Pet Peeve number N+1
 

I went with my son to a Pap Murphy's that had a sign in the window "No cash on premises for the safety of our employees".

Really? If they truly cared about their emplyees, it would go down like this:
Snatch (2000) - All Bets Are Off
Which raises [not begs] the question: If a dollar bill says 'Legal tender for all debts public and private', then how can it be legal to refuse it if tendered.

With a dollar bill in a pizza parlor, and a good pro bono lawyer, I might be set for life.

They may carry no change, but perhaps they accept cash payments, making the amount of cash they have trivial?

My business sign will say that our employees are armed to the teeth and trained to neutralize all threats, with minimum necessary force, of course.

That was the point of the video clip. Have you seen the whole movie?

Yes, I've seen the movie, but it's been quite a while.

I have a minimum necessary force policy, but simultaneously a "don't negotiate with terrorists" policy. First, best, and final offer is you live. Folks can attempt a negotiation from there.

Cash is legal tender for all DEBTS. You do not owe the Papa Murphy's a debt - you wish to enter into a business transaction with them. As with any business transaction both parties are free to set their terms and reach an agreement. One of Papa Murphy's terms is you have to pay electronically.

The simple fact is that today so few people use cash that it cost companies to accept it. Yes electronic payments come with swipe fees but cash is not cast free way of doing business. A company has to pay employees while the count out their tills, they have to pay for a safe to store their money, and they either have to pay an employee to take the money back and forth to a bank or pay a security company to pick up and drop off cash. You also have to worry about employee theft. IHL put out a paper recently that found accepting cash costs between 4.7% and 15.3% of sales. That makes the average swipe fee of 2.4% look pretty attractive.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...hfD31cAxcB60aE

I keep pointing out that Walmart has Visa debit cards you can load with cash. It remains an anonymous way to pay for things, but you'll pay something like $5 to initially purchase the card.

Papa Murphy's also accepts food stamps, because people who don't work deserve pizza parties, meanwhile people that do work, don't buy pizza because it's expensive.

Fair enough. The local bottle return location dispenses coins and bills robotically.

OTOH, I just renewed my bus pass, and where before I just showed it to the driver, now I have to generate a time-stamped electronic record in their contactless carding system. At least they don't record where I exit their system. ....they just watch.

redpoint5 -- but no Bitcoin for you, we have to wait for a CBDC.

Last I bought one they were >$30 to buy and most aren't easily reloadable. Otoh, my bank has one and it's free.

freebeards pass probably has a rfi chip embedded and they can check immediately if it's valid.

If it's free, your the product. But it's a pretty good deal, from Cougar Hot Springs to Cottage Grove to Junction City. And I can take my bike.

Oh, and Veneta for the Oregon Country Fair. That ride is as fun as the Fair itself.

I have Ethereum that I mined.

The mechanism that secures Bitcoin is the extreme cost to validate the transactions, which implies a fatal flaw.

Distributed ledger sounds like a good idea to me, but the future has to reduce transaction costs, not increase them. I don't have the solution to that problem, but I'm very good at recognizing a dumb idea.