
Swedes rebelling against a cashless society (2018) - tangue
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43645676
======
johnlorentzson
I'm Swedish and this stuff makes me really worried. Especially since the main
way for two people to exchange small amounts of money is through a proprietary
app that uses a proprietary ID system (owned by a for-profit company) that
only runs on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.

I really hope this trend dies off, a cash-less society is a terrible idea.

I will say, however, that buses not taking cash is perfectly fine. They use
NFC/RFID ticket cards which can't identify you. Not being able to buy tickets
with cash is a little less fine.

~~~
beefield
> I really hope this trend dies off, a cash-less society is a terrible idea.

I fully understand that my opinion is both unintuitive and deeply disliked by
many if not most people, so I can only ask you to spend some time thinking if
you _really_ have thought this through.

Anyway, I believe there are realistic scenarios where it is good for the
economy and society to have negative interest rates imposed by central banks.
Cash is one of the things that prohibits this, thus we need to get rid of
cash. _At the same time_ we definitely need privacy respecting payment
methods. Thus we would likely need to develop some kind of physical
tokens/coins/notes/whatever whose value is time dependent.

Biggest problem here is that the amount of people who simultaneously
understand the need of negative rates and privacy respecting payment systems
seems to be for all practical purposes pretty close to zero, so I am not
holding my breath here.

~~~
pb82
I'm skeptic. Forcing people to buy crap they don't need by denying them ways
to store cash will probably increase some numbers in some spreadsheets. But is
it really a net positive for society? Or are there other reasons that I didn't
consider like more people seeking investment options like the stock market?

~~~
beefield
Well, not "forcing"[1] people buying crap today makes the people creating the
crap jobless and yes, that has a real cost for society. first because the
jobless do not create value and second because someone needs to pay their
unemployment benefits.

[1] Nobody is forcing you to do anything. You can voluntarily choose to lend
your money to the bank if you agree with the interest rate. If you do not, you
are free to do as you please with your money. Find someone who is willing to
pay better interest rates (typically more risky)[2], buy crap, or even buy
bitcoin or gold.

[2] Interesting question is, why society should guarantee you a return[3] on
your investments if you do not yourself find a counterparty that is willing to
pay you high enough return that you are happy with? Smells awfully lot like
socialism to me.

[3] And why this guaranteed return needs to be exactly 0%? Why not 5%?

~~~
SuoDuanDao
If it's legal to own bitcoin or gold, what good does eliminating cash do?

~~~
beefield
Central banks do not guarantee purchasing power of gold or bitcoin.

(A note, The questions I made above are not meant to be snarky. Those are the
kind of questions I struggled literally for months when I tried to get my head
around negative rates and whether they make sense or not.)

~~~
SuoDuanDao
How do they guarantee the purchasing power of legal tender? Serious question,
I thought the health of the economy and the need to pay taxes was all that did
that.

------
codr7
I recently moved back to Sweden after living 4 years in Germany. I don't have
any cards, and I don't carry a "smart"phone anymore; in Germany this didn't
cause any trouble at all and I was far from alone.

Much of the current Swedish society is currently closed to me, I know of three
shops and one cafe in the (200k people) city center that accept cash. Some of
it has been gradual but it changed dramatically during the time I was away.

Believe me, this is not the kind of world anyone really wants to live in. It's
all very convenient until the crap hits the fan, putting this much power in
the hands of any authority is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention those who
have no choice.

~~~
beefield
> It's all very convenient until the crap hits the fan

I have difficulties imagining the crap hitting fan that simultaneously breaks
down electronic payment systems but rather miraculously keeps the purchasing
power of paper money intact for any extended time. Could you maybe elaborate
why you consider this specific scenario likely enough to worry about?

~~~
fipar
You may be reading "crap hits the fan" as something massive, like a collapse
of the banking system.

I'm not the OP, but I can also read it as "crap hits the fan _for me_ ", and
this makes it simple to imagine ways in which a person can lose access to
digital payment (by theft, by being blocked by the bank for whatever reason,
etc.) and if this happens, life would be difficult on a cash-less society
until this access is regained.

Just imagine if you're accidentally identified as a financial supporter of
terrorism or something like that, and your bank accounts are blocked. How
would you buy even basic necessities if cash is not allowed?

~~~
matz1
People can lose access to cash too, by theft or whatever.

>Just imagine if you're accidentally identified as a financial supporter of
terrorism or something like that, and your bank accounts are blocked

Then make it illegal for bank to block your account or whatever.

Sure, digital payment has its issue but why not fix the issue instead of going
back to cash.

------
notRobot
Being able to pay through cards and phones is super convenient, but cash
should never not be an option.

Card companies, payment apps and banks are constantly tracking your purchases
and profiling you. This data can be leaked/stolen/sold, and is always
available to governments and those in/with power.

Cash is (almost completely) anonymous. You should always be able to pay with
cash if you want.

~~~
techsupporter
> You should always be able to pay with cash if you want.

Why, other than your privacy? If I own a business, why should I be barred from
choosing to not accept cash? Paper money is more labor-intensive to handle and
opens my employees up to risk of being robbed for that cash or sickened by
handling dirty bills.

As for people who may not be able to pay electronically, why can I not choose
to not have them as customers?

If your argument is “because social good and we make those kinds of
requirements on businesses all of the time,” I’m open to it but feel it goes
much farther than privacy.

~~~
onion2k
_Why, other than your privacy?_

Businesses that don't accept cash don't make any money when the infrastructure
fails. If your revenue is dependent on your PoS device, Wi-Fi, ISP, payment
provider, the payment provider's network infrastructure, banking network, and
more that's _a lot_ of risk. For most independent businesses having a working
cash register and a bank account that enables cash deposits would be a better
option than the cost of SLAs and insurance against not being open.

~~~
yellow_postit
Storing carbon copies of credit cards is something still supported for when
the network goes down, see “credit card imprinter”

~~~
C1sc0cat
So Sweden has gone almost cashless but they still have a manual process
relying on embossed numbers?

In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now

~~~
dfawcus
> In the UK embossed numbers on cards are gone now

Nope.

The only ones I know of which do not use embossed numbers are Starling Bank,
and (for premier customers) RBS and NatWest. All bar one of my cards is
embossed.

Supposedly as of January last year: "Lloyds, Barclays, Nationwide, HSBC and
Santander all say they currently have no plans to introduce such cards."

So which ones are you thinking of where the embossed numbers have gone?

------
dehrmann
Part of why cashless works is the same reason the Swedish welfare state
generally works: a trust of government. Contrast this with Germany and its
history with...lists; it's best not to have yourself be too traceable. I think
the US is somewhere in-between, but at the end of the day, we'll hand over a
lot for 2% cashback and avoid paying for journalism at all costs.

~~~
LatteLazy
Of course, the German government that made lists did so without credit card
records or electronic ids or anything like that...

~~~
ce4
This misses the point - the spying-on-your-citizens was decided by the state
on purpose, going completely cashless enables dragnet surveillance that makes
it really hard to evade if one has to (journalists, dissidents)

~~~
LatteLazy
Oh, I was just answering the German comparison. I agree that mass surveillance
is a terrible idea and is incomparable with democracy.

------
socialdemocrat
I am Norwegian and we seldom use cash as well. I use cash perhaps a couple of
times per year. However I am totally against the reliance on electronic
payment. Cash should alway be a viable option.

Or at least the electronic payment systems we use need to be more robust. I
remember from living in the Netherlands that they had a neat system called
Chipknip. It was electronic money. So the machines accepting it did not rely
on having a direct connection to a bank at all times.

It think if we are to be cashless we need something like that. It needs to be
possible to make payments without having a physical connection to a bank at
all times.

A big problem with electronic payment is that we are handing over a huge
amount of cash to companies like VISA and Mastercard. I think when all of
society operates in this fashion there really is a need for a government
supported solution, because this is not merely a question of a "neat" feature
you can buy but essential infrastructure in society.

It is reckless to leave such essential infrastructure in the hands of private
companies.

~~~
kome
fully agree!

but i push it even further: i'm for electronic cash, but i'm against some
american company (visa, mastercard) to know every transaction of mine.

I want public electronic cash. A public, national, non for profit
infrastructure that manage cash.

~~~
ulzeraj
I agree with your opinion about corporations tracking every transaction but I
also dread the same situation but with government in place of these corps.

~~~
kome
Well, paper money is exactly this already.

------
eitland
In Norway, next to Sweden, accepting cash is mandatory and you can get fined
(after a warning it seems) if you don't.

The reasoning is we don't want everything to break down just because the power
grid or backbone networks breaks down.

~~~
johnlorentzson
Looks like I know where I'm going if Sweden turns to shit.

~~~
eitland
BTW: I often look at profiles on HN.

------
alkonaut
We aren’t (Weren’t) rebelling. There isn’t even a debate about it. I still
haven’t used cash in years. Certainly not since the 2018 of the article.

We really need “digital cash”, ie a government backed digital currency that
can be used with the convenience of cards but with the anonymity (at the point
of sale) of cash.

I don’t believe in regular non-state cryptocurrencies for various reasons, not
least because anonymity of all transactions isn’t really desirable in a high
tax welfare state with high trust that people pay taxes.

The Swedish central back is working on it, so maybe this is not too far away.
One should be aware though that “digital cash“ doesn’t solve all the problems,
it’s not as resilient technically as paper cash.

------
willvarfar
Its a bold headline, but as the article explains, its not actually very many
Swedes who seem to be 'rebelling'.

People I know are trying to get pensioners they are 'responsible for' to stop
carrying and using cash, as its far higher risk.

I don't personally know of anybody rebelling against the cashless society, not
in any age group. Its not even talked about.

On the other hand, 'do you take swish' (a phone-to-phone payment method) is
asked all the time. Lunch with friends? Instead of everyone ordering
separately, just order together, and divvy it up with Swish when you get the
bill. Etc.

I have a single banknote folded up my wallet, just for emergencies, and I
haven't used it this year yet.

~~~
Svip
> I don't personally know of anybody rebelling against the cashless society,
> not in any age group. Its not even talked about.

No one is, because the cashless society isn't happening. The concept of
abandoning cash is at this stage merely a thought experiment. Even in Sweden,
the most significant action taken in that direction is a discussion about
whether to have a discussion, from the government.

But why would any government abandon cash? Any fiat currency needs at least
some cash to go around, otherwise the remaining cash exchanges that still
happens, a lot of which are untracked, would be outside of the control that
governments still have over them; valuation. If you take away their cash, they
will simply find another bartering tool.

~~~
jopsen
You're right that if you take away cash the sketchy side of the economy might
switch to euros or dollar :)

But that won't work for shops trying to avoid taxes. It'll also make it much
harder to buy stuff from criminals, as you would have to go get cash
somewhere.

What other cash exchanges still happens?

~~~
Svip
Tourists, I'd imagine. I am not sure how many merchants you know in Sweden
that accepts UnionPay? At least of the smaller ones. And I know most German
tourists prefer cash, generally any tourist from a cash heavy society will
prefer cash.

Sure, their big ticket items are still going to be hotels and the like, where
they will pay with a credit card, but they are not interested in coming if
they can pay the small merchant with cash. Because they don't have access to
the local infrastructure for digital payments, that the locals do.

~~~
username90
When I travel abroad I just use my mastercard, why doesn't that work for them?
I don't know anyone without a mastercard or a visa.

~~~
Svip
Where do you travel? There are plenty of countries I've been to that don't
accept any foreign cards. Unless you only go to the fancy hotels and
restaurants, I suppose. But if you actually want to interact with small
merchants abroad, you need cash.

I never travel abroad without cash, and that includes when I travel to Sweden.

~~~
LeonidasXIV
> I never travel abroad without cash, and that includes when I travel to
> Sweden.

I've been in Sweden plenty times and haven't even seen a single Swedish krona.
In the Copenhagen subreddit we also recommend people not bringing in cash, at
least as long as their credit card situation is somewhat reasonable.

------
michaelmrose
In a society where cash is an option there is a roof on how much money you can
extract from the population as if you ask for too much people will
increasingly avail themselves of cash.

The cost of switching to using cash is a trip to the bank/atm.

The closer you get to cashless the more you can afford to screw people to the
wall.

For example does anyone recall the idea us bankers floated about negative
nominal interest on checking?

------
zoomablemind
The convenience of electronic payments is obvious. But cashless sounds more
like a restriction, indeed inconvenience.

Say, one lost a wallet and phone (robbed or just that, lost) and needs to get
back home somehow. Public transportation requires an electronic ticket, cab
needs card. What's then?

Walk to your bank branch, explain to driver the story and pay later, hope a
compelled passenger would pay for you?

Lending someone a dollar does not oblige one whether you trust the person on
not. Paying for one directly is more involved. Surely people don't lend their
cards to strangers, willfully.

~~~
digestiv3
Here is a radical idea: what if everyone paid their tickets through a public
infrastructure tax. That way neither the person with cards or cash in their
wallets has to worry about getting home. We don't even need to carry a wallet
that could get lost in the first place!

~~~
zoomablemind
In many European cities transportation is on honor basis, that is you're
assumed to have paid the ticket, unlike elsewhere to pay on entry. But this is
paired with random control runs and stiff penalties.

I would imagine one could just take a free ride, and prepare to tell the story
if caught. Or maybe even go to police, report a loss, maybe get some means to
get home.

Well, it's like a society contract. Looks like it has some small font on it
too :)

This changes the notion of money, turning it more into rationning system.
Cashless seems almost a step away from social credit system. You can get your
"allocated share".

What does it mean to be a run-away in Sweden? Is it walk-away, hide-away,
certainly not cashless...

------
0x1221
Maybe I'm biased but I much prefer the way the UK has handled this. Card
payments are _everywhere_ , contactless payments are everywhere (life changer
in London's public transport where touching in and out with your phone/card
automatically charges you the correct price meaning that you don't need to
deal with tickets) and everyone still has the option to use cash.

------
nnq
Cash in the only practical anonymous-when-you-need-it-to-be way to pay still.

 _Don 't let it die until we have alternative suitable anonymous and un-
blockable-by-cyberattacks (eg. "it must still work while the internet is
down") currencies!_

(Note: no, we don't have yet, all current crypto currencies are "barely
working prototypes" at best, all of them have issues that still need ironing
out! Bitcoin itself is like a proof-of-concept-pre-MVP that got "rushed into
production". And the blockchain itself... we _NEED_ to have a way of _fully
erasing history_ from it, like paper money do, we _don 't yet know how to do
that while keeping the nice properties of blockchain_... all these are open
research questions, Satoshi only made the first baby step!)

~~~
DarthGhandi
Who are you quoting here?

~~~
teddyh
Italics without quotation marks and not prefixed with > are usually simply for
emphasis, not quoting.

------
fierarul
Excerpts from the 2022 Chairman of Harmony answer regarding the Holy See
rejection of the Panda chip:

"It is a common misconception that the so called 'Mark of the Beast' chip has
anything to do with money. The Panda chip is nothing more than a pandemic
health and contact tracing beacon."

"Because the chip is always available and very secure, a lot of the citizens
do choose to use it for payments."

"We find the ideas surrounding cash obsolete. All cash is uniquely
identifiable and most major stores just destroy received cash for sanitary
reasons and print cash on demand for change."

"Regarding precious metal purchases, the Government does allow purchase,
except gold which is required to manufacture the Panda chip and related
accessories".

------
digestiv3
A lot of the comments to this post talks about the dangers with a cashless
society in terms of giving up the right to privacy. While that might be true
right now one must remember that the technological advances of cashless
payments are very new and we must work towards a cashless payment solution
that can meet the privacy needs that cash provides. Saying that "you should
always be able to pay with cash if you want" sounds technophobic.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
In the US, cash money is enshrined in the Constitution. It'll take a
significant act of Congress to change that. So a long history of cash as a
civil right.

~~~
digestiv3
That is true for many technological advances when faced with dated
legislation. "Written in stone" is a very poor saying since the collective
understanding changes with time. Conservativism does not play well with the
rapid technological advances made each year.

------
INTPenis
Not may, has caused. I've seen it myself.

On the plus side the app StreetComplete has merged in a quest that allows
people to easily answer whether a business in Sweden accepts cash or not.

So hopefully that will improve the poor OSM data set and allow people to
easier find cash payment places.

For the nerds out there it uses the OSM tag payment:cash=yes.

------
darkFunction
Cashless is a dream for government because they can switch the populace to a
negative interest rate.

~~~
Ygg2
You can have negative interest on cash as well. See Freigeld.

------
throw_543556
How do tourists pay for things in Sweden? Especially smaller value things.

One of the most inconvenient aspects about visiting China is paying for small
things. Large department stores and high end restaurants will accept foreign
credit cards, but mom and pop stores don’t.

While most still accept cash, sometimes the smaller stores or street vendors
won’t have enough for change and you have to wait for them to get it. A few
times I even got a discount when they couldn’t give me exact change.

I installed WeChat and AliPay last time I visited, but the payments don’t work
if you don’t have a local number, ID, or bank account.

~~~
alltakendamned
Mastercard and Visa are the most common ones here, most probably a tourists
credit or debit card will support the same payment networks.

------
pritovido
I am from Spain, and today the people in power there are socialistic(psoe) and
communist(podemos),the last one friends and money receivers from Venezuela's
Hugo Chavez, Iran and Cuba.

I attended a talk in the past("Know your enemy") when they defended and wanted
to collect money and people for helping Colombia's FARC.

Those guys want to destroy democracy from democracy, just like Hitler,
Mussolini or Chavez.

The last thing you want to do is give a Government like this all the
information of all transactions made by the people in the country.

And that is exactly what "cash free" means. In countries like the US the
mechanism of control of political power by people are more powerful, but even
there companies control and concentration of information is too high(Americans
distrust Government but trust companies) for a healthy system.

------
MperorM
As a student who recently spent their savings on a Macbook 16 inch, just to
have it stolen shortly after I really would have preferred selling it for cash
would not have been an option for the thiefs.

in the same manner, I gladly would have accepted mass surveillance if it meant
the thief would actually get caught.

------
quijoteuni
There is a world trend to criticise skandinavia (Scandinavian countries are
always in the top 10 of best places to live) . The BBC has been for the last
10 years an awful source of it. The hit Scandinavia to divert attention of
their own problems. EVVERYTHING they criticise is worst in the UK.

------
onuban
How can you have a cashless society if I have to enter the pin every time I
use my card? During my last trip to Stockholm using cards was more of a hassle
than using cash. London/UK is more of cashless society than Stockholm/Sweden.

~~~
rags2riches
Many stores don't require a pin for smaller amounts. With NFC cards it's
really quite quick to pay.

I think the deal is that the store, not the payment processor, eats the cost
when a stolen card is used without a pin. But the increased turnover is
probably worth it in many cases.

Edit: Maybe they also require a pin for foreign cards when they wouldn't for a
local? Just a guess though.

------
aabbcc1241
Why put all eggs in a single bucket?

------
qwerty456127
A cashless society is a step on the way to communism. Whatever you think about
communism (fear it or want it). Whoever doesn't want communism (which is much
more likely to be a dystopia than an utopia) should defend cash to the death.

------
LessDmesg
And when the (broke) Swedish government raises taxes sky-high, they will all
flock to cash, gold, bitcoin and other off-the-radar payment methods.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Government debt as a percentage of GDP is very low in Sweden:

[https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-
to...](https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to-gdp)

~~~
LessDmesg
The thing about Swedish debt is that it's largely local than national:

[https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-
subje...](https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-
area/financial-markets/financial-accounts/financial-accounts-quarterly-and-
annual/pong/statistical-news/-financial-accounts-third-quarter-2018/)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Those figures I linked to don’t distinguish between local and national debt.

