Me. I don't want every single movement I make during the day recorded in a database by people who hate me. If I can avoid using a card, or avoid taking my phone, I don't.
In such a short time we've gotten to total coverage of every act by every single person in America in very few databases, trivial to coordinate. I don't need anybody to know I always buy a bottle of water on the way to my board game night on Thursdays from one of the stores down the same road between the park I kill time at and the house where we have it. But then there's all these phones coming together, in that house, every Thursday. Even if I don't take my phone, even if I don't buy the water, they'll see I used my transit card to take the train to the park rather than to my apartment. It's horrific when I think about it.
They know when I turn on my computer, they know when I turn off my computer, they know when I turn on my television, they know when I turn off my television. With "smart" homes, they'll know when I turn my lights on and off, they'll know how often I cook, be able to guess what I'm cooking by looking at my shopping list. I don't have control of my phone, and it has a microphone in it. My car reports its location to the manufacturer. None of this is of any benefit to me.
The only barrier to total control is manpower, and historically the manpower has been easy enough to find. I'm looking to move counterclockwise on this circle. From 8:00 to midnight we're probably on the verge of getting questioned by the cops if they can see you but can't ping you. Let me go back in time.
I use cash (USD) almost exclusively for small transactions. It's still the best way to pay if you care about anonymity and privacy.
If you have life insurance, and you die of, say, cancer, they will go through all of your credit card transactions. You agreed to it. If you died of a car accident, maybe they go through it too, just to see if you were purchasing excessive amounts of alcohol. They won’t necessarily deny the entire claim, but they may deny as a gambit, then negotiate it down with your estate in a settlement.
At a minimum buy all vice purely in cash. Bars, alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, and anything that could hint at a certain lifestyle. Also protects you in civil lawsuit and divorce.
During Covid, my business slowed way down, and I took a part time job at a gas station convenience store (because selling cigarettes made be essential). The store was in a suburb of Portland with an average household income in the top 10 of Oregon, but there were also a lot of trade workers, undocumented immigrants, and generally a good mix of income levels.
Some relevant observations:
- Lower income customers used cash much more than higher income.
- Men used cash way more than women, with the exception of retirement-age women buying their smokes / wine / beer.
- Undocumented workers almost always used cash. Most were paid in $100 bills on Fridays, so they were probably paid under the table.
- Phone tap-to-pay was almost exclusively iPhone. In fact, I don't think I ever saw an Android user pay by phone tap.
- A surprising number of people didn't realized they could just tap to pay instead of running the chip.
- If the till ran out of pennies for change, no one gave a shit.
I just visited China and seeing it as 3rd lowest on the list makes sense. Everything is done by QR Code with AliPay or WeChat. Even the old man selling bamboo cane for less than a dollar takes it.
Some restaurants do not take cash, period - it adds a staff member. A few places like a massage parlour I even tried to offer cash instead, and they didn’t care which leads me to believe the fees are very low.
Of course, it is China so there’s no privacy.
I glanced at this and thought "they are going to make a generalization that excludes Italy". And sure enough they did, then listed it as one of two outliers.
I wonder if there's something else they are not understanding, and that their exceptions of Germany and Italy are demonstrating the conclusion doesn't fit.
This assumes cash transactions are actually recorded. Given the increasingly invasive surveillance of digital transactions, I expect the numbers and reality to diverge more as time progresses.
Also, to be pendantic about it, I've never actually seen someone spend hard cash, just fiat currency, which has much lower value.
I do keep a US Minted dollar handy, should the need arise for hard currency. Made in 1901 at the New Orleans mint
edit/clarify: Yes, a 1901 Morgan Silver Dollar, a coin with a current melt value of $39.64 according to coinflation
I feel like this chart might give a false impression of daily life. For example, Taiwan is supposedly under 30%, but just about all the night markets and local mom and pop restaurants only take cash.
When I visited, luckily I brought my ATM card because most of the places I wanted to eat were cash only.
The US data appear to be based on this Federal Reserve info (or a similar document from a previous year): https://www.frbservices.org/binaries/content/assets/crsocms/... . However, that data includes both in-person and remote payments. The proportion of cash for in-person is slightly higher. There is also a table showing "in-person payments less than $25", and in that category cash is about 29%. This aligns with my own experience that people are fairly likely to use cash for small transactions, but cash becomes more and more unlikely the larger the transaction.
Many prefer to be tipped in cash.
I think doing away with cash is a terrible idea. That said, I'm using it less and less since 2020. Inflation is the real problem--we need a stable currency and make the small denominations valuable again. All this tracking and surveillance is bad for a free society and it ends with "programmable money" where the government can tell you what you can and can't buy with your money. That's sick and evil, particularly when we know that people in government are the most immoral, pernicious, and downright evil people who ever lived.
I'm really surprised that Ireland and Germany are so close here; I don't see cash used that commonly in Ireland (though pretty much everywhere would still _take_ it, which I understand is not the case everywhere in Europe), but when I visit Germany, places which only take cash are still pretty common.
I'd be a _little_ sceptical about how good their data is.
In the past year, the only times I've used cash are when travelling to Spain and Germany, and for entrance into one particular club night in Dublin who insist on it.
I play music part-time, on top of my regular day job. I still get paid in cash quite often, both by the venue and via the tip jar. I give it to the kids, if I need to send them on an errand.
I also keep some singles in my bass bag, to tip bartenders. Most venues provide free drinks to the band, but then there's no way to give a tip unless I bring some cash.
Cash payments virtually disappeared after Sarbanes-Oxley, but have come back. Also, bandleaders are mostly using Venmo or its competitors when the band isn't paid in cash.
From casual conversations with merchants, they are charged the same fees on debit cards as credit cards.
Apparently debit cards support either debit or credit transactions, and (some/all/most) POS systems are defaulting to credit? I notice I'm often asked to sign, rather than receiving a PIN prompt. That's how I know if the charge is going to be debit (PIN) or credit(sign).
And it is only debit that incurs the near cash equivalence due to far lower transaction fees.
While the data is interesting, this graphic is a terrible choice. There's no value to being a pie chart where every slice is the same width. And the colors only seem to be a second indicator of the same percentage.
This could have been a standard bar chart, allowing all the text to be easily read. And the colors could have indicated something like the average income to make it easier to see the outliers.
I use it for buying expensive stuff in tax free states.
The ice cream lady that rolls down our neighborhood. My 4 yo hears the music and freaks out. We have to keep cash around now.
I use cash for any contractor, and any independent-ish merchant (e.g. anybody with a booth/tent). I.e. the people who most benefit from it, even if they support cards or digital transactions.
I usually tip delivery drivers in it. Other than that i don't use it.
Going by share of daily transactions probably isn't the best way to measure this as it's mostly going to reflect the usage decisions of the rich who spend lots of money. And there are many cash transactions that simply aren't recorded anywhere. Many, many more. If you go by number of people I think the amount of cash usage would be much higher in the USA. I don't have experience elsewhere. But 16% only? That's absurd. It does not at all reflect my lived experience. I do acknowledge that in high population density areas cash seems less prevalent. But most people I know use cash. I use cash primarily.
cash everyday .. sometimes strike up a conversation with clerk or local business about it, too. Society learned the hard way, many times.
What I find interesting is that most Asian countries have top spots, while Japan is still in the 60% range. Why is that?
was asked for spare change and replied "i dont carry cash" then said to the person with me "would be a good idea to have square pay" to which a different person, literally from inside a dumpster, yelled "i have one!" and produced a phone with a square pay dongle. felt like i pretty much had to give them $5
I scroll past the initial paragraph only for this message to appear:
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A while? This is my first visit to your random site.
Cash has near zero resistance (USD at least). Good property for day to day IMO.