If a place doesn't accept cash, I leave. Cash is one of our last remaining bastions of freedom. I would gladly pay by card, if those cards were anonymous, refillable with cash. But these do not exist anymore, even for small amounts. They insist they must know your every last $0.50 transaction.

If a place doesn’t accept credit cards, I leave also. I just don’t carry cash anymore. To each their own.

They mostly do it for safety reasons. Being a target for being robbed for drug money just gets annoying after awhile. Getting rid of cash gets rid of that risk. They might lose some customers, but losing workers to stress about being robbed is a bigger problem these days.

It also costs money to handle cash. You have to count it at the end of the shift. And store it. And transport it to a bank to deposit it, which takes time ($$) and resources (gas, etc)

I also expect banks charge larger businesses that deal with a lot of cash for the privilege of getting the bank to handle that cash for them.

I get your point, and I do think it's great for many people that we don't lose this outright, but I will offer an alternative view - Where I live, there always were a lot of people who don't report their income fully, which means they mostly transact in cash. We have fairly high and progressive taxes, which means that by transacting in cash, some medium to high earners can lower their tax payments significantly. After trying basically everything over many decades, the clear plan by to government is to make cash transactions obsolete as soon as possible. They've been slowly reducing the maximum legal cash transaction size for a while now, but the goal is clearly to get rid of cash.

While I worry about people without access to banking (mostly people without documentation, but also the poor), I think they're on a course to resolve that too, and I for one would be very happy to not have to pay that much in taxes while seeing others cheat the system and reap the benefits...

Remember: this is HN, where the bubble effect is strong. On Hacker News, everybody "knows" that Google Search is useless these days and that Amazon results are all counterfeit junk, even though in the real world I have never heard anyone bring this up and these services are still incredibly popular. It's the same thing with cash: I don't think I've seen anyone pay with cash in years. Even the old people at the grocery store use chip-and-PIN cards.

> I don't think I've seen anyone pay with cash in years. Even the old people at the grocery store use chip-and-PIN cards.

I'm not sure where you live. I work in a fast-food place on a college campus. While the students generally use their meal-plans to buy food, the moment we have a "parents' weekend" or similar event, we do a lot of cash.

It is generally poorer people (who don't have access to banks) who have to use cash (or resort to alternative banking systems that charge exorbitant fees).

A few companies around town here in SF Bay Area started doing cashless and the community saw it as a red flag as it clearly disadvantages certain groups in our community. A couple of those places I frequented took back cashless from said pushback.

According to this [0], it's illegal for retail businesses to not accept cash in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City and the states of Massachusetts and New Jersey.

[0] https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/right-pay-cash-now-protecte...

Remember that this is also an American bubble at times. In Germany, cash is still king. You can't go long without 10€ in your wallet.

Tangential: I'm surprised that no one complains about these things. Google Search has become unbearable and Amazon is obviously bad these days. There's no way people aren't getting annoyed by the tech they use every day, yet you're right, no complaints.

Germany's certainly a contrast. As a counterpoint from another end of the scale, I'm in Sweden and it's so cashless that the US seemed cash-heavy to me on a visit a year ago. I saw people pay cash in a restaurant and I even saw a public transport machine that accepts bills, things that would be a very unusual sight in Sweden. Here, the bills were changed five years ago and I'm not even sure what they look like.

> this is also an American bubble at times

It's almost always a silicon valley bubble

> In Germany, cash is still king

In Australia I haven't bothered to take any cash out in about a year, many businesses don't accept cash, and everything still seems to function just fine.

Many stores I go to in rural america ONLY accept cash or check. The areas are so poor they refuse to pay the credit card fee. That and I suspect there's a lot of tax evasion going on.

Cities are making it illegal, as they should. It's not always meant in bad faith, but it's also a form of gentrification that hurts the poor and unbanked by removing yet another service from them.

https://www.nssh.com/2020/04/philadelphias-ban-on-cashless-s...

I personally never use anything but cards since I have many of the high reward credit cards. But I've also had family members with tax liens or other problems that didn't allow them to get a bank account, that relied on family to pay bills, order things online for them, etc.

It’s about getting robbed for drug money. The irony being that our huge population of visibly unhoused in our neighborhood (unlikely to have bank accounts) also correlates to the problem of being robbed for cash..leading to businesses not taking cash anymore for safety reasons.

> that didn't allow them to get a bank account

This sounds like the real problem to solve. It's unacceptable for people to be unable to get a bank account and whatever cards to pay cashless

In civilized countries they solved this decades ago by allowing the postal service to offer simple bank accounts.

It's totally a fake problem that untrustworthy people can't be trusted in modern times with bank accounts. The risk is check bouncing. People don't "need" checks anymore though to function in the cashless world.

We already have prepaid card accounts that don't allow you to spend money you don't have. The only catch is that they're run as profiteering machines which extract fees at every turn.

I guess what I'm saying is, let USPS run an operation (like Green Dot, Vanilla, etc.) but with a fee structure based on the true cost of the service only. And the government should give Visa and Mastercard the choice of:

1. antitrust suit to break them up.

2. the USPS cards will be a V/MC, and V/MC will give them very deeply discounted interchange rates

3. a new independent USPS card network with low fees will be built AND commercialized for any issuer to use, and a regulation that anyone who accepts V/MC must also accept that network.

> The risk is check bouncing.

Checks aren't a thing in most of the world. Opening a bank account is hard because of know-your-customer laws.

The civilised solution to this is very simple: cash! Until you get you bearings and have a bank account opened, just use cash.

Tourist in a country where your debit or credit cards don't reliably work or come with extra fees? Cash!

Buying a second-hand piece of furniture from someone else, and don't feel the need to expose more information than necessary? Cash!

Electronic payment system goes down while you are in the queue at the supermarket? No problem, because you always carry a little cash for backup. (I've had this happen to me several times.)

Cash is the ultimate fallback in civilized society, and worth protecting.

OK but it is an issue. How about solve that decades old problem before turning people away and insisting that whatever payment processor take some 2-5% of your purchase. It's a complete digression of technology.

In Germany a free account is a right, but recent immigrants often struggle because banks require a registered address, a residence permit, or a biometric passport.

A recent immigrant from countries that don't issue biometric passports (like India) might struggle to open a bank account. I had to devote a lot of time to finding loopholes for my readers.

America has a substantial underclass of undocumented migrants who would presumably not be interested in getting their KYC info and employment details put in a big database.

The status of such migrants is (AIUI) a fraught issue politically, and I'm not sure you can resolve the issues of the unbanked without resolving it.

It’s very hard to get denied a checking account, even with walking away from multiple accounts with negative balances. I’d bet they didn’t try hard enough or this is a lie.

I saw one of those “mind blown!” sorts of posts on Facebook the other day that I haven’t been able to really reconcile in my head because it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense.

The gist was that if everybody is paying with credit cards, $50 will eventually whittle down to $0 because AmEx, et. Al. got $50 worth of fees after so many transactions (accountant pays grocer who pays dentist who pays hygienist who pays daycare, etc.). On one hand, what a huge waste of money. On the other hand, I as the consumer typically don’t get a discount for paying with cash, so why shouldn’t I take advantage of the “free” and secure payment option available to me?

This feels plausible but I think it is really nonsense.

Processing fees are not unique to cash. Banks charge cash processing fees to businesses too, and have for ever. Most shops will deposit all the cash received at the end of the day - perhaps every few days - with a bank.

Yep, dealing with cash comes with significant costs too. It's a hassle to handle much of it

Those cash processing fees would only apply if the cash was repeatedly deposited and withdrawn, and probably only by businesses. The hygienist can probably deposit cash for free, I don't think I've ever paid a fee into a consumer bank account.

Taxes will do the same, though. Employers have to payroll taxes, employees have to pay income taxes. The $50 will eventually all bleed back to the government.

That's true- everyone with a checking account pays a "fee", even if that's in the form of "allowing the bank to loan your money out to make more money"... except for maybe USAA. Their checking accounts are free, no account minimums, and they even pay a little bit in interest. Not just anyone can get a USAA checking account though so I guess that doesn't really count.

So long as you don't use a brick and mortar bank, most banks have interest providing checking accounts, although rates vary wildly.

Savings accounts in particular are egregiously terrible at brick and mortar banks. I made more in interest payments in my first month at Ally than I did in the ten years I had my child hood savings account at Bank of America.

Ally is a special case and you’ll find most other virtual banks don’t match their rates. They’re fighting for customers.

TMobile Money was fighting Ally pretty hard when rates were rising and had me switching money back and forth for a little while. Goldman Sachs traditionally fought with Ally. Doctor of Credit has large lists of smaller banks with favorable rates. It's just the traditional large brick and mortar banks rip off customers who just assume having money in a savings account is a good thing to do.

I wasn’t aware T-mobile had a bank. You’re absolutely right about savings accounts, it took me a while to explain to my wife how you lose money using the traditional ones.

Because of privacy.

The $50 in fee is paid to the employee at AmEx (99%+ of it), then the last % is paid into dividends and such, which people will use to buy grocery etc. In that way, the loop closes and why the point doesn’t make sense.

The fees get distributed elsewhere geographically, and never make it back into the local economy. Sure, the money doesn't disappear, but the locals are worse off for it.

This is the crux here. And this is what I tell people who are so insistent on highways and cars too - the productivity of your local economy is siphoned off because local coffee shops can’t afford to compete with Starbucks drive throughs so the capital leaves your local economy.

Where I live a Starbucks was opened across the street from a local coffee shop and the Starbucks closed because it couldn’t compete. This is in a walkable neighborhood. Once you get to the ‘burbs and highways it’s all Starbucks.

Those transactions are usually taxed too. And in my experience cash discounts come from off the books transactions, ie tax evasion. Handling cash in business has a non zero cost too.

credit cards are pure evil. And yet I have 2. What's worse is that they raise the cost at stores, payed for by people who don't pay them off on time. I'm no socialist, but that's certainly not progressive.

This. I am a legal immigrant and have the papers and job to open an account. Some of my relatives aren't so fortunate so I have opened accounts in my name which they use as theirs. It get convoluted and I would rather I didn't have to do this but you are right it is a form of gentrification.

Even legal immigrants struggle with this. It's hard to open a bank account during your first few months in a country, as you might not fulfill the basic requirements set by banks.

At least it's a serious issue in Germany, especially for Indians whose passport is not accepted by many authentication services.

Let’s not for a split second pretend that many if any of the people complaining in this thread are doing so for this reason. At best their reasoning is verging on a conspiracy theory, at worst it’s just a typical old American man aversion to not using cash.

I agree with you that businesses should accept cash for the reason that you’ve noted. The underlying problem is fuelled by the almost unique dysfunction of American bureaucracies. This is in cases where the systems aren’t maliciously designed to lock people out.

So I've started carrying cash because in NYC, most places now have 3-5% "Cash Discount which is already applied to the price" which means a 5% fee for using your card.

> hurts the poor and unbanked by removing yet another service from them.

There are plenty of much poorer countries where cash has pretty much died out.

Imagine driving along in some mountainous, rural area in China. You stop at a little roadside shop in the middle of nowhere. You pull out your paper Renminbi bills to pay, and the shopkeeper looks at you like you're crazy. Everyone uses their smartphone to pay for everything, and yes, everyone has a smartphone.

If it's possible to transition entirely to digital payment in a country that was part of the Third World just one generation ago, it should be possible in the US.

> I can’t remember the last time I paid or even saw someone pay cash for anything

For as long as not everyone has access to a bank account or credit card I'll be concerned about fueling divisions in society.

I'm not from the US, unlike the origins of this discussion, but also hear this statement and have no reason to doubt it is true. But if you step out of the wealthy areas or even just look a little closer then the users of cash are visible.

From what I've observed, a tiny fraction have left because of the no-cash policy, probably under 1%. We were expecting 5% to 10% in the first weeks, since customers that walked in for the very first time wouldn't have known of the policy.

From the ones that left, most said they didn't have a card on them at the time and they'd return another time, but we did get a couple of people that did leave because they didn't agree to the policy.

Interesting. Cash handling costs are 5% to 15% https://www.ihlservices.com/product/costofcash/

This makes going cash free a pretty smart choice.

I go to a bar that is cashless and still see people have to leave because they only had cash (or didn't want to use their card).

To play devil's advocate, credit cards are another way to get tracked, a great way for a duopoly of companies to skim 1-3% off the economy, a way to be analyzed by the merchant, a way to get more explicitly prompted to pay a 20% tip, and more hassle than handing a $5 for a $4.73 coffee and walking off.

"Imagine these magical tokens with monetary value that I could instantly transfer to a merchant without waiting for my bill to come back!"

Going cashless only benefits the owner for not having to deal with counting cash, with potential worker theft, and (slim concern) robbery - things that, depending on the area and the market, are theoretical.

At the same time, I think it's neat that street performers and buskers have QR codes to Venmo. I think everyone should accept everything.

>I go to a bar that is cashless and still see people have to leave because they only had cash (or didn't want to use their card).

I wouldn't patronize such a place because I'm not comfortable surrendering my credit card for an indeterminate amount of time, nor having any idea of how much money I've spent until I'm about to leave.

In defense of cashless, there is so much you don’t have to worry about as the business owner; yes the credit companies take a somewhat exhorbitant percentage but you don’t have to worry about having thousands of dollars in cash at the end of the day, don’t have to worry about employees skimming or making mistakes like coming in short. It also automates a ton of the accounting. So there are some benefits.

On the other hand, you have to worry about disputes and chargebacks, of which you can only accumulate so many with your processor, and which also tend to have unfavorable outcomes for merchants.

The pros may still outweigh the cons, but it’s not all roses with cards.

Disputes and chargebacks for in person payments especially for food/drinks immediately consumed would be rather rare.

I can’t put any numbers to this, but yes, it’s probably the case that as the ATV increases the dispute rate also increases, and probably particularly rare in the food service industry.

In my experience it can be rare even with an ATV in the thousands of dollars, but it’s still (unfortunately) a non-zero risk.

It’s the card present/card not present (ie online, phone, etc) distinction right?

Yes - it's hard to automate because it's offline, it's higher risk because you have to show your face, it's usually low value products, and if there's any issues people usually go back to the cashier and then void the transaction - removing a large part of refund costs.

> and (slim concern) robbery - things that, depending on the area and the market, are theoretical.

If your bar is being hit every week for robbery, the chance is no longer theoretical or a slim concern. Not sure about that bar, but marijuana dispensaries here get hit weekly because they are a cash only business. If the feds allowed it, they would go card-only very quickly.

> a great way for a duopoly of companies to skim 1-3% off the economy

I mean by all means use your card everywhere but I think we should make a concerted effort to keep our options open.

I am a user that is drawn in by the convenience of paying with card or tap or phone. But I am not advocating to abandon cash or the cashless society.

> I go to a bar that is cashless and still see people have to leave because they only had cash (or didn't want to use their card).

And I see the same issue when I go to places that only take cash: people have to leave because they only have a credit card. Or they pony up some ridiculous fee to take cash from the ATM in the bar.

> credit cards are another way to get tracked

I personally don't care too much about this, but I can understand why some might.

> a great way for a duopoly of companies to skim 1-3% off the economy

Put another way: a way for a duopoly of companies to get paid for providing a useful service to both businesses and customers. Now, you can argue that if there was more competition, fees would be lower, and I wouldn't disagree with that. But it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that the card networks are just taking and not providing any value.

> a way to be analyzed by the merchant

Basically the same as your tracking argument. Some care, some don't.

> a way to get more explicitly prompted to pay a 20% tip

Shrug? That's life? I feel pressured to tip regardless of how I pay. At least with the POS terminal I don't have to do math.

> and more hassle than handing a $5 for a $4.73 coffee and walking off.

It's pretty rare that I see a bill for an even amount of money. It's way more hassle to have to dig through my pockets for exact change, which I never have, so in reality I'm passing over a larger amount and waiting for the cashier to make change for me. And then I have to decide how much of that I want to leave as a tip. That's certainly more hassle than just tapping a card and a tip amount, and walking off.

Your argument boils down to, I don't care about your problems, and they don't bother me, so they are wrong.

Interesting that you left off the past line of my post in your otherwise thorough reply.

I prefer paying cash. It is also elitist to not accept cash because it means I need a credit card or an expensive phone, neither of which I have on me while jogging.

I also don't jog, but you get the point. At my gym I had a keychain bar code that worked great. Now I need my phone, phone charged, brightness up, their stupid app, signed in, open it up, click check-in. It turned a 2 second 1 gram device in to this whole thing. Why?? What a waste of technology and time.

> I also don't jog, but you get the point

No, I don't. Carrying a card is way easier than carrying cash while jogging. Thin, smaller, more lightweight.

I see one benefit of cash: the privacy.

I frequent taco trucks and places that prefer cash and almost no places that don't so I have ~$40 in my gym bag and neither of my 2 heavily used credit cards.

I will have maids coming over tomorrow for the first time in a millennia and I will pay them however they prefer and I'm assuming that's cash. Card is amazing, but cash has its place it bothers me to see it sidelined.

> It is also elitist to not accept cash

I think you're ascribing malice to something that is largely a function of cost, safety, and hassle.

Yes, credit card fees are not free, but:

1. Managing cash is not free either. At the end of the shift / end of the day, you need employees to count cash and reconcile the amounts with receipts. Cash in excess of what the business wants to keep on hand needs to be transported to the bank and deposited, which costs employee (or manager/owner) time.

2. Businesses that accept cash are bigger targets for (possibly violent) theft. Your minimum wage barista might appreciate not having to worry about someone coming in with a gun and ordering them to empty the register into a bag, if there is nothing to empty into said bag. Transporting cash to the bank is another point where you can get robbed.

3. Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards).

Certainly, from the customer's perspective, credit cards are a privacy leak, and require a good credit score or at least a bank with debit cards, and some people don't have access to either. But I think the solution to the latter is to make banking more accessible to people (I think allowing the post office to be a bank to anyone who needs it is a great way to make that happen). Not sure how to solve the privacy leak, though. Even with (unlikely) strong legislation against data collection and sharing/selling, there's always going to be a purchase trail.

And your point about jogging (or not-jogging) just doesn't make sense; it's far more convenient to carry a credit card when jogging than to carry cash.

> Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards).

I'm curious if credit cards actually are worse. I haven't had anyone ask for my ID to use a credit card in a long while. My hypothesis is that stolen credit cards are used online frequently, but rarely in person. Likely because it's easier to steal 10,000 credit card numbers online than in person, and because people are more likely to notice and report a card stolen if it's physically missing.

Letting people in to your store means they can steal stuff. Things that you sell can break. Windows are a hazard in your saloon. I have seen 1 single counterfeit USD in my life and i've worked plenty a register. I have seen innumerable amount of credit card fraud. There's pros and cons to all forms of currency, and not accepting cash does eliminate some of those cons but also its pros.

I sometimes did the opposite, when living in Germany. I'm not gonna bother hunting for ATM (and usually pay commission with that) just to have a privilege of spending money at your business.