Only about 60% of all Chinese even have a smartphone. [1] "Everyone" you saw was probably a relatively well-off member of the middle class in a first-tier city. As a tourist, you obviously won't see anyone who can't afford visiting a touristy area. Try looking for a place more than an hour from any public transport and check again whether the people there all use cashless payment.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/257045/smartphone-user-p...

> As a tourist, you obviously won't see anyone who can't afford visiting a touristy area.

This is totally untrue. Tourist areas attract beggars.

Beggars may not have smartphones, but penetration in first-tier cities goes much farther than "relatively well-off members of the middle class".

Interestingly, beggars even have QR codes for WeChat payments: http://www.asiaone.com/china/no-loose-change-beggars-china-n...

China is not a cashless society, and as long as you have the option to use cash the effects are minimal (as described in the article).

A cashless economy will not only crush the poor, but also hit the middle class: it allows for a negative interest rate (can't withdraw your savings). I also suspect that it could enable many subtle ways to coerce consumers into certain behaviour: All your money is now just the number you see in your bank's app, giving the bank's marketing department a lot of power how you see and interact with and ultimately use that money.

> All your money is now just the number you see in your bank's app

That is effectively the reality of any modern economy.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp

Banks don't have the cash if everyone rushes to it and cashes out.

Putting your money in a bank _was_ your choice though; you could have kept it under your mattress.

It really isn't though.

Try paying 600€ worth of taxes in Portugal with cash and all you'll get is a fine because its banned.

Try to buy a macbook? You better have a bank account because its illegal to buy it using cash.

You owe 3000€ to a friend who lent it to you? Can't just give him the money 100€ bill at a time because that's illegal too.

Anyone who says "you're not forced to use banks" or "cash has value because you must pay your taxes with it" is either ignorant or intentionally misleading.

I don't think that law is common, though; even the European Central Bank was quite critical when it was presented by the Portuguese assembly.

Actually...I doubt that. At least in US, for the company I worked for, I don't think there is an option for me to be paid in cash in the first place. Even in reality people use check though, that still requires a bank account.

I've recently had to cash checks without having my own bank account for a couple of months. The experience left me hating the banking industry. Certain banks won't even cash their own checks anymore! Other banks will cash their checks but want to take a $10(+-) fee for the privilege.

I ended up using Walmart to cash a check (the ones which weren't hand-written because Walmart won't do that) and using their moneycard as my debit/credit card for payments. This system worked reasonably well, but I do not want to go back to it.

In those society, most people are more poor than we are. So what you think are the poors are not. To be poor means there is such a difference in lifestyle from the majority of people in your country that you can't afford the basic things that they can. What is a basic things change from place to place.

So what's poor in Africa or China is way more miserable that you think it is. And those persons, instead of being excluded like in our society, are either cast slaves (india), dead (africa) or in camps/prison (china).

You don't see no cash affecting them because there is no opportunity for them to be.

I don't agree with your statement about poor people are in China's camps/prison. The poorest groups are not in those places

Would you say the poorest are working in the fields then, using cash and never living their village ?

> everyone in China appears to pay by mobile phone without problems using WeChat Pay and Alipay and no one seems to be locked out.

That is not true. I met people who don't have Alipay/WeChat on weekly basis. China's central bank beat those who refuse to accept cash payment with a big stick - Alibaba's Freshhema is a high profile target the central bank recently picked, there was actually a news article on that yesterday.

For me, I am more concerned about the fact that people's life could be dramatically affected if both Alipay/WeChat ban their accounts, say due to some business disputes. There is so far no regulation on this whatsoever.

Are they the only service providers in China?

they have 95% of the market share. other minor players are not accepted by most businesses.

For other people who were confused: Alipay is apparently the official English name for 支付宝.