Yes it is the future, but we will be much worse for it.
/ Another swede.
Even if you believe that, allowing private for-profit businesses (banks, credit card companies) to skim a percentage off of every single monetary transaction to line the pockets of their shareholders is utterly grotesque. It amounts to a mandatory tax, except none of the tax is going to the benefit of the taxed.
At a minimum, a reasonable cashless society would require monetary transactions to be done at zero profit and with strong regulation requiring financial institutions to minimize the cost to the seller and buyer.
I always have cash on me and it's extremely common here, 60 kilometres outside Stockholm, for people to not only carry cash but to actively use it.
A non-trivial amount of transactions in Sweden are still cash-based.
That has never been necessary in Sweden, or (AFAIK) most other places. I have never known anyone outside of the US who carries cash for the express purpose of tipping. To the extent that tipping even exists in Sweden, it's usually just done by rounding up whatever is owed.
Often I do not want any record that I have purchased something, I will stick with cash. Thanks.
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Is this something you were doing before?
If not, why did you bring it up? Who do you imagine is doing this?
If you use the "wrong" bill denominations or don't have the right coins, cashiers can get irked at you too. It's so backwards compared to not having to think about it.
Cashless is more convenient. But given how fundamental money is in our society, I would never be fine with a centralized system that controls all payments. That is simply too much power in one place. I know HN is more about startup-hackers than FOSS-hackers, but I am pretty sure everyone here understands that this is a dangerous development.
Yes, sometimes cashiers ask if I have certain coins to make giving change easier.
Also you need coins for shopping carts.
You would have encountered the identical behavior in the bay area if you'd paid for things in cash. That's not because the cashier expects you to have the coins; it's an extra effort on their part to make things more convenient for you.
If you had credit (overdraft or credit card), it is taken away exactly at the moment you need to use it and you're put into unauthorised debt. If that happens you may not get credit from anywhere else. Where I live, even high-interest payday loans will likely be declined at that point.
If you run out of funds, you're probably going to incur compound charges as bills continue to try to be drawn.
In a cashless world run through bank accounts, at that point your friends can't lend you a little something to help with immediate necessities like food. Anything they send is instantly absorbed by charges and/or cancelling unauthorised debt (which was authorised when you incurred it - remember you're on the bad side of banks and they took away existing credit arrangements).
So you can't buy that food, and your friends can't even give/lend you a little money to help - you'll need friends who will directly feed you.
If it lasts for long, you can't rent somewhere to live, and you can't get paid for decent work. (These two things are already bad - where I live a poor credit rating means rental agencies will decline a tenancy or ask for 6 or 12 months rent (and 1-2 months deposit), and people who can't get bank accounts can't take jobs that only pay wages to an account. The two are linked and it's tough to get out of.)
Don't get on the bad side of banks in a cashless, banks-only society.
How do you even buy a replacement phone if you have no phone to pay with?
Even for rarer problems like phone software freezing up, touch sensor going awry, phone memory full but can't clean it (a bug but still), and losing network access because someone didn't pay the phone bill or it's pay-as-you-go and can't afford the top-up quantum - I think I've seen all of those more often than I've seen people lose all their cash.
And then there's the cost of replacement. If you urgently have to get a new phone to replace a broken, lost or stolen one, to pay for necessities - many people don't have enough short-term funds to cover it, nor access to credit.
Some of these can be addressed, but we've a long way to go.
The way I see it some person will have the opportunity to do the right thing and turn it in, or I like to imagine that a homeless will have a great a day.
The only thing that bothers me is my information in my wallet, which I will pay far more than $100 to keep safe.
I have $2 000 cash at home.
Once I’m home I can write myself a cheque, and with my passport, easily withdrawal more money at any bank (or grocery store).
Also, if a natural disaster happens (earthquake, fire, flood, hurricane, Norsemen with iPhones disembark on our shores) I don’t have to rely on any network to buy something. I just pay cash, or write a cheque.
Cash is very robust. (Booze, cigarettes and gold more so, but that’s another story)
I do have a £5 or 20 note as an emergency money in my bag and £20-40 in some drawers at home. E.g. to buy lunch if I come across a food stall that doesn't accept card payments. Rarer and rarer is it needed in the UK, and when I lived in Norway it was months between each time I needed cash.
I do however have spare debit/credit cards at home and my bag as well in case I lose my wallet. (I have never actually lost a wallet, but have left it in my coat/trousers at home etc)
With more and more stores (especially in Scandinavia as the OP details) no longer accept cash, and have not accepted cheques for decades, I am not sure your solution is a long-term solution.
[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/08/03/paying-cash-...
[2] https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/no-cash-sign...
So you’d have to get an extra service line :S
As a bonus, phones sometimes explode and set fire to things - when they're not busy getting hacked :)
And do the same for car.
And the hotel room when you are travelling.
Doesn’t seem too logical.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
Y'all bitch it's ridiculous (and I ain't saying it's right or that I agree with the premise of having to do it in the first place), I'm just saying thats what people will do faced with the situation.
It's ridiculous all the way down.
If I lose my wallet now I can go to my house and I have money to eat. If I lose my phone (or my wallet with card in a cashless society) I'm in a bigger problem in the short term
I can just go up to the counter and ask to withdraw some of my money and (against my signature) they'll hand it over. No ID required, really handy if you've mislaid your wallet.
I realise this one can't really scale (!) but it is definitely a nice feature.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/16/9340511/perstin-experian-...
They should, it's just stupid not to care about democracy and your own freedom.
But I do agree with the premise that it is progress in action, it just isn't the case that we are moving towards a steady state but the end goal is still constantly evolving.
The vast majority of Americans rarely use cash, but that doesn't make it worthless to us.