News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by superkuh on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:41AM (#19337833)
This is excellent news. I hope other municipalities and states follow. Only accepting corporate or institutional payments is racism against non-corporate persons (humans). Racism in this retail context is already illegal.

Cash must be accepted. It is the only form of payment (besides cryptocurrencies) where the individual does the payment. Other forms are merely large corporations/institutions using their financial clout to signal that they will pay for something in the future. Those corporations always have perverse incentives to both sell your purchasing history to anyone that wants it as well and to enact financial embargoes against arbitrary people/companies whenever even slight political or social pressure is applied.

Additionally, work-arounds for the law of having to accept cash for all debts should be addressed. Many retail or food service companies will only take your business initially if you present a credit card.

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by DiffEq on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:51AM (#19337922)
Racism?

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." — Inigo Montoya,

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by superkuh on Friday March 08, 2019 @10:04AM (#19338057)
Since dang/etc have manually slid this off the frontpage and it's just us who've already posted now I'll respond to individual comments.

Yes, it is racism. There's far more difference between a corporate person and a human person than between any of the human persons. Corporate persons are of a very different race and receive a lot of preferential treatment from retail businesses.

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by vonmoltke on Friday March 08, 2019 @10:21AM (#19338251)
Only natural humans have "race", and thus only discrimination or bias between natural humans can be considered racism. "Persons" (in the legal sense) do not have "race".
Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by gcatalfamo on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:44AM (#19337855)
What?

Cash is the bane of society. We would live better without it on every single aspect imaginable. (including but not limited to health, environment, crime)

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by heavymark on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:52AM (#19337936)
When you mention you can't imagine a single negative aspect, I presume that you are not a low income minority without a credit/debit card? Cash is more convenient for many (especially nearly the entire demographic of Hacker News), but the point of the article as you may have noticed is about how a large percentage of low income people and minorities do not have bank accounts and thus are not able to shop at these establishments. Hopefully someday states can help solve these underlying issues and then we can live in a world where payments are more convenient for all.
Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by dexen on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:51AM (#19337924)
> We would live better without [cash]

While I love the ease of use of electronic payments of all stripes, your assertion runs counter to my general knowledge and judgement. Can you support the assertion somehow?

In my understanding the ease and safety of use of either cash or electronic payments is pretty much ensured by the easy and safety of the other alternative. Competition FTW.

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by hourislate on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:50AM (#19337911)
I try to use cash as much as I possibly can. It is no ones business to track what I buy, when I buy it, how often I buy it, etc. In the event of an emergency (environmental, energy, etc), how do you propose using a credit card to purchase anything?

The biggest problem I face is tellers that can no longer do simple math and have problems counting.

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by SolaceQuantum on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:50AM (#19337914)
OK. Let's say this is true. How would financial nonpersons be serviced in a cashless society? (i.e. homeless or home insecure persons, bad credit, and other judges of financial risk on humans established by non-governmental authority)
Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by Vaskivo on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:50AM (#19337907)
"Cashless" does not mean "moneyless".

Cashless means that it doesn't accept physical money, paper bills and metal coins. It only accepts credit or debit cards. Or any other kind of electronic medium.

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by gerbilly on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:56AM (#19337971)
If I give 5$ to a homeless person and he then tries to go buy a coffee at a cashless coffee shop, what do you think will happen?

After all he has money, right?

Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by metalliqaz on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:51AM (#19337920)
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
Re:New York City considering legislation to ban cashless ret... by barry-cotter on Friday March 08, 2019 @09:49AM (#19337905)
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.