equivalent to what a $20 bill was when I was a kid,
and those were common then.

~~~
colinbartlett
This is the main reason I get $2 bills instead $1 bills from my bank now. The
latter is a lot more useful for picking something up from the corner store or
for a small tip, simply because the value of the dollar bill has gone down.

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furyofantares
I use cash primarily because I enjoy promiscuous arithmetic with strangers

~~~
phyzome
It's good practice for your math skills, too!

Cashier: "That will be $3.86"

Me: [hands over a $5 bill, a dime, and a penny]

Cashier: "..."

Cashier: "..."

Cashier: [hands back a dollar and a quarter]

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mnm1
After hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the blackout lasted for months. I
assume no one was getting any money out of ATMs or using credit/debit cards or
Apple pay or anything like that. You don't have to distrust the financial
system to want cash on hand. You just need to have a rudimentary understanding
of the fragility of the current system. I simply cannot see a cash less
society ever existing while the only alternative is powered by electricity.
Electricity can fail way to easily.

~~~
samsonradu
After the hurricane, for the next 2-3 days there were no working ATMs (that we
found) in San Juan. Luckily, we had around 120$ in cash handy which we
carefully spent. After that we had to queue up for 1h+ in the torrid sun at
one of the few ATMs which had any cash. If I remember well there was a limit
of 100$ withdrawal.

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oh_sigh
What's the motivation for a store to not accept cash? Is it possible that cash
has a > 3% "fee"(or whatever stores pay for cc processing) when you roll in
cash registers, armored car services, employee handling time, theft, etc?

~~~
mod
From the article: "Businesses are experimenting with going cashless, hoping to
speed up transactions, combat theft and create a safer environment for their
employees."

As the owner of a brick and mortar business (a bar), I can tell you that we do
about 60% cash transactions. I just put in an ATM to try to up that number.
I'm tired of paying close to 3% fees on cards.

We have had some cash theft from employees but to eliminate that would require
100% credit, which isn't an option for me. A big part of our clientele is
service industry, and they're bringing in their cash tips and spending them.

~~~
RandallBrown
I never thought about cashless places doing it because they were worried about
theft from employees. I assumed it was to prevent thieves from coming in and
robbing the place.

(Makes total sense though that employees would be much more likely to do the
stealing)

~~~
Spooky23
My grandfather owned bars and would fire any honest bartender. His philosophy
was that a bartender who wasn’t stealing was smarter than he was.

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chabes
I closed my bank accounts in 2011. Cash is my currency of choice for most
things. I use bitcoin for long term savings. Cold storage is safer than a
bunch of cash under the mattress.

~~~
banachtarski
Who needs things like FDIC insurance anyways /s

~~~
ben509
Funny thing is, FDIC is insuring you against the bank collapsing, not your
bank accounts from theft. I don't think you can even do that, since protecting
your deposits against theft is supposed to be the service your bank provides.

You can insure cash with most homeowner's policies, though.

~~~
klodolph
This is called “bank fraud”. In general, no need for you to insure against
this because the bank has to eat the loss.

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darkmoney007
I also believe people are more conscious of their spending habits being sold
by everyone.

The most anonymous way is cash. Cash is King.

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sys_64738
I've never had a 100$ bill and find 50$ bills are frowned on in retail. I
carry a few 20$ bills just in case Apple Pay is not accepted.

~~~
AlexAltea
> 50$ bills are frowned on in retail

Where would that be? On every trip to the US I have exchanged cash, EUR to
USD, resulting in mostly $100 bills which I've used everywhere, sometimes even
for rather small purchases, and there's been no frown upon that (after few
purchases I also get my hands on smaller bills which are also more
convenient).

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undefined3840
It’s somewhat ironic that the people I know who are into crypto are somewhat
more likely to use cash than your average person for privacy reasons...

~~~
phyzome
Yeah, exactly. I take out $400 at a time on an ATM and then use it at farmers
markets and stores over the next few weeks. I only use my credit card for
refilling my transit pass, online ordering, and medical bill pay.

No one needs to have a full record of every purchase I make in real time.

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lordleft
Paying for various expenses with apple pay feels downright magical. I love it
and use it constantly. But I don't want currency to go away outright. There
are definite perks. The biggest one for me is that I'm much more cognizant of
much I'm spending when I have a physical representation of my money in my
pocket. I'm less inclined to overspend when I have physical cash.

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edoo
The $100 bill would obviously be more popular nowadays. For a lot of people on
here, since they were kids, the purchasing power of that $100 has fallen to
about $50. You have to carry twice as much currency to carry the same amount
of purchasing power around.

~~~
pochamago
I wonder if it's time for a $200 bill

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analog31
>>>> One recent study, by a pair of economists in Asia, found a link to aging
populations. It seems that older folks — perhaps because they’re less inclined
to trust numbers on a screen — have a greater affinity for cash.

It may also be harder to be swindled out of your money by telemarketers, if
you ditch your credit cards. And dealing with anything online or on a phone
can be physically laborious and error prone for the elderly -- then you have
to re-learn it when it changes.

For me, cash is actually a hassle. As a part time musician, I occasionally get
paid in cash -- often a $100 bill, preferably but rarely more -- and then I
have to deal with the bills and coins until it's finally spent.

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neonate
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