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In Canada we got a solid reminder of the importance of cash when the Rogers outage took Interac and many credit card processing systems offline…
That says more about the disgusting state of Canadian infrastructure than in does about electronic payment. A lot of places could’t operate their POS at all without an internet connection.
The Robelus cartel is one of the things to be shameful of as a Canadian (though the US isn’t much better).
That outage had nothing to do with Canadian infrastructure. It was caused by a maintenance upgrade that Rogers was doing.
Unless you’re saying everyone should have backup internet connections. I’d be surprised to learn if any country has that. Given the size of Canada, that’s a lot of work to get that in place.
As someone who has been a network engineer, you’re completely ignorant if you think there’s anywhere on Earth that is not just a handful of stupid decisions away from a similar outage
Thats one of many times each year the card processing system (in full or in part) has gone down.
Though usually it doesn’t stay down as long as that one.
Just make it illegal to not accept cash at brick and mortars, like many cities have done. Problem solved.
The powers that be will likely push for cashless society because it gives them more surveillance & control
If credit/debit cards were the norm and cash was invented today, it would likely be outlawed down because criminals/terrorists/child kidnappers will use if for nefarious purposes
No, it’s just more convenient to use credit or debit.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A consumer group is urgently calling on the federal government to follow other jurisdictions in the U.S and Europe and bring in legislation to stem the slide toward a cashless society.
A recent online poll of some 1,500 people commissioned by a different group, Payments Canada, found that a majority of respondents were worried about the prospect of cashless stores and want to maintain the option to use cash — which is free from bank fees, isn’t susceptible to privacy breaches and can be used during internet outages.
“For many — such as Indigenous peoples, unhoused individuals, older Canadians, victims of domestic abuse and others who are vulnerable — cash is a beacon of economic security, a source of financial autonomy, an emergency lifeline and an emblem of cultural traditions,” Ahmed wrote.
In 2019, Philadelphia became the first city in North America to prohibit “a person selling or offering for sale consumer goods or services at retail from refusing to accept cash as a form of payment.”
In New York, the regulation proposes fines of up to $1,500, with the councillor who sponsored the rules declaring that a ban on cashless businesses protects privacy, equity and consumer choice.
In Ireland, the law would require a cash option at businesses like pharmacies and grocery stores that sell essential products and services.
The original article contains 662 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Such a stupid contrived Make-Believe concern. If there are too many places that only take card, it will create a niche for cash based merchants and merchants will fill that niche. Next?
If people had free access to their own money, then there would be too many protests.
You are not required to put money into an account with a financial institution, but it does make basically everything in life easier if you do.
Can you require your workplace to pay you in cash or something?
That will depend on the laws where you live.
Where I live, the employer needs to get permission to pay you electronically, and they can pay by cash, cheque, or direct deposit.
If you don’t consent to electronic means, they are likely going to pay you by cheque. You don’t need an account to cash cheques, it is just much more of a burden.
Fees on cashing checks?
That is part of the burden I previously mentioned. If you are being paid by anything other than cash, it is less expensive to just have a bank account.
Some credit unions will allow you to cash cheques issued from their accounts in person without a fee, some institutions will cash their own cheques with a fee, and your final option is the predatory loan places.
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For those of you who don’t get it, I am referring to the habit the Canadian government has of freezing the bank accounts of protestors.
I’m not familiar with this, I would love to see counter arguments instead of silent down votes.
The “freedom” convey blocked ottawa streets and shut down businesses for a month, over vaccines. at that stage it was an illegal protest and to force compliance the government froze assets of the major organizers. While it is a scary overreach, the protesters were disrupting residents that lived there with constant honking in the night, the blocking of streets limited emergency workers. They seemed to think they could just do what they wanted, but peaceful protest is impeding traffic temporarily then letting traffic through, the “freedom” people trod over everyone elses freedoms and damaged the economy of that region for a month.
Oh wow, yeah that’s not that simple. Although using the banks as a tool in that is honestly pretty scary.
If you’re going to launch an insurrection against the government don’t be surprised if it retaliates. Would you say it’s scary that the government does the same thing for terrorists?
It’s worth stating that one of their requirements was for the recently formed government to step down and put their chosen leaders from the “stolen election” in power.
“illegal protest”
Insurrection, let’s call it what it was, saying you want to hang politicians is vastly different from a simple protest, so is using what is considered torture tactics on the local population.
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