Mastodawn

jonny (good kind)Sep 23, 2025

Fuck google pay, apple pay, any payment system linked to a phone. Fuck a cashless society. I needed to use google wallet for some event recently and couldn't because I'm running grapheneOS. Refuse to use this bull shit. The card processors are a cartel but they're nothing compared to Google owning all transaction data.

jonny (good kind)

I see people using their phone for public transit, I see most people using their phone when buying groceries, that shit makes no sense to me. Why would you want your money to run out of batteries so that it can spy on you?

jonny (good kind)Sep 23, 2025

Pre-pandemic I only used cash, now many places no longer even take it, at least in LA, which I didn't even know was legal. It just works and is not hard to use in any way.

jonny (good kind)Sep 23, 2025

Please assume when talking to me that I am aware that 1) businesses like money and 2) other things are also bad in addition to the thing I am talking about.

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Sep 23, 2025

@jonny The usual reasons places don't want to handle cash:
- Counting out change takes time, so it takes slightly longer to serve customers
- Handling coins cost money; the consumed/received quantity is unbalanced and differs between denominations so you need to buy coin rolls and those have an extra cost attached
- Employees can make mistakes and/or 'appropriate' cash

So yeah it was never about whether it's hard to use, capitalists just don't like it because it's not to their advantage so they'll make up complexity if they need to, to convince people to pay digitally

Ember is so tired of people.

@joepie91 @jonny imo the biggest difficulty is so many people paying with the biggest notes, rather than taking any effort to give an amount close to the cost, which leads to a needlessly high drain on the smaller notes and coins in the register

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Sep 23, 2025

@Ember @jonny When I worked retail, people often made an effort to make 'round' change (eg. giving a 5 euro note plus a 10 cent coin so that I could change back whole euros) and it didn't solve the imbalance, this seems to just be a fundamental thing with change (and the imbalance is different for different industries!)

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Sep 23, 2025

@Ember @jonny Like at discount stores and market stalls here, people often pay in small change and so they have too much of it, but at supermarkets and railway food places they pay mainly with bills so there's not *enough* change

jonny (good kind)Sep 23, 2025

@joepie91
@Ember
Currency is a public service that costs money and there is friction in circulation, yes. It is worth it imo.

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Sep 23, 2025

@jonny @Ember Oh, absolutely. But convincing capitalists of that is a whole other matter...

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Sep 23, 2025

@Ember @jonny (I should also note that in NL it's common to *ask* customers to make the change round if they can, if they don't already do so themselves, so that may be a cultural thing)

Ember is so tired of people.

@joepie91 @jonny probably, in my experience most people rarely make an effort, and just assume that the store will have the change, which we often don't because it runs out so quickly from people doing this 🙃

Antony Sep 23, 2025

@joepie91 @jonny I agree with you, just to add to your point: card networks aren't free either. While it costs to handle (and even make) cash, the card network operators also levy fees on transactions. Taking payments costs money. No idea what Google and Apple do but I bet it costs on top.

I'm very much against the push to move payments but also banking authenticators to phones.

Kathmandu Sep 23, 2025

@joepie91 @jonny

OTOH, electronic payments cost money too: there's always a fee to the credit/processor, sometimes more than one fee.

verified_transgender

@jonny can still use cash here but we often forget to get cash and so we have to use our card

Doug Webb Sep 23, 2025

@jonny read this, went into a shop and was confronted with this wall of digital payment options

wakest likes your bugs ⁂Sep 23, 2025

@douginamug @jonny Pluxee with benefits sounds erotic

martenson Sep 23, 2025

@jonny I don't give a shit about cash. Electronic payments can be designed better, offline, and much safer than cash. For now we have a monopoly crap implementation -- that needs to change.

Rob Ricci Sep 23, 2025

@jonny have you tried passing them 50k in cash inside fast food bags? I hear that's popular

Bradley Sep 23, 2025

@jonny lately I have been offered to pay cash for a discount on my bill so let's hope it makes a comeback

I AM BANKSY ☕ / 🗑‍🔥Sep 23, 2025

@jonny
I had an ebike that unlocked via an app, except when it didn't want to connect with Bluetooth. There was a hardware override, but it was a pain in the ass in so many ways.

Keys work fine, no, custom apps because.

Anything that requires an app is just going to fail you when you need it most.

catch Sep 23, 2025

@xinit @jonny I have this 1965-ish British road bike that is more than 50% original parts, did 30 miles on it on Friday and it still rides well. Imagine if they'd made so you can't ride it without a fucking punch card or something.

rustynail Sep 23, 2025

@jonny I don't currently use a custom rom but I still only use a plastic card, some disposable one that doesn't have a lot on it and is safe to lose or ruin, and I just carry it in a pocket

@jonny do you not have a physical debit card

Liv Pink Sep 23, 2025

@jonny Paying by phone is safer than using a credit card or debit because your banking details are tokenized. Not sure that's why most people use it, tho 😛