Item — HN Reader

Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away. People have already witnessed what happens when the control of money is centralized. So convenience, hygiene, and theoretically anti-fraud sounds great but people do not want to be locked out of their money. The theory of less risk of theft is upside down. Centralizing money will attract insider threats and more likely massive numbers of people lose money just like what is occurring in web3 exchanges. Cash can only be stolen by locals and some of us have moved to safer places. Should centralized money come to pass many of us will just move to local food production, bartering and ignore the tax system all together.

If there is any doubt that people would start getting locked out just look at politics and de-platforming today. Once everyone's money is in a central location and people are on the "wrong side of the fence" they would be put on financial lock-down and it might not even be from their own government or for a legit reason. Without access to their money hiring lawyers would be a challenge.

5 comments

"Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away.

…but people do not want to be locked out of their money."

I'd like to think cash is not going away but I'm not at all sure that it won't disappear, I reckon its life is in the balance.

I make a point of using cash whenever possible to the extent that I'll withdraw cash from an auto-teller before I go, say, to a supermarket where I'll pay cash. It's my small way of bucking the trend to e-cash.

I find it alarming that so many people are just prepared to pay with their smartphones and do so without a second thought. It's clear to me these people have little concern about being 'locked out of their money'.

Even when e-transactions fail through the network being down these people aren't deterred, they expect merchants to give them credit. Recently, the e-terminal at my local coffee shop was down [I pay cash] and the proprietor told me that he had to credit all his e-customers because they didn't have any cash and it turned out that many never repaid him. Not only that but he actually lost some customers—rather than repay the debt they went elsewhere (there are about a half dozen similar shops near by).

BTW, that e-outage was a big one and was well publicized but even then it seems few bothered to take cash as a precaution.

Unfortunately, I don't see the decline in cash contining unless there's widespread disruption to the banking system and banks start failing as they did in the 1930s. Nevertheless, I hope I'm wrong.

> Should centralized money come to pass many of us will just move to local food production, bartering and ignore the tax system all together.

Doubt

Argentina has entered the chat

That seems unconvincing. Don't most people already have most of their money centrally stored in banks? The topic at hand is merely if when they want to spend that money, if they take it out of the bank in physical form first and then spend or if they use electronic payments. Refusing to move to a cashless society won't prevent people from being locked out of their money except for what they keep under their mattress.

> Sure get rid of coins but cash is not going away.

Wait for the corrected article, tomorrow:

Cashless society drives drop in children swallowing money rolls

I get it but control of money is still plenty centralized through control of money supply, gov can direct financial institutions where to allocate money and that also affects your cash; FDR took the gold away 1933 to keep people locked in, we’ll get CBDC soon enough