In the future, we will do away with tangible money for everyday transactions. We are already well on our way to heading there. I worked in high school in the service industry, at a family fun center. I did many different jobs there, and one was the register both up front, and in the concession stand. One thing both of them had in common was the lack of cash transactions.
It always surprised me that most people seemed more happy to hand over their credit or debit card for a 75 cent bag of chips, or $1.50 soft drink than they were fishing out a couple coins or bills. Of course, some people still did, but not many. There was an arcade too, it ran on tokens, which could be bought out of two machines.
These machines took $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills. In the past, this worked great, but just recently, they replaced them with machines that were equipped for cards as well. Why? well simply put they were tired of selling the majority of the tokens through the front because people wanted to use their cards, or the ATM machine running low from people having to withdraw cash, as they did not carry any on them.
Many vending machines now have the ability to accept cards. The vending Giants like Coke, and Pepsi, as well as food based machines have slots for cards. This just goes to show how our society is changing into a card based one. It has trickled down into even the smallest of applications.
Forget trying to use cash on an airline. Many announce that they are a “ cashless cabin” before you even board. This may pose a problem to someone without a card, but for the airline this is way better. It is safer for the flight attendants, and easier. Up in the air where things can change very quickly it is imperative they act just as quickly. Swiping a card is much easier than counting back change.
Even mom and pop businesses can accept cards. The invention of the smart phone insured that. All you need is a smart phone, and a subscription to the Square. The Square is a little pice of plastic that hooks into a phone, it allows people to be able to accept credit cards for their small business. It simply sends a text or email to the customer as a receipt. (https://squareup.com/) Is a website for one of these card readers.
Coins are clunky, and many people don't like to carry them, bills are breakable, and forgeable. In the future, all transactions will be over card. Eventually there will be a replacement to the card, but in the “near” future, the card will reign supreme.
I really like your post. When you mentioned how you were always surprised by people handing you their card instead of cash I guess I never thought about it until I started using my own debit card, and when I think about it, it is pretty surprising how often I choose to use my card rather than cash. I might get like a candy bar in the store and I would most likely use my card and completely forget I have cash just because the card has become so automatic to me. When I went home for Winter Break, The person that was taking me home would sometimes use one of those "Square" card readers to take payment from the riders, but I still opted to use cash to pay her.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your point in that the "near future" will consist of card purchases but further agree in that yes they to will be replaced with something else. What exactly is unknown but some ideas are biometrics such as using your finger print that is linked to a bank account thus allowing for purchases to be made. I believe this also has to do with the as you have mention "clunky" coins and paper money that no one like to carry around. It is all about convenience.
ReplyDeleteKatie,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some really interesting points about the way we rely more and more on plastic as a replacement for cash. Saving time and energy counting change is a priority. Every once in a while, when I am trying to get rid of spare change I will count out exact amounts to pay in cash. However, I feel so slow when I do this and I think people behind me in line get impatient!
Doing chapter 14 of the reading made me wonder though: will, like you say, the card "reign supreme" in the future, or will we continue to have informal cash economies in lower class communities? Weatherford talked about the invisible barriers to cash use such as having to declare transactions over $10,000 and increased surveillance of high cash flow establishments. I can't see these types of obstacles being cleared any time soon, so perhaps the gap between the "paper" economy and "cash" economies will grow as middle and upper classes increasingly abandon cash money.