Using cash is far better but you still have some self checkouts using AI cameras to make sure you paid for what you got.

I know we're meant to be discussing this from a privacy perspective, but my first thought whenever the topic of eliminating cash comes up is that, at least where I am in the US, it's tantamount to euthanizing the homeless. The vast majority of unhoused folks I know (which is a lot, including myself for a terrible but thankfully short period of my life) get most of their necessities (particularly food) by buying them with cash they've earned through various means, rather than charities, food banks, soup kitchens, etc. And only a very small percentage of them has any sort of bank account and/or a device to manage digital currency.

But also privacy, yes. Cash is king.

Use cash for now, but start transitioning to other privacy currencies, especially those that don't depend on technology, such as precious metals and local currencies like Ithaca hours. Edit: I say transition away from cash (as in government-produced cash) because that they have serial numbers that enable tracking and they can decide to declare them invalid or inflate away their value through printing if people continue to use them anyway.

Cash is not 100% anonymous though. Vendors see you, cameras record you, you may even have to sign and present id for some transactions.

It is not the anonymity that is important.

It is not having to ask someone permission to spend money like with a debit card, credit card, and even fucking crypto need institutional permission to have access to your power to spend yo money.

anonymity ain't shit.

For sure, even if it's not perfect. Ready-to-use without electricity or internet, no payment processor shenanigans, and not nearly as comprehensive a system of tracking even if you account for serial numbers.

Definitely, cash is critical

Yes. Once cash is gone a huge aspect of privacy goes with it.

I am afraid it will happen in my lifetime.

Why is this a question?

"Should people be allowed to keep their rights?" -- this is usually intended to spark discussion, but discussing from this pov helps those who want bad things more than those who dont.

The only private alternative to cash that im aware of is monero. Nothing else is as private as cash.

Try GNU Taler https://www.taler.net/

Cash is king. Always use cash when possible. I do, and I love it...

US recently introduced the bright idea of banknote serial numbers blacklists. Great incentive to hold greenbacks!

Silver and copper still exist. https://ebay.us/m/Gcn2gM

They want to keep track of everything so people pay their taxes…I mean a certain portion of the population that is.

In the event of a disaster where the power grid and/or data communication goes down, how the fuck you gonna buy groceries, or anything else for that matter? 🤔

I don't see the benefit for the average person to get rid of cash. If it's digital it's trackable, can be hacked and more easily controlled by other parties. Also it allows for banks to charge more service fees.

There's this:

https://thecashtracker.com/

If you get your cash out of an ATM, the machine could (I don't know if it does, but I suspect at least some do) scan every serial number of every bill it gives you. To counter that, you'd need to "launder" it though some other person, the more times and the farther away the better, until it gets spent back into the system, where it can be, once again scanned.

If you get your cash out of an ATM, and then turn around and stick it in a bill receiver at some self-checkout machine, that could possibly be tracked. I don't think this is hypothetical, I just didn't find any evidence in a quick search, but the site above shows it happens somehow.

Yes, cash is much better than a card that tracks every purchase, but it's not completely anonymous, either. And, it takes effort to ensure it's anonymous. It's not a given.

Hmmm. Since defacing a bill isn't a crime, marking out the serial number of every bill you receive would break the chain, except that you'd be one of the very few doing it. That would need to become widespread for it to have any real impact. Oh, but probably the machine would reject a bill with a marked-out serial number.

Monero XMR is the last bastion of "anonymous" transactions. The issue is actually obtaining it privately.

They're going to tax/fine you however they want. This is already reality. Its no different from having a bank account or making transfers via Paypal or Zelle. Our currency is already heavily digitized and centralized by governments. Transitioning to CBDCs would just be making the back-end more robust, which I'm personally in favor for. The technology for this has been worked on for about a decade now.

Even with cash we're at the mercy of a country, if they fuck up their economy and hyperinflate it, money is gone anyway.

The only way forward is to carry around stuff that has intrinsic universal value. The currency of the future is potatoes, start stocking up.

Cash in the United States is not as private as it seems. Eventually the bills will be scanned at various points through the financial system and the serial numbers are logged by these authorities. It may take some time to collect the data versus being able to view a blockchain, but cash isn't as anonymous as it appears. And with a vastly decreasing amount of cash in circulation, it makes it a lot easier for the Govt to track its usage. It's still the best option even considering cryptocurrencies.

Another reason for the decline in cash is that as the U.S. debt increases, the economy will have to inflate along with it, and it's much easier to manage increasing inflation in an economy without physical currency. If things get really bad and conditions exist that would cause a bank run, well, good luck doing that if you can't have cash. Run off with a copy of the database or something.