[b]This is in its final stage of preparation, in all countries. Governments are not hiding their intentions. They're relying on people's indifference and inertia. And it's working.[/b]
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I don't believe that at all, but I do know cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is causing a lot of problems and some banks are moving to control people's [u]gambling[/u] - and it [i]is[/i] gambling - on these unregulated, unsafe, unofficial, pseudo-currency, international money-trading systems.
Controlling such transactions to protect themselves and their customers - not to tell us what to do with our own money in real life!
Digital currency of some sort may have a place in international politics and trade provided it is by properly-run channels; but anyway how do you think Stock Exchanges and banks now work? Is it not "digital currency" for those of us who use, in daily life, credit and debit cards, and bank-transfers; and by many people now, telephone payment systems at shop tills and on buses?
I do use cash as well, and what [i]does[/i] worry me for real instead, is the loss of cash. For real practical, reasons though; not from unsubstantiated, illogical and uncited allegations intended to frighten everyone, copied and re-copied from God-knows-whom, around Internet chat-groups.
@ArishMell Most peoples money is already digital, your bank account is nothing more than a file assigned to you with a theoretical amount that can be converted into cash.
@Tetsuya A good point that; and really only how banks have worked for many, many years anyway.
The problems with having no ready cash are two fold:
- The added complexity for handling masses of low-value transactions over the increasingly expensive, exclusive and unsafe Internet;
- The sheer impossibility for society's vast range of voluntary social, leisure and charitable groups, activities and events that rely on very many, very low-value money movements. Very many of these are in situations or places where electronic payments would add to the running-costs but anyway be absurdly impracticable or downright impossible, frankly needless, and even undesirable.
Banks have reported an increase in the amount of cash being used in the last two or three years, not from people spending more but from using fewer cashless payments, to help themselves limit their own spending.
'
As an illustration... Most of my transactions are large enough (i.e. more than about £10) to warrant using a bank-card. Having one also means for example sometimes refuelling my car at a filling-station whose pumps are fitted with card-readers - especially at night as a few use this to sell fuel round the clock without needing any staff on site. While direct-debits or bank transfers pay utility-bills and certain other fees, like subscriptions.
Nevertheless I still prefer cash for most small purchases; and I would certainly not expect to pay electronically the usual 20p for a cup of tea in a club to which I belong, 50p for a book from a rummage-sale; or a few quid for tea and cake and a jar of home-made jam, at a fete or coffee-morning! Nor expect to pay by gadget, for some fairly low-value item bought privately, second-hand.
Nor without cash would I have any change to pop in a charity collecting-box on a shop or pub counter - the larger charities have long relied on substantial sums raised in this way.
I doubt it is quantifiable at all but the country must see a vast total annual turn-over of money in this way, through innumerable, very modest cash payments in a huge number and range of ways - something the all-digital enthusiasts seem not to know.
