To be fair, apart from the privacy aspects, they’ve chosen some of the worst arguments against a full cashless society. Seriously, piggy banks and birthday cards?
I think it’s easier for us, as adults, to dismiss those things, but they bring kids joy and an opportunity to learn about the value of money and saving.
Normal life. As much as people want to deny it, it’s actually really important.
God how we would suffer without piggy banks or garage sales.
I though this whole post was sarcasm until I saw people’s comments taking it seriously. Thanks for bringing sanity to this thread.
Also have any of you heard of instant transfers or crypto currency? So cringe.
And giftcards will still exist, still traceable though.
unfortunately. god they suck so much. they’re like money, but worse in every way.
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Sweden is a mostly cashless society. Let me try to respond to those points
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In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
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You can still give individual people money with things like Swish. Yes, even “homeless” people have swish and they use it. Kids of all ages can have swish.
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It costs 0(for individuals) or 10-30 cents(for companies) to transact on swish and minimum transaction is basically 10cents(1sek).
There are privacy issues and it is kinda controlled by banks. Maybe eventually things like digital euro can improve on that in the future. You can have an anonymous digital payment system with near 0 fees, it is just that the governments arent incentivized to do it. Thats where cryptocurrency could fit, if it wasnt a pump and dump, to the moon hellhole.
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In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
What a bizarre disconnect from reality. You have waaay too much confidence in police power (and assumptions about actionable evidence), capability, and motivation, and no idea about battered women living in fear of the next attack, which a restraining order does not necessarily stop, if you can get one, especially if the next attack is a bullet. A cop who checks on a battery victim will be told “that big bruise on my cheek is from falling down the stairs”.
Domestic violence victims need options. You’re advocating for taking options away. That’s fucked up.
In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.
This was such an oddly specific “worry” that it kind of plays the hand of the target demographic as well as the intention of the snippet. Along with the weird bits about birthday cards and ice cream, it just screams propaganda for midwest Christian-leaning grandmothers and housewives.
Right-wing, conservative Christian housewives who hand-wring about everything ALL put away stashes of money to hide from their 1-dimensional husbands who are usually somewhere on the abusive spectrum. I lived much of my life out in the outskirts of cities where the rednecks nest and breed, there are some very predictable stereotypes out there. One of the most common talking points on the far-right Christian slice of America is the perpetual warning that the Anti-Christ is going to take control of all the money and bring the entire planet under his control, and he will enact a one-world currency, take away everyone’s cash and guns and then everyone will have to get some chip in their wrist and that will be the Mark of the Beast, blah blah blah, fear-mongering and superstition and mindless worry.
Nobody will ever take away physical money entirely because the moment you do, people will invent one. So if you don’t want unregulated Nuka Cola bottlecaps being traded for goods and services in your country, you need to maintain an official currency.
Let me try to respond back:
- Depending on your situation, your identity, your society, you cannot always rely on the police helping you. There are lots of documented cases of discrimination (e.g. racism) at police institutions in all kinds of regions across the globe. The companies probably don’t want to delete the data any time soon, so there is a chance that this data persists for decades. What if your country chances and starts discriminating or harassing whatever group you belong to? Can you guarantee that your government/society won’t flip the switch on any group of society within their lifetime? Can you guarantee that nobody ever wants to visit a country which their group will be discriminated or persecuted?
- If the homeless person does not own a smartphone, how do they receive money on their Swish account, yet create a swish account? How does a person without documents create a swish account?
- In your case, Swish seems to be a digital gatekeeper. What prevents them from going rogue, increasing prices or discriminating people? I recommended reading Jaron Lanier’s Gadget for understanding the power of digital monopolies.
If the first point does not convince you, here are 2 examples:
- gay dating apps: It repeatedly happened that information from gay dating apps were leaked, sold or extorted to bad governments. Those governments discriminated or persecuted, in some cases killed people just for being homosexual. Chances are high that a gay person has some digital traces to that, e.g. in Swish. Cashless puts them even more at risk in countries like Egypt. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/apr/03/jailed-for-using-grindr-homosexuality-in-egypt
- In the 1930s, a lot of Jews in Europe were identified through state documents which (unnecessarily) mentioned their name. In some locations, brave people protected them by destroying, hiding or faking state documents.
In other words: If your society changes, any data that exists may be turned against you, even costing your life and the lives of your closest people. Avoiding to have this data saves lives and protects minorities.
Swish is partly owned by the Central Bank of Sweden(which is 100% state owned) so it is basically state owned. But as with the digital euro, the private banks play a big part and atm are needed in order to facilitate the digital transactions. This could change in the future.
Your points are societal points and not currency related points. You are right, there are significant issues with swish, you basically need to be a swedish citizen(have a “personal number”). A lot of things in Sweden are gatekeeped by needing a “personal number”. This is an obstacle even for other EU(Schengen) europeans.
Societies are built with the majority in mind. There are holes that need to be fixed. But the existence of holes does not mean that they cant be fixed.
As far as privacy is concerned, you are right, this is a big attack on privacy. But it doesnt have to be, it is just that the governments want it to be. Not because of some megalomaniacal genocidal plan but for tax and criminal issues. Could it be used for more nefarious plans in the future? Sure. You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.
If our societies would be perfect (now and any time in the future), we would not need this discussion, maybe not even privacy at all. Though a lot of things are very good in our societies, I guess we will not live to see them becoming perfect, so I rather retain some caution, and privacy.
What all can you purchase with monero? I don’t see a lot of shops around me accepting any crypto whatsoever.
What all can you purchase with monero?
Drugs and guns.
If your society changes
This is why I know that I’ll end up on a list if things go as poorly as I expect in the USA during my lifetime.
I think the only one that doesn’t really hold up is 1. There’s a lot of coercive control tied up with domestic violence that would make it hard for a victim to call the police for help.
Having said that, in the UK you can open a bank account with a new company in a matter of minutes then transfer money to it and be out of the situation before any paperwork turns up showing what you did.
Many of our banks have specific provisions in place to help victims of domestic violence. Including one that’ll set you up with a safe account and an emergency fund that doesn’t need to be repaid. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/tsb-launches-emergency-flee-fund-for-domestic-abuse-victims-how-are-other-banks-helping-arSND8h82lGJ
Speaking from going through it myself; in the USA, Police often don’t help you if you’re dealing with domestic violence/rape in a marriage. My ex’s military commander refused to help me too…
so don’t get married. It’s your fault for perpetuating bronze age bullshit.
In the modern era a marriage isn’t really what it was in the past. You can get divorced if things don’t work out and there’s no “we must wait until marriage to have sex and then we must have children” rule for most people.
So marriage nowadays is really just either a celebration of love, or a practical move for tax or other reasons.
Domestic abusers however, ruin all that. But domestic abusers can ruin your shit even without de jure shared control of finances because they can still coerce you into giving bank auth details.
Yeah in a lot of western countries we now get the ick about all the women-as-chattel-property connotations it’s always had. Watch people scramble to re-invent the meaning of the father of the bride giving her away.
As far as I can tell, marriage is the ugliest and worst chapter of contract law, because that’s basically what a marriage is, it’s a contract. One that people tend to sign without reading or even realizing who all the named parties are. And the standard terms most people agree to aren’t all that great. “You can get divorced” yeah that process isn’t a garden trowel to the spleen, is it fellas?
If it didn’t already exist, and someone were to try to invent the modern concept of marriage from the ground up, we would drive them out to the middle of nowhere and leave them for dead.
Then your country hasn’t modernized its laws. In mine the law says that both partners have equal rights and responsibilities to each other.
My country is in the process of regressing its laws, in fact. I think they’re going to outlaw literacy next year.
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We aren’t at the point as a society to be fully cashless. Maybe someday it could work but I think that day is very far away. Look how fucked up even the most basic parts of society are. We can’t even get societies and cultures to live together in peace or something that resembles balance and harmony. Lack of privacy and security is holding back the star trek future. Trying to make these good intentioned theoretical changes in society before society is humanly ready will fuck us all.
I think humanity is a lot further behind than most think. … And it almost feels like social life and community is getting more and more primitive, wild, and fragmented as time goes on. These different future paths are marketed from and for them, the corporations and greedy, not for the benefit of us.
They’re protesting an awful lot for something that is so far away
Some places are basically cashless already though, look at Sweden
There are many places in larger cities that will or accept cash. Many do it the name of safer practices (can’t be robbed if you ever have cash), but it’s still leading to the same outcome.
can’t be robbed if you ever have cash
They can kidnap you and force you to send money to a straw-man account. Happens a lot here in Brazil.
Can’t have shit in this world.
I live in New York City. The current way to pay for buses and subways is with a Metrocard. You can buy them at some stores and check cashing places, or at most subway stations. You can pay with cash or a card. Now, at great cost, they are introducing a ‘better’ system where you pay for your rides with a credit card or smart device. They are planning on getting completely rid of the Metrocards. Soon, they will be able to trace anyone’s movements.
Bruh what you can buy omny cards for cash in stores.
Take off the tinfoil hat, NYC is not planning to get rid of metrocards. The credit card payment ability is just a convenience feature to get more people riding transit.
I mean, my tinfoil hat is on for the same reason - I haven’t been arsed using Transport for London’s Oyster card because there’s a cost cap placed on all travel paid for by one single card. I suppose my bank has my details already so it’d better that than having another party with my data… and another card to lose, more likely.
I used my phone to tap and pay back in December '21. Not a new thing.
You can buy preloaded credit cards with cash from convenience stores. It’s as trackable as your MetroCard.
trace anyone’s movements
There’s literally a GPS enabled mind control device in almost everyone’s pocket.
This same lame comment gets posted on every fucking internet post about Privacy. Stop it.
Not everyone uses a compromised phone with the GPS turned on all the time. Plenty of us put in effort to mitigate cell phone tracking, and anyone can leave their phone at home to completely eliminate tracking where they go.
FYI there are a number of privacy-focused Android distributions, and lots of options on Apple iOS to disable what can track you. Stop being complacent and protect your own privacy instead of hand-waving away the entire premise of Privacy.
You only know what you’re told. There’s all kinds of space inside your phone for components with capabilities you know nothing about.
meanwhile, you don’t know anything.
What good is knowing something made up?
meanwhile, that’s how you live your life.
Cautiously.
If your cell phone is turned on, the phone company knows where you are. This fact is why your GPS doesn’t take 5 minutes to show your location every time you turn on your phone. The OS gets the cell towers to identify where you are and combines that with GPS to get a quicker lock and more accurate location.
The most secure Android OS cannot turn that off. If you transmit or receive data to a cell phone network, your location is known.
The GPS thing is different. The phone downloads the satellite positions from the net instead of having to receive the same data, very slowly, from the satellites themselves.
No, that’s not quite how GPS works. The satelites are constantly sending a signal, the GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites, and it computes your location off of the phase shift and whatnot of those constantly-broadcasting signals.
That’s why GPS still works in airplane mode.
As I said, cell towers send information so that GPS can work better. I didn’t say that GPS needs cell towers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
The tower has its own GPS antenna. The cell tower knows approximately where you are.
You’re still misspeaking and implying the data is necessary. It is not. At all. Period.
How do you think Garmins and the like work when they have NO external data connection? They don’t magically take way longer to position…
GPS receiver is trying to pick up at least two satelites
Four. GPS solves position in 4-dimensional space.
No, more is preferred, but the way the signals are designed, some positioning slowly works with only two satellites.
Like old phones. Remember when GPS was slow and always a few meters off? Part of that was they were bad at or could not acquire more than two signals.
3 satellites for 2 dimensional space, 4 satellites gives you height as well (3 dimensional).
your wristwatch gives you your fourth dimension ;-)
Yes, but the receiver need the position of the satellites to compute its own position. That data is transferred very slowly, so if you can download it through the internet, then you only need the identifiers of the satellites to immediately compute.
Yes, Android (and iOS) can turn that off: torn off mobile network or don’t have a mobile phone provider (SIM).
“if you send or receive data”
You could use WiFi only
No that’s not very accurate. Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location, and GPS is definitely able to be disabled by the software. I know a bit about these things as someone who has compiled their own android ROM from open source. I’ve been working on this stuff for more than a decade now.
Regardless of all of the above, anyone can turn off their cell phone or choose to not carry it to eliminate the ability for that cell phone to provide location data on them. This alone negates all the stupid “gotcha” comments about trying to preserve one’s privacy while owning a smartphone. So we are back to my first comment on this topic, with the point of STOP IT.
Cell phone tower triangulation only gives a rough approximation of location
That’s why I said they send that to allow the phone’s GPS to get a lock quicker and more accurate. All cell phone towers have GPS. Agps means the tower sends its GPS constellation to the phone so it doesn’t take 5 minutes to lock.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS
So yes, even with GPS disabled, the phone company has a rough idea where you are.
If you are in the city on high band 5g, that location is known within 15 to 600 meters.
Sure, there’s no way around that, even dumb phones are triangulated by default and that data is sold.
But doing just that is better than being triangulated AND leaking your GPS data to every Tom Dick and Harry that asks your phone.
Reeeeeee! Phones. Are. Not. Triangulated.
Most cell towers use phased antenna array, so they know relative direction all the time. And distance can be estimated from latency and signal strength.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles.
Interesting, I stand corrected. Thanks for informing me.
Two cell towers allow to get precise location from angles.
But using two cell towers and angles would literally be triangulation…
2=3?
Yeah and there’s a reason you can’t drive unregistered and that reason has nothing to do with bad drivers.
Yes but its not required to get around, airplane mode, and not everyone has their cell service tied to their name, etc.
Can’t wait for crypto to be fully adopted
Dude, crypto is pretty much dead.
BTC is breaking price records as several world governments start to officially adopt it as an ETF, and this guy says “crypto is pretty much dead”.
My fucking sides. Get real, my dude. Crypto has never been more alive, and this is just the beginning. Check the price if you don’t believe me.
Fucking LOL
It’s used to launder money. The value is artificially blown. But it will never be used for everyday transactions.
Well that’s a completely different argument.
I’m not buying BTC for everyday transactions; I’m buying so that I have a chance at not being a wage slave for the rest of my life.
(And FWIW there are several debit cards available that will let you buy anything with crypto at any place that accepts Visa. Like the Coinbase Card, for example. Or the CL Card.)
Buying crypto to not be a wage slave? You’re killing me. Buy lottery tickets, chances are the same. Hell, just throw money into a trash bin, chances are also the same. You are living in capitalism. If You weren’t born rich, you will die poor.
We’re all living in capitalism. I hate the system just as much as you do, but until a better system comes along, it’s either play by the rules, or die homeless. I chose the former.
So that everyone can see everything, instead of just the banks.
Hmm why are comments that mention Monero getting down votes?
Because Lemmy has an irritional hate towards crypto. Calling it “dead” and a “scam” while the price is breaking records and being officially adopted by several world governments.
and being officially adopted by several world governments.
Monero? Or which one?
BTC. The price already passed ATH ($70k) and has had ETF approval in the US several months ago, Canada; China coming soon. ETH is up for consideration next. And then there’s the fact that several small countries like El Salvador that have already accepted it as their official currency.
But you already knew all of this, so why am I even wasting energy on trolls like you? You people fucking suck. Quit talking shit just cause you’re even worse investors than me.
Quit talking shit just cause you’re even worse investors than me.
What? I asked one question.
Couldn’t tell you. I honestly don’t know enough about Monero to have an educated opinion.
However, I do know Bitcoin and (a bit less so) Etherium from a technical standpoint, and I know those are very popular options, so unless Monero is specified I think it’s safe to assume “cryptocurrency” = “Bitcoin” for the most part when talking about the general trends of adoption.
That said, from what I hear, Monero is private, and I have no reason to doubt that. For the record, I’m also not downvoting anyone talking about Monero. I think the Lemmy community in general is just relatively anti-cryptocurrency (and anti most things, honestly).
At least Lemmy community is not anti-GMO, right? Right?
Never heard of Monero?
Heard of it, but I’ll admit I haven’t studied it like I have Bitcoin/Etherium.
I think it’s fair to label Monero as relatively “fringe” when talking mass adoption, though. It might well be the solution to those problems, but sadly that doesn’t account for much if the bulk of society prefers to use a public ledger like Bitcoin.
You’re right, most cryptos as they exist are open ledgers for anyone to examine. However there are digital currencies where the ledger is not open, and our private by default, such as monero. Truly fungible digital cash.
I’ve given my thoughts on Monero elsewhere in these replies.
The phrase “truly fungible” is an interesting one. I was going to ask you to elaborate, but if one “coin” is entirely indistinguishable from any other (including by transaction history, or lack thereof) I assume that’s what you mean by “truly fungible”. Never heard that before, but it honestly makes sense.
Yes, correct
Monero my friend, monero
There are advantages. All bribes are visible to everyone.
don’t worry, the politicians will never block themselves from receiving suitcases full of money
They don’t receive suitcases of money. Their wives law firms get steady business from a network of donors. Their kids get past the fancy school acceptance filters despite being block heads. They’re invited to speak at an overseas conference where they do one event and then 30 days of vacation. Their fake biographies of overcoming hardship get sold out and given out for free by their political party. They can trade stock with insider knowledge.
There famously were some cases in Germany, but yeah, they also did more stealth things, like book contracts for example.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/12/politics/menendez-gold-cash-what-matters/index.html
just saying - they actually, really do receive suitcases of money.
Why do garage sales have to go away, I just went to one and used zelle to send the guy money.
I use my paypal card reader! Both when holding garage sales and when visiting, it’s pretty normal and a lot of people use it without blinking.
If you pearl-clutching Christians fearful of change don’t want a cashless society, maybe stop pouring all your support behind the political powers that want to see giant megacorporations flourish and crush out small businesses. The people who want to control your rmoney are not the banks nearly as much as the Walmart down the street that can now take credit card payments simply by glancing at the store as you pass.
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Why are you like this though
Get prepaid cards then
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No one is pushing for a “cashless society” like this post describes. It’s fear mongering.
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There is a massive difference between a business being cashless and a government enforced “cashless society” like this post describes.
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- I completely disagree that if a majority of businesses went cashless that would mean the government has no choice but to be cashless.
- I never said it “could NEVER happen.”
- What do you mean it “DID happen,” it hasn’t.
- Ad hominem gets you nowhere.
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26% in a recent poll:
A Mastodon poll with 210 responses is hardly representative.
Why do you think 210 is statistically insignificant? Is there a reason why the central limit theorem does not apply in this case?
If you’re more fixated on the samples coming from Mastodon, can you explain why you might expect cashless proponents to be even fewer in populations outside of Mastodon? IMO, a Mastodon-using population is more likely to embrace individual rights and condemn imbalances of power that favor giant corporations like banks. I believe if the same survey is carried out outside of Mastodon, the 26% will be even bigger, if different.
The same reason someone might think Linux is a wildly popular choice of OS on Lemmy. These communities are very niche.
Mastodon is not niche. Mastodon is a diverse community of nerds and low tech people, artistic brains and analytical brains, white collar workers and blue collar workers. A substantial portion of Mastodon is from Reddit refugees. Reddit is no more niche than Facebook.
The greater Mastodon venue who that poll reached lacks right wing conservatives, who tend to stay in their bubble of extremist networks. That does not make Mastodon “niche”. Running the same survey on a right wing Mastodon node might be interesting, but we can see from the linked poll that political affiliation is generally orthoganol on this issue.
In a cash based society they might make us nail coins to our body with special screws only the government can undo.
You, if digital transactions came before cash.
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I was scratching my head with that one too. HOAs are doing a better job at killing the garage sale.
HOAs only control 25-27% of housing in the US. A number that should be zero, but not enough to kill off all garage sales, by any stretch.
Some people already live in a cashless (a d moneyless) society already - the homeless and those who are incarcerated. Also children. They tend to barter and trade for stuff. It’s not that crazy of an idea, most people figure it out.
Thank you for you’re intelligent and insightful comment
The US isn’t a country where something like that would work. Cops would probably be ordered to arrest anyone who tries to do business that way.
no.
“No cash donations to hungry homeless you pass”
i.e. Drug addicts and mental patients that you keep giving money to, so they tell all their friends and you start stocking up on vagrants in the area.
Stop fucking doing this. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, give homeless food, etc – stop giving them cash to spend on drugs and alcohol. This just enables their own self-destructive habits and doesn’t help them.
Correct.
Cash “kindness” certainly could result an a OD death.
Stop the cash!
This seems to be heavy sarcasm
No. I’ve personally worked emergency calls from homeless camps where people use a lot of drugs. Where’s the $$ come from for the habit?
“Nice” people that are stupid enough to hand over cash to people that are HIGHLY likely to use drugs. Brilliant!
This is an awful and harmful point of view.
Says someone who clearly has had no experience with it whatsoever.
Yeah and how many times have you been homeless?
Regardless, you’re being a selfish dick. Have some empathy.
It’s not just empathy. It’s also ability to think. Drugs and alcohol don’t have any nutritional value. Homeless that asks for money is living proof that money is spent not on drugs and alcohol.
It is sad, that some people think “Homeless are drug addicts, I won’t give them money - they should get money themselves. Homeless are dirty people, I won’t hire them. Homeless will bring property values down, I won’t rent them apartment.”
mental patients are self destructive in the same way cancer patients are.
They’re having a shit life. If a dollar or 2 here and there helps them have a less shitty imma do what I want with my money.
Homeless in Oslo take card
Dear Faust, this is worst human I met today.
Dear Darwin, this is the most naive human I’ve met this week.
The author has never seen a check.
Yes, I’ll gladly deposit this check into the bank for homeless people. Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
the bank for homeless people
Which is a real thing, in this hypothetical.
Right after I give half of it to my friend whose partner harasses them and controls their accounts
The accounts they know about.
Even if you still scoff at these: that’s two out of nine. The rest are pretending people can’t give money to other people… for some reason. Three of them are just rephrasing “no garage sales.” Yeah, you can’t sell your couch for a bit of cash if there’s no cash, but you can still sell your couch, for money.
Bad arguments for good conclusions are still bad arguments.
The author has never seen a cash app in use
Cash app that always takes screenshots of your screen, refuses to work on privacy-oriented Android distros, request access to raw fingerprint and lot of other sussy things.
Don’t know what apps you guys have in the states, but that’d be illegal in the EU. More so if it’s one of the countries with govt-backed cash apps.
- Banks have full control of every single cent you own.
• Every transaction vou make is recorded.
That sounds like a fair deal to me!?
Really?
Not really, no. Imagine a “/s” at the end of my post. :)
For people who think that Crypto will solve these issues, it won’t. In a mass-adoption scenario, a few coins will be accepted as currency while the rest remain mostly useless for commerce. Those orgs behind those coins and their exchange platforms will then become just like the banks of old. Any attempt at democratizing Crypto is illusory, it’s a fantasy.
For people who think that Crypto will solve these issues, it won’t. In a mass-adoption scenario, a few coins will be accepted as currency while the rest remain mostly useless for commerce.
That argument is entirely dependent on what the “few coins” hypothetically turn out to be. For example, regarding privacy, Monero is private by design.
Those orgs behind those coins and their exchange platforms will then become just like the banks of old. Any attempt at democratizing Crypto is illusory, it’s a fantasy.
Are you arguing that it is inevitable that exchanges, or some other entity, will inevitably gain majority control of the networks of decentralized currencies?
No government would ever allow coins like Monero to become main forms of currency. The potential for abuse and tax evasion is just too high. They would sooner ban them outright. No legitimate business would accept them then.
Accepting random alt coins would also come with the expense of having to track them and their wallets separately, exchange costs, volatility, etc, so over time just a few will become generally accepted by businesses.
And yes, the most likely consequence of long-term crypto usage is that users will centralize into a few trusted platforms who will get the Lion’s share of tokens and power.
No government would ever allow coins like Monero to become main forms of currency.
It depends on what you mean by “allow” and “main form of currency”. Afaik, in the US (and the rest of the west), at least, there are no laws regarding what form the medium of exchange should take for the exchange of goods and services. The dollar is simply the standard currency to make payments to the government. For example:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts. [31 U.S. Code § 5103 (archive)]
Accepting random alt coins would also come with the expense of having to track them and their wallets separately, exchange costs, volatility, etc, so over time just a few will become generally accepted by businesses.
Is that just a statement of fact, or is that supposed to be an argument against Monero? I’m not sure what the point of that statement is. In any case, I don’t see any issue with that outcome — it would simply be a market decision.
And yes, the most likely consequence of long-term crypto usage is that users will centralize into a few trusted platforms who will get the Lion’s share of tokens and power.
I’d say that this is still TBD, but yes centralized control is a concern, as it would break the current designs of cryptocurrencies (as far as I currently understand their designs, that is). Though, note that there is a difference between central ownership of coins in circulation, and central ownership of the network (of course depending on the design of the network — I feel that proof of stake would be vulnerable to this).
“Crypto will fix that!”
By having a publicly visible ledger of all transactions ever recorded???
Monero would be the exception
Feel the same way about Linux tbh
Probably, but at least you can just copy-paste your home folder across most distros as long as they’re similar enough. Also your distro isn’t quite as important as your personal finances lol. Even in the case of potential security issues, most people would rather have their PC hacked into than their bank acct.
This is so myopic. Most of the world can send money via email. None of those things in the bottom will go away, save for a few tangibles. The gestures and transactions can still absolutely happen.
I’ve been cashless for about a decade now. I have no problem with donating money, giving or recieving monay as a gift. I never give the homeless money, but I often buy them food. Why couldn’t you buy or sell something to people? You can easily transfer someone a small sum of money using their phone number. Same with garage sales. When was the last time You saw a Piggy Bank?
Many unhoused people do not have a phone.
They also don’t have homes, what’s your point?
This was a direct response to someone saying “You can easily transfer someone a small sum of money using their phone number.”
You can’t easily transfer someone money using their phone if they don’t have one. (Though I learned after that many do have phones, many aren’t smart phones and they do have high turnover of phone and phone number. So I think cash is still superior overall)
Why would I need to transfer money to the homeless?
Did you not read the previous comments? The context includes “I never give the homeless money, but I often buy them food.” and also the idea of being a cashless society.
Some people give the homeless money because the homeless person doesn’t have any, and if you give them a couple dollars they can get something to eat. I don’t have to explain charity, I hope.
Again. Why would I give a homeless person money for food, if I can just give them food?
Perhaps you have money on you, but no food. You may be in a place where food cannot be readily purchased (eg: a subway train).
Yeah! Fuck them! If they don’t have homes or cards they don’t deserve food, get good scrubs!
FFS. Please read the previous comment. I don’t give money to the poor. I give money to charitable organisations. They have bank accounts. Also every single time in my life when I was asked by a homeless person for food, I bought them food. Shops have card readers. I don’t need cash to help people.
Oh yes charitable organizations which in the US definitely aren’t usually just a corporate tax write-off with so much money wasted on overhead that could have directly went to helping people.
I’m not in the US.
Fair lol.
It’s been at least a decade since I’ve seen a homeless person without a phone. Free government phones are easy to get. They all have them.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6516785/
However, little is known about homeless adults’ technology access and use. Utilizing data from a study of 421 homeless adults moving into PSH, this paper presents descriptive technology findings, and compares results to age-matched general population data. The vast majority (94%) currently owned a cell phone, although there was considerable past 3-month turnover in phones (56%) and phone numbers (55%). More than half currently owned a smartphone, and 86% of those used Android operating systems. Most (85%) used a cell phone daily, 76% used text messaging, and 51% accessed the Internet on their cell phone. One-third reported no past 3-month Internet use
Based on that study, many have a cell phone, but not all of them have smart phones. There’s also a lot of turnover.
I’ve never had a homeless person ask me to venmo them some money.
Which country is giving away free phones? I have never heard that before.
Wait a few weeks and Google will be giving away free phones, just so they can track everybody. Wait a couple more weeks, and having a tracked phone will be mandatory.
I apologize for not clarifying that I’m in the US
