For some unknown reason, seeing a BANK funded study makes me not trust it.

Actually, the transaction costs are not that high. Those "extra" costs are offset by businesses not needing people to handle cash and, especially, checks. Less employee theft of cash. No bounced checks that have to be handled by third-party recovery companies. Businesses, particularly small ones, come out ahead when they go cashless.

Governments everywhere will help facilitate a cashless society. Just think of all that purchasing data they can monitor. Not to mention, they can force people to pay local/state/federal sales tax on person-to-person sales (e.g.: Garage Sale items).

A truly cashless society is the wet dream of the IRS, FBI, NSA ....

Will you believe that they will actually delete your data? Or, will they just hide it for a while until a government agency wants it. Do you think that the police, FBI, CIA, Interpol ... do you think they really want Google to delete history?

I have CCleaner running and purging everything every hour on my machine. I'm going to Guantanamo :{

I agree however, when a drug dealer offers you a free "taste".... in the end, there was still a drug dealer starting it all.

They ruined Filezilla
They pissed of GIMP.org
.... now nmap.

I must have a crappy provider... I can't even find season 1 of Silicon Valley. (well, I do find encrypted ones with "instructions" to get the password).

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. NNTP should be revived. I miss newsgroups. Yes, they still exist but they're not the same anymore.

I was under the impression that "piracy" was legal in Canada since they tax the hell out of all media related items.

I guess not.

I am usually modded up, many times to 4 or 5 and then, later, modded down with "overrated".

The death and rebirth of industries is what made this nation (in the past) great. The natural evolution of business, to big business, to death allows small companies to rise up from the debris of the bloated bodies of old dead old businesses. Sadly, the bailouts of giant corporations and the "to big to fail" ant-evolution mind set are making it harder and harder for America to innovate and stay relevant.

Let the big car companies die and, hopefully, the big bloated government will clear the path for innovation and creativity.

"As much as I hate government" and "Schools should be mandatory" ... one of these is a lie.

You do not hate government, you see government as an enforcer of your beliefs, as a powerful ally. The sad part is that you don't seem to recognize just how corrupt our government is on every level. Any government "forced" system will be riddled with cheaters and thieves. The rich will find a way to benefit and there is nothing you can do about it.

Using the government as a hammer will only hurt the middle and lower classes.

Easy, take them out to the Pacific ocean and show them the garbage continent that's been growing there for decades. Push "pollution control" instead of "climate change". You will accomplish the same thing.