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?
  • Ardens@lemmy.ml
    31·
    1 day ago

    To be fair - it’s peoples own fault, that they take away cash. They don’t use them, because they are lazy…

  • infjarchninja@lemmy.ml
    9·
    2 days ago

    My bank alone has closed 99 of its high street branches this year.

    I used to do a 2 minute walk to my local bank, then they started closing them further and further afield, until I now have to drive 20 minutes to my bank.

    I am predominantly a cash man.

    I dont buy anything online from any of the big names like Amazon etc. I search around until I find what I want in a store that I can drive to.

    To be honest I would rather spend an hour driving to a store, and pay the extra money on petrol, than pay poxy rip off delivery charges and waste my valuable time waiting in for the wankers.

    I also avoid all banking apps like the plague, in fact all apps that are recommended by any store staff. not that I can install them on lineage phone anyway.

    I can only login into my online bank via VPN if I am using French server. I dont know how long that will last. I refuse to allow my ISP access to my online habits.

    I am gutted that the UK government closed down all our bitcoin ATM’s. This was the first warning sign something was going to change. Take away our freedoms yet again

    At least when bitcoin was cheaper a few years ago, I could spend some money out of my state pension, buy £20 worth and save for the future.

    I would be a zillionaire by now Rodney! LOL

    But this ultimately leads us into the government crypto currency (Central bank digital currency) when we will all be fucked, because they will control everything.

    I recently changed my gas and electricy supplier because they would not let me pay online while I had my VPN on, even if I was using a UK based server. wankers, didnt want my money, so I dumped them. My new provider is better and I can pay anywhere in the world.

    All they want is everyone to have a fucking smart meter installed, so they can rip us off and charge extra for using gas and electricity in the early evening peak period, when we are cooking for our families, and bathing our children. Wankers!

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
    104·
    3 days ago

    There’s always barter. The vast majority of human beings that have ever lived never once handled currency of any kind.

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 days ago

      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.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
        11·
        2 days ago

        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.

        • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
          1·
          22 hours ago

          I would argue that it is currently a big part of the current economy if you know where to look. Lots of labor works via the principles of a gift economy.

          E.g., you help your friend move to a new house, they help you redo your deck, you babysit your brother’s kid, they cook you dinner, etc.

          The problem with bartering is that it doesn’t handle 3+ way trades (i.e., person A needs something from person B who needs something from person C, who needs something from person A), and it doesn’t usually handle asynchronous trades.

          In gift-based systems, people can literally retire based off the goodwill that they’ve cultivated. There are many old people who serve their families/communities for years who then get taken care of when they need it.

    • FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      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.

  • Tyra@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I didn’t see any English articles about that, bit just recently it made the rounds in German speaking news outlets that cash is very well trackable. Thanks to the individual serial number on every euro bill, they can track you from the ATM to the bar. And banks, big supermarkets etc. already do it. There is even a German company selling this data.

    More information (unfortunately in german): https://netzpolitik.org/2025/bargeld-tracking-du-hast-ueberwachungsinstrumente-im-portemonnaie/

  • FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 days ago

    If we go by the WEF, then certainly before 2030.

    At least in Canada, friends at the bank I used to work in IT were briefed in 2024 that CBDCs were coming down the pipe at some point in the future.