You must log in or # to comment.
This is why monero exists, digital cash that works
I was going to make a joke comment about crypto but you beat me to it
We now have the technological means to make online payments better in many ways for both customers and vendors. We just need to move away from one of the biggest American exports, middlemen.
How are we going to do that? What’s the payment method everyone should use for now?
Wow, I had no idea you could do that in Japan, and the idea never crossed my mind.
That’s a brilliant solution to online payments.
Visa/MasterCard is a tax in every transaction. You might not see it but it is there.
I hate that I don’t get like a 2% cash discount, I get like 3%+ from credit cards so justifying cash is kind of hard
At least in Denmark, paying cash was shown to be more expensive, due to the cost of money transportation services and the fee banks charge to provide bills and coins for the change in the register.
Also the stores can’t do any analytics on purchasing patterns on you when paying cash. So all in all they prefer credit cards or registering for membership programs for payments.
If you have bad credit you don’t get perks like that. So addicts, poor people, anyone trying to turn their life around. This is a regressive tax.
Well this means that there is still a payment provider doing the barcode system. This payment provider could still block certain vendors. It works excellently to protect the privacy of the buyer, though.
I wonder where that puritan far right “women’s rights” advocacy group is now that Twitter is generating CSAM and non consensual AI generated material, or maybe the purpose was always to punch down on independent artists.
They are actively pushing against every attempt to stop Twitter and it’s owner Mask producing child pornography and non-consentually showing it to the users. That’s where they are right now.
That genuinely doesn’t surprise me, what an absolutely reactionary organization
@ontariobay in Brazil there is the PIX, it is an instant payment between almost any bank account, in the first year it was introduced you could use it to pay for almost anything, online or in person, it usually approves in less than a second and there is no fee.
Yes I remember reading about how US credit card companies are pissed about PIX which isn’t a surprise.
This kinda requires having a heavily consolidated convenience store industry with a lot of locations. Japan has both of these the US not so much. Urban sprawl, a physically larger country, and a culture of not using convenience stores as much kinda make this hard. Also said stores would likely need to register AML and KYC controls.
People do heavily use gas stations which are about the same thing
True. This is one thing we still need to buy in person, and can’t have delivered, so gas stations exist even in the smallest towns.
The other place, of course, is grocery stores. I can pay in cash at the self-checkout in Walmart, and the machines scan barcodes. So, that’s another option.
It also requires not being dominated by people who think lack of options is a feature they can exploit and would happily destroy society if it meant that whatever was left was more dependent on them (partially to profit from it, partially to hold the keys to control who can access it and how).
Would post office work better for US?
Maybe. The lines in my local post office are always long but they do exist. I can’t come up with an easy way for the Comstock act to prohibit it being used for adult material but then again I don’t work for the “Heritage” Foundation.
Then again Congress likes it’s puritannical laws and would need to create such a service.
Honestly this type of transaction seems like it could easily be an automated kiosk. Scan barcode / QR code. Insert cash. Get receipt. Employees nearby to help if needed. Done
Kiosk could work, but I could see that thing being perpetually broken after a few months of (mis)use.
At first, I was only thinking about the ubiquity of post offices and that they already reach rural areas. But the government aspect does add a bit more too. Feels like it’s official to use government currency in a government building instead of a local convenience store.
We used to have postal banking - this is a very good argument to bring it back
There’s always money in the banana stand.
I like how Visa/Master Card are shutting “indecent” games down, but have no fucking issues with twitter generating CSAM.
It’s never an issue when the criminal is rich.
It’s a crime if you’re poor and a fine if you’re rich and all’at.
Well, in this case, isn’t Valve the “criminal”?
No, it’s the small indi devs, if vida tried to have a Microsoft game delisted there would be lawyers involved.
Makes me wonder: how are they not have the same stronghold in Europe? They’re also everywhere there as well.
They do, but people also do a lot of bank transfers. Which is essentially a cash payment. But if you don’t have a local bank account and app, or the Wise app, then credit cards work just fine most places.
Albania is the only place I’ve seen that has zero trust in anything but cash, but that’s because their socialist era was so restrictive that after that regime fell, people were wholly unable to understand how basic things like banks or economics works. A single pyramid scheme basically crashed the government in 1996-97. It’s a fascinating story about how much learning a society has to do to change from an oppressive regime to something else.
In the Netherlands we have iDeal, which will be turned into an European standard soon
No. In Sweden, 99% of all payments are cahsless. Most stores don’t even take cash anymore.
We still have plenty of (digital) options for payment in addition to Visa/Mastercard.
In my view, it’s actually the opposite. The more digital paymenst are used, the higher the incentive to create a competing payment solution. Swish and Klarna are taking over more and more here.
I was thinking that I definitely knew there were some European countries that are more cashless than the US.
In Canada we have Interac E-transfer for transferring funds from our standard chequing accounts to private businesses or people we’re buying things off of. We also have “virtual credit cards” that are just a CC number with an exp date and CVV that we can use for online purchases and that money comes out of our regular back account without the need for a credit account.
Most people still have and use Credit Cards but we are far less reliant on them here. Most of them time if someone has one it’s for the perks that card gives, like cash back on purchases or points for rewards like gift cards, tools, vacations, etc.
We also have “virtual credit cards” that are just a CC number with an exp date and CVV that we can use for online purchases and that money comes out of our regular back account without the need for a credit account.
So, like, a debit card?
No, as you cannot use your debit card for online credit card interactions.
You can’t use a debit card to buy things off Amazon.
what why??
Must be a regional thing, because no such restriction exists in the US
Funny that, since I said in my OP, I’m Canadian.
That’s a new one for me. I didn’t realize in some countries you can’t use a debit card on Amazon. To be clear, I’m not talking about an ATM card, I’m talking about a debit card with a Visa or MasterCard logo.
You absolutely can, I did so this week.
The destruction of cash in the EU is jusy disgusting. I dont want to have to leave a paper trail for everything.
Could be an alibi if you ever get in major trouble, lookup the transaction, match to security footage, prove you weren’t there.
I don’t have to prove I wasn’t there. They have to prove I was.
So if someone is lying and says you were? Mistaken identity? Easy fix if you show you weren’t where the crime took place.
You have a lot of trust in “the system”.
There are digital payment schemes that would be completely anonymous for the vast majority of consumers, like GNU Taler. Support an implementation of it in your country. Cash is dying because of how inconvenient it is, we must build something that has the convenience of digital payments while also preserving privacy, there’s no other way.
That would be ideal, but the people in office and their corporate overlords want to know every single breath we take. It will be hard to gain that right and easy to lose it.
Right, there’s no permanent solution to this issue while the working class is not in control of the state, because ultimately it’s the state which sets the value of fiat currency. If we win the fight to get a Taler-like system recognized as an official one, it would be as difficult to get rid of it as it is to ban cash right now.
I thought klarna was just a payday load basically?
It’s mostly a middle man to outsource payments. The stire doesn’t care if it’s on credit or not. You can pay directly with a bank account through Klarna, at least with the major Swedish banks.
Oh, I never looked into it. Just thought it was one of those high interest “loans” and said fuck no.
I still don’t know why USians don’t simply use bank transfers. Uses neither cash nor credit cards, perfectly easy.
Lack of a publicly run & managed solution like in other countries. Pix in Brazil for example is created & managed by the Central Bank of Brazil to enable general purpose instant payments between anyone: individuals, businesses, the government, etc. In the US, the federal government won’t take such initiative, leaving the private sector to coordinate on their own, which is pretty much like herding cats. Network technology adoption & upgrades are voluntary, heterogenous, & slow. For transfers between banks, we can only assume the lowest common denominator of technology networks with longer settlement times.
For instant digital payment, we end up with a patchwork of privately run services wrapping over these legacy payment systems (ACH, payment card networks) like Zelle, PayPal, Venmo. Zelle (like Pix, which was inspired by Zelle) enables fairly instant transfers between bank accounts, but only between participating banks. Since it’s a money transfer & not a credit card payment, it lacks fraud payment protection much like EU counterparts. This surprises scam victims who’ve come to expect the same protections as credit cards.
Our banks make it a pain in the ass and I don’t know any stores that would accept it
It’s hard to use a debit card?
That’s different from bank transfers, and, in the US, debit cards are weird permutations of credit cards, they either have a Visa or MasterCard logo and the fee structure is different from credit cards but not zero (maybe? It’s changed a bunch and the fees are usually hidden from customers)
You obviously don’t have a debit card. It’s not “a permutation” of a credit card and they don’t come from visa or MasterCard. Your talking about a credit line through your bank. I own a debit card. From my bank. With only my bank as the issuer. It takes money directly from my bank account when I use it. No creditor involved. It’s a money transfer straight from my bank account to the retailer I use it at. Millions of people have them.
The fees just straight up don’t exist for customers now. They havent for decades.
Its even illegal to charge one at all if your bank has a few billion in assets.
So at worse a company might pass their processing fees onto their customers.
But banks can’t charge you one and most companies don’t either. It’s just a cost of doing business.
So only the poorest shittiest banks, and the shittiest companies charge one. That or small businesses that can’t afford to eat the 2.5 to 3% that’s common.
But functionally debt cards are just a free service as far as the consumer is concerned.
we have zero say in what payment methods are available to us
companies and banks decide and we’re just their little bitches
I mean, we could all decide to not use credit cards and Apple Pay… But that’s too inconvenient. Oh, well, I guess we’ll continue being little bitches.
(Just got back from a trip to a cash-heavy country. It’s possible.)
Change begins with oneself.
Much like The Godfather, you insist upon yourself
what…what does that even mean?
they don’t know but they think it sounds important
not a family guy fan?
me using cash whenever possible (i really do) and even trying to influence my friends and family to do so isn’t gonna do shit in the face of several million rational people, let alone several million Americans lol
if i want reasonable payment systems i need to emigrate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i really like the city i live in though. actually it’s a lot more cash-friendly than most of the US fortunately
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
bread and circuses
Bank transfers here take 3 days typically. And that’s business days, so add another one if it’s after 4:30 pm, and Saturday and Sunday don’t count.
That’s what it was like here not so long ago. It can occasionally still take that long if you’re sending money to another bank. Same for weekends and holidays. We still seem to get by just fine?
That’s too much delay and too insecure for businesses around here.
Many don’t even take checks for pretty much the same reasons (they are basically the same system, but entrenched): There’s no guarantee that the person paying actually has the money for the business to later receive it.
recently found out most banks in the US are not government owned and charge transfer fees for each transfer (up to $40ish for wells fargo)
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
among many other predatory schemes, yes.
land of the free
Or, there could just be an instant payment thing that’s run by the federal bank. Brazil created Pix, which is essentially an instant payment processor that makes transferring money piss easy, and it works 24/7 regardless of date and the money arrives in less than five seconds. It’s managed by the Central Bank too, and every bank that operates in the country is connected to it.
I avoid bank transfers whenever possible. If someone fraudulently charges something to your credit card it’s trivial to dispute the charge and get it fixed before you ever suffer any financial impact. If they fraudulently transfer money out of your checking account and your mortgage payment and a bunch of other payments bounce before you catch it, it can be a real nightmare.
Because the US still does not have instant, or near instant bank transfers. ACH bank transfers cost money per transaction, on the order of 0.30-0.50 per transaction, and can much higher for larger transactions.
The US is just incredibly, and uniquely behind when it becomes to accessible payments. This is the reason why “FinTech” such as Cash app, PayPal, and Venmo, in addition to credit cards, are popular - they literally just don’t have the infrastructure in place for you to pay back a friend after they pay for a meal.
Every other developed, and even some developing countries, have had fee free instant payments, for the better half of a decade. The UK/Hong Kong have Faster Payment System (FPS). Europe has SEPA, and most countries mandate that transfers cannot charge fees. Australia has Osko. India has Immediate Payments Service.
I read horror stories of USians paying rent by writing cheques or mailing cash to avoid bank transfer fees and subsequently stressing out about fraud. This is just insane to everyone else, who just pays via instant bank transfers.
We do have Zelle. It’s just no one knows about it for some reason. I pay my rent this way. It’s also less convenient since people have to actively sign up for it with their bank and many don’t, so I do cashapp my friends.
Zelle isn’t available to download anymore (as least, on ios.) My landlord kept suggesting it for me to pay rent, and that’s how I discovered that it’s disappeared from the App Store.
I started setting up a bank transfer instead, but even that required precise coordination that we couldn’t get to work. I’d have to add his account to my online bank, wait for it to send two “microtransfers” of less than a dollar, then confirm the amounts on my end. Between our schedules and the fact I don’t know when the microtransations happen, we keep missing the chance to verify the numbers before the bank withdraws the microtransfers. Such a pain in the ass.
I ended up paying rent through Apple pay instead, which I still feel weird about. But I don’t have a checkbook (who does these days?) and it’s cheaper than a cashier’s check, so…
Zella isnt downloadable because it’s integrated into the banking system now. It’s not a separate thing.
It’s literally just a direct transfer now. Straight from your banking app.
Yeah there used to be an app but now it’s integrated into your banking app, so I guess yours hasnt adopted it. I go into my bank’s app and have the option for them to issue a check by mail from my account, or use Zelle. It’s no good for online purchases but I’ve paid an electrician that way before.
Yep, my landlord kept telling me to use Zelle through my banking app, but I use a small local credit union (and have zero interest in changing that. Credit unions ftw.) So I gotta do what I gotta do.
We do…? All the time? That’s the entire point of debt and now the growing popularity of zell.
Considering your using the term usians I expect you have a very poor understanding how we actually do things.
Bank transfer is barely available as a payment method in Europe and it’s slow as fuck. That’s not an alternative.
Dafuq you talking about? I live in Spain and use it all the time. Usually takes about 1 minute.
Same in colombia. Even fruit vendors on the street accept bank transfers. Takes a minute or two to transfer.
WTF are you talking about, they can take up to 24 hours on weekdays, longer on weekend/holidays.
Oh no, an entire day? That’s horrible. /s
What do you do that always NEEDS instant transfer?
Pretty useful when ordering food, for example …
And you do that so much that you actively complain about the slow banking process? I can’t remember ever needing any money to be transferred right this instant, other than the rare delivery pizza treat. Sounds like you’re pretty well off if that’s such a common occurrence.
Yeah.
Also digital purchases, I don’t want to wait a day for a download. Hell, even with regular orders, I don’t want to have to deal with having to plan my order in advance around the weekend just so my stuff arrives on the next available shipping date.
So yeah, unless it’s instant it’s not really an alternative, it’s a downgrade.
I’ve literally bought stuff on a Sunday afternoon in Spain, when the whole country is having a collective shutdown and no businesses are open, with zero problems. (Edit: last time was between different banks, too)
We’re talking big things, like cars and motorbikes, because for normal stuff we just use Bizum, which is also really quick.
I literally just went to my bank and setup a bank transfer for Saturday, 17.01.
ok, which bank are you with?
UBS but that doesn’t really matter. I also have/had accounts with Deutsch Bank, Sparkasse, Volksbank and Postbank and it’s the same everywhere.
That’s what a debit card is, and plenty of people use them.
Many people are idiots, though. They’ll use a credit card and pay interest all the time, rather than have the money to buy that TV or whatever before buying the damn thing.
I use a credit card to take advantage of the warped system, though. It gives me several benefits and costs nothing extra because I pay it off in full every month. All my purchases come with a year of reimbursement if stolen, a year of warranty past the manufacturer warranty, and cash back points. I have gotten thousands of dollars over the years for using a CC. Free money.
I consulted for a luxury brand on e-commerce for a bit and I was surprised how important credit card splitting was to their American business.
Like, people splitting a purchase across multiple cards because they were so close to the max for each.
I questioned how much time we were spending on it but they assured me it was a common use case.
Note I recently had to do some gymnastics to split a purchase over ‘credit cards’ because I had received a few modest gift cards. I suspect that’s an even more common case, since people want to completely use up a received gift card and that’s all but impossible without splitting. Even if I have 10s of thousands of available limit, a gift card means I’m trying to spend like $50 or $100 out of a card.
I HATE gift cards. Kiddo got one for Nintendo. We have a hacked switch! Can’t even use it.
Have a Home Depot one that says “invalid” or whatever wording, won’t let me use it.
Basically buying a piece of plastic, they take your money and tell you to fuck off. No one’s going to take them to court for $50, so it’s win-win all around for them.
I did this ONCE on a $10k required purchase. Never again.
Interesting, usually when I get into something that expensive, they don’t even want to accept credit cards. I think most I got someone to take as a credit card transaction was about $6,000. They’ll only take check or certified check, or if a car then of course they really want you to borrow through whatever they have partnered with.
unfortunately, was for a lawyer. paid it off in two months, but didn’t quite have $10k i cash in my pocket. it wasn’t for a DUI, i don’t drink lmao. thats the most common reason for lawyers i’ve heard.
I live in a country where it has become in a sense illegal not to be listed at an address. If you are not listed at an address, the government flags you as a missing person. If that happens, the banks lock you out of government ID, which is necessary to do basically any type of online banking, and if you have any funds behind an electronic ID wall, you won’t be able to access them.
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
Which country?
Lots of European countries have mandatory registration. It makes administration a lot easier.
Sounds like Sweden. They are like that.
Wtf is the point of all that? Sounds like it just makes the life of homeless people harder for no reason
That is the point. You must either be a land owner or pay rent to one.
