I’ve been mindful of the ways companies can track my spending habits, and so have been increasingly keen on using cash and avoiding mobile banking/payment apps like the plague. I realize that this varies by country and might be a bit far out, but the thought does linger in the back of my mind. If current trends continue, how much longer until they take cash and browser-based banking from us? Or will there be a reason those options should continue to exist (and be easily usable) far into the future? And perhaps:
- What else can I, as an individual, do about this?
- Is there a tendency for larger banks or smaller credit unions to push towards mobile-only online banking?
- What does it look like in countries where cashless and mobile payments are the norm?
There’s always barter. The vast majority of human beings that have ever lived never once handled currency of any kind.
Well yeah you don’t need currency when value is based on physical stuff Catan style. I make brick, I trade for milk.
But when you have a trade that doesn’t make physical goods or doesn’t involve the stuff you have to offer you’ll need a do-good coupon that everyone agrees to represent value.
Tally Stick
Economies that worked without cash still had debt.
Debt and obligation do not require money, but they do require people that will give you the things you need in exchange for “I’ll owe you one.”
Bartering is a replacement for currency. There is no anthropological evidence of bartering existing before the introduction of currency. You would think somewhere there would be, but there’s not.
True. But gift economies aren’t really something that can just be implemented by individuals living in a modern state. That requires an entire society to be organized around it. Barter can.
Yeah, except that most people are lazy and will default to whatever is most convinient, even if it goes against their best interest. People use social media services that creates entire psychological profiles on them simple because they friends are on it.