... rather than that of a system that is turning an optional convenient consumer object into a necessary ongoing household expense.
In many households with several devices, second only to the mortgage, and one that actively collects data to manipulate the users of them against their internal desires. What is advertising if not a way to influence people to do things they wouldn't normally do, or to spend money in ways they weren't planning to? I've seen the average cell phone bill in the US is nearly $150/mo, which is utterly horrifying, yet, I know many with expensive devices and plans when they're extremely tight on cash.
You know, the blog that says use your muscles to pedal your bike? And convenience isn't the right question?
Does it still say that, or have those been edited away in favor of "But when you can afford a Tesla with pocket cash, screw that and buy the fancy car"?
Just think this is extra funny;
- Rest of the world; nobody younger than 40 has ever seen a check
- America; is it ok to require a smartphone to deposit checks??
Elegantly combining the oldest and the newest technology into a convoluted, insecure, too many layers and middle-men system that benefits nobody; U-S-A!
Versus routing all payments through the data collection of smartphone apps, where your bank app requires a large set of permissions for vague reasons (seriously, try to find what they do with your location data).
Cash continues to work, but at greater and greater inconvenience over time, as the value of money decreases and the maximum bill denomination stays the same or decreases. A $100 only buys what, a few decades ago, a $20 could buy - yet, the maximum US denomination is still the $100.
Unlike with credit cards or digital payments there’s little protection for a vendor who accepts a fraudulent cheque.
Meanwhile, we
all pay the fees to the profitable credit card companies in exchange for their "protections," which often fall back on the vendor anyway.
Intermediating a vast majority of financial transactions at some fixed cost plus 3% or so is certainly profitable. They even return a bit of that to the high spending customers via "rewards" to make them loyal and use their cards for even more, instead of simply negotiating a small cash discount on major purchases. I miss separate cash/card gas prices, but I believe the CC merchant agreements now prohibit advertising that sort of thing.
Sounds good to me. I'll gladly pay $600 to avoid having to carry cash and write checks! And the lack of protection, and flexibility, easier tracking.. Let's not even start on the issues of foreign travel.. And since I get 2-5% cash back using the cards, the cost is actually less.
"Sure, they're handcuffs, but look how golden they are! Very shiny, and even have a little bit of fuzz to make them more comfortable!"
You shovel all your purchasing data over to "whoever" in exchange for convenience. So modern. So easy!
And it's not like cash transactions are free for the businesses either. How much (in %) would they have to spend on storing, securing, counting, transporting and depositing cash?
Ask your local pot shop owner. They are locked out of most credit card and banking networks, so are quite up to speed on the costs/risks/benefits.
And also; there isn't a duopoly; there's at least four; visa, mastercard, discover and amex. So how do they still control prices?
Funny thing, that. You'd think they'd compete on fees, but, nope. They all have nearly identical merchant fees. Oligopoly is still a problem.
Further, they all seem to come up with the same idea of "removing payment services from certain companies" at the same time. Much like consumer tech and social media companies all, "independently," decide to deplatform someone or some application on the same day, in the same hour.
