Will Covid Speed Up the Introduction of the Cashless Economy?

[JQH]

Just before lockdown I withdrew £100 from my account.

It's still sitting in my wallet. Everybody's avoiding handling cash wherever possible; even the corner convenience shop has dropped the £5 minimum purchase for contactless. When lockdown ends, will people still avoid cash use "just in case"? Will businesses decide that a system that avoids having a lot of cash on the premises has a lot of advantages and not much downside?

[Opti]

Well, that's the illegal substances market f.cked then. Cash says more about you than American Express could ever hope to do.
Dark web and bitcoin is going to clean up.

[Martin Y]

It's not just the illegal substances trade, it's going to be a thump for all trades which do stuff cash-in-hand. I picked up some refurbished car parts a few months ago and realised too late that I hadn't got out a few hundred in cash first because, well, I just don't think about that now. Guy was taken aback that I imagined he might take cards.

Maybe we're the last generation to experience the liberty of anonymity. The kids are just going to have to find new ways to manage the give and take that softens the edges of unyielding rules.

[OneOffDave]

It will kill off car boot and jumble sales too along with roadside produce honesty boxes. Not sure how ice cream vans in part of Norfolk with no phone coverage will function either

[monkey]

It will kill off car boot and jumble sales too along with roadside produce honesty boxes. Not sure how ice cream vans in part of Norfolk with no phone coverage will function either

There's already apps like venmo to transfer money at car boot sales, I've used that at a neighbour's yard sale before now because I didn't have cash. But yeah, limited by phone signals. Limited by phones too, not everyone has a smartphone.

[Iron Magpie]

I would seriously hope that cash remains. The thought of putting myself in the complete control of a bunch of coked up fucknuggets in the City fills me with dread. It's bad enough as it is that anything of any high value I cannot buy with cash and I don't like the idea of plod turning up on my doorstep when a large amount of money appears in my bank account. (which happened to my SiL when he sold his house).

[Bird on a Fire]

I'm not too clear on what the current barriers to a cashless economy are. It seems to vary between countries.

Brazil surprised me by being almost entirely cashless - tiny shops, street vendors, even some beggars could take card payments, generally with no minimum purchase size. You could be walking home from the pub and buy a single can of lager from a bloke with a cool box in a wheelbarrow at 3am for about 50p, and pay by card. I suspect this is because people avoid carrying cash due to the high crime rates.

Here in Portugal¸ banks charge high fees for everything, even moving money between your own accounts. So loads of big shops and fancy restaurants won't take cards, even places with plenty of technology like pharmacies. France was a bit like this.

Drug dealers and the like will find ways around it, so I'm not worried about that. Buy a certain number of points on some anonymous app, send them to other people, and cash them out again. Then you're just left with the age-old problem of laundering the money. Or we could all start posting each other carefully-weighed quantities of gold.

[plebian]

Or we could legalise weed and then the dealers can take cards, in shops. :)

Seattle was fun.

[Gfamily]

Or we could all start posting each other carefully-weighed quantities of gold.

I like the idea of going around with a small herd of goats on leads, for barter purposes.

And I'll put a 'milking the rich' comment here, so nobody else has to.

[Herainestold]

Funny how it varies from country to country. In China, in the cities, you pay for everything, with a mobile app. Nobody takes cash. They dont want cards. In Indonesia you can't even pay by card. Depending on what country you bank in, you can't even get cash with your card at a cashpoint.

[Bird on a Fire]

Or we could legalise weed and then the dealers can take cards, in shops.

Seattle was fun.

I think for weed specifically this is quite likely to happen in the USA and Europe over the next decade. I've visited friends at unis in non-Amsterdam parts of the Netherlands, and it's always fun to go to a really boring, utilitarian, run-down weed shop with all the ambience and pizazz of a dodgy kebab shop.

But there are still a lot of users of other drugs, and realistically I don't see, say, cocaine or heroin being sold openly any time soon, so unless we get massively better at treating addiction those markets will still large and be controlled by the clandestine community.

[plebian]

Fair point. I'm intrigued and excited to see how organised crime will solve this. A contactless bitcoin app between phones would be one start. For street dealing it has many benefits as the wallets can be administered centrally.



As an aside, I love the space age feeling using my phone to open tube gates. It's magic. Tbh I feel this way with car lock remotes. I used to do a line in "walking away from an explosion, never looking back at it" pressing the button in my pocket. Exquisite!

[Opti]

The gak trade, here in southern Spain, seems to have come to a grinding halt. Of course, I don't do that nonsense anymore, and haven't done for decades ... but suddenly, a certain group of people are less talkative .
The shady economy here is taking a massive hit right now. No doubt it will recover in time. f.ck, it's going to be noisy.

[EACLucifer]

Funny how it varies from country to country. In China, in the cities, you pay for everything, with a mobile app. Nobody takes cash. They dont want cards.

Probably best not to do what the fascist regime with a surveillance obsession does on this one, tbh.

[Vertigowooyay]

The gak trade, here in southern Spain, seems to have come to a grinding halt. Of course, I don't do that nonsense anymore, and haven't done for decades ... but suddenly, a certain group of people are less talkative .
The shady economy here is taking a massive hit right now. No doubt it will recover in time. f.ck, it's going to be noisy.

From a conversation with an SA friend - who smokes and drinks - on SA banning sales of cigarettes and alcohol during lockdown:

52925C4C-253E-4E21-B11D-B5725209BF85.jpeg (211.38 KiB) Viewed 7004 times

[Herainestold]

The gak trade, here in southern Spain, seems to have come to a grinding halt. Of course, I don't do that nonsense anymore, and haven't done for decades ... but suddenly, a certain group of people are less talkative .
The shady economy here is taking a massive hit right now. No doubt it will recover in time. f.ck, it's going to be noisy.

From a conversation with an SA friend - who smokes and drinks - on SA banning sales of cigarettes and alcohol during lockdown:

52925C4C-253E-4E21-B11D-B5725209BF85.jpeg

And I will bet they didn't need bitcoin to do it.

[Bird on a Fire]

The gak trade, here in southern Spain, seems to have come to a grinding halt. Of course, I don't do that nonsense anymore, and haven't done for decades ... but suddenly, a certain group of people are less talkative .
The shady economy here is taking a massive hit right now. No doubt it will recover in time. f.ck, it's going to be noisy.

From a conversation with an SA friend - who smokes and drinks - on SA banning sales of cigarettes and alcohol during lockdown:

52925C4C-253E-4E21-B11D-B5725209BF85.jpeg

And I will bet they didn't need bitcoin to do it.

No, they probably used cash for the most part.

[secret squirrel]

Well, that's the illegal substances market f.cked then. Cash says more about you than American Express could ever hope to do.
Dark web and bitcoin is going to clean up.

The fundamental problem with bitcoin (and the rest too) is that it only kind of works as cash if not many people want to use it.

[Sciolus]

I use cash whenever possible because I like the anonymity. I'm still using cash for my one shopping trip a week; I can't see any risk because it's been sitting in my wallet for the last week so won't be contaminated, and I wash my hands promptly after handling my change.

[discovolante]

I use cash whenever possible because I like the anonymity. I'm still using cash for my one shopping trip a week; I can't see any risk because it's been sitting in my wallet for the last week so won't be contaminated, and I wash my hands promptly after handling my change.

I prefer cash normally too but, to be fair, the cashiers don't know that you haven't touched the money so I don't think it's really fair to add to their stress. And you should wash your hands before touching the money too.

[Gfamily]

I use cash whenever possible because I like the anonymity. I'm still using cash for my one shopping trip a week; I can't see any risk because it's been sitting in my wallet for the last week so won't be contaminated, and I wash my hands promptly after handling my change.

We last took money out just over a month ago - and I think we have spent maybe £3.90 of it*

Half of it went into plastic bags in case we were unwell and needed to hand it to people if we were unwell.

None needed so far...


* card use excepted

[Squeak]

For some reason, Calliope's shop still accepts cash (most shops here are card only at the moment, if they're open at all). The other day a customer opened their wallet, absentmindedly licked his fingers, then pulled out a note. The staff looked at each other and left the note on the counter so they could spray it the moment he left the shop.

Even in a very low-prevalence place like us, shop staff are nervous to be at work and even more nervous about handling cash.

I'm nervous about a society that loses the ability to have anonymous funds transfers entirely but I can see why electronic is easier for many things and is currently much preferred.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'm assuming the technology exists for encrypted P2P transfer of some token. So as long as it was backed by a third party people trust, like Facebook (see Mr Robot for details), some anonymous-from-the-government transfer of funds is presumably possible? Apart from secret backdoors and stuff.

[Pucksoppet]

For some reason, Calliope's shop still accepts cash (most shops here are card only at the moment, if they're open at all). The other day a customer opened their wallet, absentmindedly licked his fingers, then pulled out a note. The staff looked at each other and left the note on the counter so they could spray it the moment he left the shop.

Even in a very low-prevalence place like us, shop staff are nervous to be at work and even more nervous about handling cash.

I'm nervous about a society that loses the ability to have anonymous funds transfers entirely but I can see why electronic is easier for many things and is currently much preferred.

So am I.

I believe anonymous digital cash is possible, but governments have a vested interest in preventing its use.

David Chaum outlined the basics back in 1985: Security without identification: transaction systems to make big brother obsolete : Communications of the ACM : October 1985 : https://doi.org/10.1145/4372.4373. GNU Taler is a digital payments system where the person paying is anonymous, but the person receiving the payments isn't.

The trouble is, the perceived benefits to governments of being able to trace payments is so great that systems that give up those benefits are unlikely to get traction.

[Herainestold]

I use cash whenever possible because I like the anonymity. I'm still using cash for my one shopping trip a week; I can't see any risk because it's been sitting in my wallet for the last week so won't be contaminated, and I wash my hands promptly after handling my change.

I found 10 on the street today, do you think it is contaminated? How long should I leave it in my wallet before I spend it?