I dunno. I don’t have a smart phone, and I suppose I’m “missing out” on some of those deals, but I ain’t worried about it. I don’t want to be advertised at and tracked everywhere, but doing without is not a hardship. For the most part, the places that have apps and smartphone-only discounts and membership advantages and all are exactly the kind of places I don’t want to go anyway.
I walk around with my head up, instead of scrolling through whatever y’all are scrolling through all the time. Got me a laptop at home, and a debit card and fifty bucks in my wallet. No complaints.
The point is also in which direction do you think this will move? More app dependency or less? There’ll be a point in time where cash won’t be allowed and payments are by QR code bank transfer. Some parts of the world have places that completely excluded cash transactions. Once people can’t buy basic goods without an app it’ll be too late to start caring about app-led population exclusion.
All this is true. Having tech like this as more and more a requirement is scary, totalitarian sci-fi stuff, and it would be a truly serious problem if there was a future.
I hope societies don’t go cashless. Power outages, website crashes and glitches, not to mention other things.
I’m with you on that. However, some places in Asia are moving that way. Signs on shops with cashless payment only. Only a matter of time before it moves to Europe.
https://www.seoulz.com/moving-towards-a-cashless-society-in-south-korea/
We have to take back our power and independence as much as possible. We have to demand the right to do that, relentlessly.
In some regions creditors and merchants have an obligation to accept cash and they are simply ignoring the law. But the gov does not enforce the cash acceptance law. It’s bizarre. Even more bizarre that people just go along with it. There was a case where a group went to an illegally cashless cafe. They ordered food and drinks and when the bill came they said “we only have cash”. The shop threatened to call the police. The customers said: please, we will wait. Police came. Customers explained that thier cash was refused. Police said: well, nothing for us to do here… you’re free to go.
We need more people to exploit unlawfully cashless situations. People should be happy to benefit while also doing a community service. Of course it’s not for folks who are afraid of cops and courts.
