https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is-good-will-be-lo... I recently found myself facing a vending machine in a quiet corridor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. I was due to speak at a conference called ‘Reinvent Money’ but, suffering from jetlag and exhaustion, I was on a search for Coca-Cola. The vending machine had a small digital interface built by a Dutch company called Payter. Printed on it was a sentence: ‘Contactless payment only.’ I touched down my bank card, but rather than dispensing Coke, it beeped a message: ‘Card invalid.’ Not all cards are created equal, even if you can get one – and not everyone can. ... And ask yourself this: do you really want to live in the latter society without the ability to buy drugs? Believe me, you’ll need something to dull the existential pain. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13782561 The core concept to remember I think is that there are two ways to pay for things: * Ways that involve cash or cash equivalents * Ways where a purchase requires the permission of someone else Just think of the word authorization, which is a required element of essentially all non-cash transactions. It has the word authority embedded right in it. If you're OK with that concept, you are necessarily OK with the idea that someone you have never met and don't control has the ability to stop you from using your funds in the way you'd like to at any time. A cashless society is, at a fundamental level, not free.