Dollar Dollar Bill Y'all

kpjb said:

Way easier to hand Captain Wendy a 20 than to ask if I could have her phone number to Zelle or CashApp some money.

That'd be a great way to score your cute waitress' digits, though.

Some of y'alls examples of how cash is better than credit are spot on but those are also business that I would never see going to credit only unless the government made them (and that's a whole other topic). It makes perfect sense to carry some cash with you to certain locations because it would be easier or might be the only way to give gratitude.

This is timely... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/22/opinion/cash-digital-currency-ce...=url-share

Want an anecdote? Tonight I visited the Franklin County Fair. Admission $8/person. When our group of three arrived at the gate, we were asked how we wanted to pay our admission. To the left, a long line of card users extended from the gate-tent to the street; to the right there were a couple of people standing at the cash window. I looked at the lines and started towards the cash window…when I was stopped by a man with an apron. I handed him $25, he handed me $1, and waved us through the gate. For all I know some of those card users are still waiting to get in.*
I could have done it either way, and I don’t think the queue length reflects the distribution of card users vs. cash users just because in this case cash was simply a whole lot faster.

Incidentally I have never seen so many people at that fair. I’m guessing attendance is being spiked by the cancellation of the Ohio State Fair this year.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

* Not really. But it was a long line.
—DCAjr

Clearly there was a large contingent that wasn't carrying cash or just chose not to pay with it. Statistics I've seen show that 80% of consumers prefer card payments over cash.

Surprisingly I discovered on Wednesday that Six Flags has been cashless since November. While scoping out nanocoasters with my son I noticed a cash to card kiosk. Somehow I missed all of the hullabaloo when that was announced.

That’s because we got the best hullabaloo here in Ohio.

The only thing that demonstrates at the fair is that they didn't have enough equipment to process cards, for which you need, at least, exotic things like... cell phones.

I couldn't help but think of this thread when I read a piece about an artist performing in the park, with a sign that had her Venmo user name on it. The idea that cashless is such an obstacle seems pretty absurd to me in that case.

There’s a newish Sunday cabaret-type drag show at a downtown Columbus club that’s been pretty popular. There’s a hostess who performs, plays keyboard, and has guests each week. Normally, and let me use the term “in the past”, we’d tip the performers with dollar bills, stripper-style. Now each act has their Venmo name and square thing on the screen so we can do it that way. The original idea was to keep it socially distant, but now they happily accept both. Venmo usually wins.
A couple of things- no one is unfamiliar and the Venmo thing seems to work well. The show isn’t interrupted by people wagging dollar bills at the edge of the stage (these are live singers, not typical drag) But best of all, performers state that donors tend to be a little more generous when tipping that way and judging from what we do, I can see that. (We like not having to have a pocket full of singles in order to go).

Yesterday I was buying ice cream from the ice cream truck in the park, which takes various non-cash payment types (cards and other things, I think). I asked the ice cream man if how many people paid with something other than cash, and he said, "very, very few."

That strikes me as one use case where cash has real benefits, since a lot of parents might send their kids to the park with a five dollar bill to get some ice cream, whereas very few parents are going to send their (pre-teen) kid with a credit card or their cellphone, and who the hell wants to have a preloaded card for the ice cream truck. Or they pay the kids an allowance in cash and the kids spend their own money (instead of saving it for college like they should).

And it struck me that amusement parks or fairs are a *somewhat* similar use case, although diminished, where a kid might say "Mom, I want a drink," and mom reaches into her purse to pull out - well, if it's Six Flags, a Benjamin, probably - and sends them off so she doesn't have to walk across the park herself. As opposed to handing over the debit card, etc.

OTOH, maybe the preloaded cards are good; you load them with, you know, a McKinley, and when they run out of money that's a lesson learned. (Plus whining the rest of the day, but that comes with the territory.)

I like being able to just hand the money over and not mess with preloading and apps. My district went to us signing in on a website/app instead of a sign in sheet towards the end of the school year and since I do not have access to the computers in the classroom I work in I either have to use the computer in the employee lounge or the app on my phone which takes forever and gets screwed up because my thumbs are too big and by the time I enlarge the screen for them then I can only see one box at a time and I have to fill out about 7 boxes just to sign in because the system won't save my position, position description, and location from day to day I have to reenter everything every single time. I end up waiting and doing it all at home at the end of the day that's the only way I can get it done correctly without having to use my lunch break to mess with the shared computer that I do have access to at work. I don't do well with apps.

Last week I went on a one day out of state road trip and technology failed me twice. Issues with the credit card getting fuel on the turnpike ended up paying cash and there is nothing wrong with the card it has worked fine since. I normally pay cash for gas but when traveling I like to just let it run until full. The "why would anyone carry an actual map?" people have obviously never traveled somewhere that google maps doesn't function on their phone. Thankfully it wasn't a matter of being lost but deciding to look for something I hadn't planned on. My husband ended up directing me over the phone with google maps pulled up on his computer so at least technology redeemed itself there I guess.

hambone said:

maybe the preloaded cards are good; you load them with, you know, a McKinley, and when they run out of money that's a lesson learned. (Plus whining the rest of the day, but that comes with the territory.)

Bingo.

And remember, we're not discussing cash being eliminated from society, just (large) amusement parks, where it makes sense. I would agree the ice cream man taking old-school cash is a good way to go.

Eddie would also agree.

Some things never change.

Eddie Murphy hates poor people.