I just learned the embarassing way that my ability to pay for groceries depends on the livelyness of europe-west2.

▲ OsrsNeedsf2P 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The uptime of cash in my wallet is pretty close to 100%. It's extremely rare that I have to use it, but it's incredibly convenient to have each time it's required

▲ traceroute66 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> it's incredibly convenient to have each time it's required

Sadly there is an increasing preponderance on the part of retailers to do one of two things:

    1. Go card only (sadly happening in far too many places)
    2. Make it incredibly difficult to pay by cash (e.g. 10 card tills, 1 cash till with long queues because it is also the cigarette/lottery ticket/package collection till)

The only people remaining who will almost kiss you for offering cash instead of card are taxi drivers.

▲ comboy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you look at uptime as discrete set of events when you need to pay for something, my cash uptime is not looking great nowadays. "Sorry I can't break that" or machines accepting coins which you don't have at hand. Just to be clear I despise CC companies the system is broken in many ways.

▲ tossandthrow 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are aware that many places don't accept cash, right?

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layer8 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Most EU countries require cash acceptance. There is also an EU-wide legislation in the works: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-an-ec...

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vladvasiliu an hour ago | parent [-]

Here in France, many places won't take large bills. You can usually forget about paying with 100 € bills, and many will be iffy even about 50s.

I'm also pretty sure it's illegal to pay cash for anything above 1000 €.

I'm curious how this legislation will end up, because the reason to push for cashless is that you should think of the children^Wterrorists. And much of this push comes from the EU itself (see chatcontrol).

	▲	layer8 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm also pretty sure it's illegal to pay cash for anything above 1000 €. The plans for harmonization are to have a limit of 10000 €. > the EU itself “The EU itself” isn’t a singular mind, it’s a forum with many participants and positions. In the end there needs to be a majority in the Parliament.

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IsTom 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't know about other countries, but in Poland you must accept cash except for a few cases (over internet, large transactions, places without employees).

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pjmlp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In Jurassic Europe, most still do.

	▲	MonkeyClub an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And it’s good that they do. No cash means no freedom.

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kakacik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well its about time (a decade ago) to ignore those places and be vocal about it.

Contactless is all fine and dandy but straight out refusal to handle cash is a big negative for the users, which is the only perspective anybody cares about. On top of obvious long term massive loss for society and personal freedom. Don't feed the actors that are harming you / us.

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tremon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How does that affect the uptime of their wallet?

	▲	justauserid an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well the data was up on the hard disk. Fault lies with the electricity and cables.

▲ bob1029 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Behold the advantage of VisaNet and friends. When you swipe on these networks, your authorization is handled in a dedicated bunker on some of the best silicon we know how to create (Telum). The network links between issuers and acquirers are monitored in real time by humans who will contact ISPs and NOCs at 3am local time if need be.

This is why the apparently extortionate merchant fees. Precisely so that when you do swipe it always works no matter what. I genuinely cannot recall a single instance where I was unable to obtain payment auth in a grocery store using Visa or Amex.

▲ yreg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a good idea to have multiple debit cards (both visa and mastercard) from different banks. You can often get them for free.

▲ Asyakguen 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Agree,so annoying