from Hacker News

D.C.'s ban on cashless businesses takes effect

by saguntum on 10/4/23, 1:02 AM with 493 comments

• by nonrandomstring on 10/4/23, 7:30 AM

  Almost every comment is about politics, choice, privacy, rights, markets and percentages.

  There's a completely different take; Civic resilience

  From an operational and strategic security POV, cash is a vastly superior technology. It doesn't need electricity, a network of cables, satellites and routers.

  Therefore cash in circulation acts as a buffer that provides economic stability and continuity of operations.

  Also, take a look at a modern European bank note, like we have in the UK. It's a sophisticated technology. It's not like we still have Roman coins that any blacksmith can forge.

  There are many good, but more subtle reasons for preserving the use of cash, and regulating business practices if necessary to do so.

• by kxrm on 10/4/23, 2:54 AM

  I live in DC and support this law not just from an accessibility standpoint but also from a privacy standpoint. I am tired of every retail/restaurant establishment building a profile of me.

• by aketchum on 10/4/23, 2:52 AM

  I have no dog in this fight as I rarely deal with cash and do not run a retail business. However from a conceptual point of view I really have a viscerally negative reaction to not accepting cash. It is a societal acceptance of the rent seeking behavior of the credit processing networks. I already have to pay a sales tax to ${TAX_ENTITIES.length} different government entities, I don't love that I also have a 3% tax going to VISA/Mastercard/Amex/...

• by lacker on 10/4/23, 6:47 AM

  I've noticed recently more of the food truck or farmers' market type businesses aren't officially cashless, which is illegal in California AFAIU. They just don't have change for a $20.

  It's a real problem that some people cannot afford the fees on a bank account, but I would prefer that we find some way to provide everyone with minimum banking services. Like a no-fee government-provided debit card.

  I know, the government doing things is bad, but Wells Fargo, Citibank, etc are so heavily regulated, they are essentially a wing of the government now anyway. Maybe in exchange for being "too big to fail" they could be required to provide all American citizens with a standard, transferrable, no-fee debit accounts.

• by fragmede on 10/4/23, 2:33 AM

  Interesting. I get why you'd want to ban cashless business, but many business in a nearby town with a high crime rate are going cashless because you can't rob a Square reader quite as easily as a cash register.

• by dools on 10/4/23, 2:46 AM

  Instead of banning cashless businesses because it's discriminatory to the unbanked perhaps they should focus on reducing discrimination in the banking sector and providing a publicly run electronic payment system.

• by jumpkick on 10/4/23, 3:10 AM

  Actually, paying with cash is a great way to avoid tipflation. Tip if you like, whatever amount you feel is an appropriate employment subsidy for the service rendered, but you won’t be awkwardly forced into it by an iPad.

• by spicybright on 10/4/23, 2:20 AM

  Off topic but the writing style is so weird. It's sad they have to make articles a few paragraphs with a bolded titles to get people to read.

• by lazrgatr on 10/4/23, 9:23 AM

  Argentina has effectively a cash-only economy. Queues in excess of an hour at the supermarket are fairly common partly because of the overheads in having everyone pay with cash (needing to empty the tills, validate large notes, taking time to get correct change out and/or giving change).

  Let's not be so quick to say that card payments are all bad.

• by rendaw on 10/4/23, 3:46 AM

  In India, even rural farmers have easy cashless mobile payments. In D.C., the capital of the US, nobody has easy cashless mobile payments, and even card payments are too difficult, with the government finally giving up and enshrining cash.

• by someonehere on 10/4/23, 1:27 PM

  Ah yes. SF attempted to float this idea but critics argued it disenfranchises those that don’t have access to payment cards or access to technology that can provide terminal payments.

  I tend to agree that physical cash should always be a viable option. Using a card or phone to pay at a terminal is a choice.

  If you say, “but cash should be removed for <reason X>”, look at the Square outage a few weeks ago. About a day and a half of no ability to use mobile ordering or paying for goods and services. What happened? DNS issues. If DNS issues can cripple an economy and business livelihoods then there should be a backup.

• by mariojv on 10/4/23, 4:36 PM

  I agree with most commenters here that cash is useful and that cashless is a step in the wrong direction. I did want to point out, though, that this differs a lot from what at least some commenters on other forums are saying about the ban. All the top voted comments on Reddit about this are against it: https://www.reddit.com/r/washdc/comments/16wacjy/dcs_ban_on_...

  I find the difference in opinion between the HN crowd and Reddit kind of interesting. Part of it is probably because that is a local to DC subreddit, but I also believe they're not really considering the privacy / civic resilience angle.

  From my perspective, having lived through a near total power outage in Texas for a week in February 2021, having some cash, food, and drinking water on hand is just basic common sense these days. Some local grocers were letting people take groceries without paying, anecdotally, but I don't think that was everywhere or even corporate policy. You also don't want to rely on that to feed your family or pay for basic goods in an emergency. At one point, even the cell network was starting to go down in my area because the generators powering the cell towers were running out of fuel.

• by blockwriter on 10/4/23, 3:53 AM

  I'm opening a coffeeshop in Chicago and do not plan on accepting cash, just seems easier and safer to me.

• by sbuttgereit on 10/4/23, 1:01 PM

  OK... naturally this is a political discussion; but I find the politics of this interesting and maybe even amusing. I don't live in DC and at don't really have a horse in this race but I sense a contradiction.

  I think many would consider Washington D.C. to be governed solidly by American progressives. While the rationale for this law fits solidly within their views on egalitarianism, I wonder why no one is discussing another proclaimed progressive area of concern environmental impact and climate?

  I have to think in this case cash must be significantly environmentally more impactful than the electronic payments. Cash requires a surprising amount of raw materials to produce, not all of which I expect to be environmentally friendly. Cash requires specialized transport, not just of the actual cash to and fro, but also of those raw materials. Sure electronic payments require power to operate, but I assure you hard cash is just as counted electronically as electronic payments. Disposal of used cash I expect to have its own unique environmental impacts.

  In essence making each unit of currency physically real rather than electronic would seem to have unaccounted for negative externalities, something my more progressive friends go on and on about when convenient, which I don't even see getting lip service in relation to this law. Or maybe in the eyes of the progressive establishment enacting these laws climate just isn't nearly so important as equity/social justice?

  Again, not my fight, and I think the vast majority of "negative externality" arguments are made for rhetorical points rather than referring to some well considered analysis not to be ignored... but I would be curious to understand how progressives decide which priorities are of greater urgency than environment and climate given how those issues are typically couched.

• by mikerg87 on 10/5/23, 2:03 AM

  Can someone explain how this is possible? Doesn’t US currency have the phrase “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private” which I understood this to mean it should be accepted for settlement of financial transactions.

• by yakkityyak on 10/4/23, 9:00 AM

  Everywhere should accept cash, and every place should also (try) to support tap to pay.

  I’ll gladly pay an extra 5% for a donut if it means I don’t have go to an ATM, withdraw the minimum, and forget the change in my car anyway.

• by causi on 10/4/23, 12:42 PM

  Not taking cash means people without bank accounts cannot transact with you. At present that's six percent of Americans. Millions of (mostly marginalized) people who, in a world where every business made the decision to not take cash, wouldn't be able to buy food or other essentials. It would be like every store converting to drive-through only and telling everyone without a car they're free to starve to death in the street.

• by farzinadil on 10/4/23, 2:48 AM

  I would rather Walmart and Home Depot be forced to accept mobile payments than this. (But I don't really support either case)

• by jiqiren on 10/4/23, 6:45 AM

  Article didn't state if it was legal or not - but maybe the solution is to charge a $5 fee for using cash.

  Also... Yes, cash is expensive to handle. Theft, keeping change, a register, maybe a safe, transport to bank, fees from banks etc

• by pengaru on 10/4/23, 3:19 AM

  Please do this state-wide in California. Or hell, nation-wide in US.

• by komali2 on 10/4/23, 3:45 AM

  > As are parking facilities that did not accept cash payments prior to Dec. 1, 2020.

  The car is god, lol. I don't understand why they get an exemption.

• by elforce002 on 10/4/23, 12:12 PM

  These are good news. I used credit cards a lot but to pay for haircuts, etc... I use cash. We need more options, not less.

• by TheCapeGreek on 10/4/23, 12:30 PM

  What I particularly like about this is how it goes directly against the conspiracy theories.

• by seanhunter on 10/4/23, 8:38 AM

  US seems determined to cement its status as the luddite nation of consumer payments.

• by wait_a_minute on 10/4/23, 6:46 PM

  Great news. This should be rolled out everywhere.

• by SuperNinKenDo on 10/4/23, 2:52 AM

  Fantastic. Hope to see more of this over time.

• by wly_cdgr on 10/4/23, 2:54 AM

  Good

• by farzinadil on 10/4/23, 2:46 AM

  Ridiculous.

  Why not also then force cash only businesses into taking card and mobile payments also?

• by seanmcdirmid on 10/4/23, 3:18 AM

  In my city, cash businesses are the first to be knocked over for drug money, so increasingly more and more businesses are forced to go cashless. By forcing all businesses to accept cash, this would re-spread the risk of armed robbery or burglary around.