Where does this Slashdot obsession with a cashless/e-gold/alternative currency come from?
Money has been around for 3200 years [pbs.org]. Trade "I'll give you 2 sheep for one cow" has been around for thousands more.
I remember hearing these "cashless society" arguments in 1980. I look in my wallet 23 years later, and I still have a wad of cash in there, along with a credit card and ATM card. Sure, much of my purchasing is electronic, but it's far from cashless.
Now people are again saying "We'll be a cashless society in 25 years", and I still don't believe them. I've heard it before.
It reminds me of the "computers will solve all your paperwork problems. We will be a paperless society in 25 years." Cash is not going away anytime soon just because some money-geeks think they found an alternative.
As Ivanova from Babylon 5 said: "Every time somebody says we're coming into a paperless society, I get 10 more forms to fill out."
Thanks for mentioning e-gold, but history shows that Slashdot's not all that obsessed with the stuff (they could, at this point, be accepting it for their premium content as a payment option, for example, and save money over the option(s) they're currently using as well as get more subscribers).
Hand to hand cash and e-gold are really two separate things, and are useful for different kinds of things, so I doubt that e-gold will ever replace cash, or even gold coins/nuggets. I've found it necessary to carry around gold bullion coins -- humans are tactile creatures, and the weight of real gold holds their attention better than my voice alone. (I always take the coin/nugget back, though!) JMR
PS Anyone who reads this and sends me an account number saying "I saw it on Slashdot" will get a small spend of e-silver, which is the best testing currency for the shopping cart at sci.e-gold com
Actually, e-gold is just grams of metal, and e-gold Ltd. has no bank accounts, even, much less any government currencies. They try like crazy to take as few risks as possible, so they just pay others to store allocated gold/metal bars, and contract with others to operate the system's computers, etc.
Also, the rates vary much more than that, depending on the exchange service. At OmniPay, for wires, we've charged 4% above spot in the past, and now we straddle the spot gold price (which, BTW, has gone up a hell of a lot more than 7% in the past year, not that the past is indicative of the future, of course). I have seen credit card sellers charge 15%.
The reason that some exchanges charge more is that they experience lots of attempted (and some actual) fraud, and avoiding (or experiencing...) this stuff is costly, but that's usually indicative of settlement problems with using OTHER forms of money, IMNSHO. IOW, plastic sometimes sucks.
I carry around a one ounce gold coin, a US St. Gaudens "No Motto" from 1908. It says "$20" and that's WHY I carry it...e-gold is Better Money(tm) in part because gold itself makes better money. No matter what anyone tells you, it's NOT "just a commodity." e-gold is money because gold is money. JMR
The ./ obsession with a cashless society? (Score:5, Insightful)
Money has been around for 3200 years [pbs.org]. Trade "I'll give you 2 sheep for one cow" has been around for thousands more.
I remember hearing these "cashless society" arguments in 1980. I look in my wallet 23 years later, and I still have a wad of cash in there, along with a credit card and ATM card. Sure, much of my purchasing is electronic, but it's far from cashless.
Now people are again saying "We'll be a cashless society in 25 years", and I still don't believe them. I've heard it before.
It reminds me of the "computers will solve all your paperwork problems. We will be a paperless society in 25 years." Cash is not going away anytime soon just because some money-geeks think they found an alternative.
As Ivanova from Babylon 5 said:
"Every time somebody says we're coming into a paperless society, I get 10 more forms to fill out."
Re:The ./ obsession with a cashless society? (Score:1)
Hand to hand cash and e-gold are really two separate things, and are useful for different kinds of things, so I doubt that e-gold will ever replace cash, or even gold coins/nuggets. I've found it necessary to carry around gold bullion coins -- humans are tactile creatures, and the weight of real gold holds their attention better than my voice alone. (I always take the coin/nugget back, though!)
JMR
PS Anyone who reads this and sends me an account number saying "I saw it on Slashdot" will get a small spend of e-silver, which is the best testing currency for the shopping cart at sci.e-gold com
Re:The ./ obsession with a cashless society? (Score:1)
Chip H.
Re:The ./ obsession with a cashless society? (Score:1)
Also, the rates vary much more than that, depending on the exchange service. At OmniPay, for wires, we've charged 4% above spot in the past, and now we straddle the spot gold price (which, BTW, has gone up a hell of a lot more than 7% in the past year, not that the past is indicative of the future, of course). I have seen credit card sellers charge 15%.
The reason that some exchanges charge more is that they experience lots of attempted (and some actual) fraud, and avoiding (or experiencing...) this stuff is costly, but that's usually indicative of settlement problems with using OTHER forms of money, IMNSHO. IOW, plastic sometimes sucks.
I carry around a one ounce gold coin, a US St. Gaudens "No Motto" from 1908. It says "$20" and that's WHY I carry it...e-gold is Better Money(tm) in part because gold itself makes better money. No matter what anyone tells you, it's NOT "just a commodity." e-gold is money because gold is money.
JMR