They aren’t free if you don’t have a quarter on hand.

Well they aren't really for sale or rent either. Not sure what your point is?

I never, ever carry change.

In germany, paying with hard cash is still very common, having some change is basically the norm (you can also use plastic tokens instead of real coins, you can get those for free from a lot of places here, including the shop themselves, either as promotion or if you ask)

If you visit Aldi at all regularly, you just keep a quarter in the car's change drawer.

Why not? Cash is divisible, readily accepted, and anonymous.

Today for the first time in two months I went to a retailer that was cash only. I haven't carried my wallet with me for two months - I just leave it at home and use Apple Pay for literally everything, including public transport.

But then, I also don't shop at Aldi or need a trolley.

Credit card fees are included in every purchase. I typically end up with 20 to 100 bucks every month. If I use that for travel I get even more. Twenty dollars in cash tends to last me an entire month.

And needs to be acquired and carried. I don’t like coins, the weight and noise of them.

I also don’t carry things in my pockets.

The fees associated with debit card transactions don’t land on me, so...

It does land on you via higher prices. Nothing in life is free.

Actually, the cost of handling cash, for stores, is more than debit.

Maybe not intentionally, but it was a pretty good pun.

Pun? I missed it - ELI5 please!

It takes a quarter to free one from its chain.

OK, I'm genuinely curious, why the downvotes? Did I accidentally invoke some sensitive imagery?

Not sure, but perhaps because it's not actually a pun?! At least I still don't get it.

Free as in beer vs free as in speech.

You don’t need a quarter, just something quarter-sized. Google “shopping cart coin keychain” for examples.

Quite right; my family has a few plastic "coins" that work just as well.

Here in the UK, shopping carts used to take a £1 coin, which incidentally had very similar geometry to the Indian 5 rupee coin (worth about 5 pence) - that was a great little find for our family, who always had a few 5 rupee coins lying around from our time visiting family in India. Sadly they updated the design of the £1 coin, so this trick no longer works.

Just about any store around here that uses the coin system also hands out free "cart coins" if you ask the service desk.