Cities and states around the country are banning stores from refusing to accept cash, and it’s a troubling trend for Amazon
- Stores that do not accept cash are on the rise, from quick-service lunch spots to Amazon's Go stores.
- Not accepting cash can speed up lines and make life easier for card-carrying consumers.
- But a backlash has grown, as the cashless trend leaves out lower-income customers who may not have a bank account.
- Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and New Jersey have already barred stores from rejecting cash as payment, and New York City and San Francisco are considering similar measures.
- This could affect the growth of Amazon's physical stores, which do not accept cash.
Cashless stores are becoming controversial.
See:
-
Under pressure Amazon plans to accept cash at cashless Go stores
-
Bank Customers Are Primed And Ready For Amazon
Stores that do not accept cash are on the rise, from quick-service lunch spots to Amazon's physical stores. Not accepting cash can speed up lines or eliminate them altogether, making life easier for card-carrying consumers.
Not everybody is on board with this cashless utopia, however. Backlash has started, as the cashless trend leaves out lower-income customers who may not have a bank account. As of last year, an estimated 15.6 million people in the US do not have a bank account.
Philadelphia barred stores from choosing not to accept cash in early March, becoming the first US city to do so.
"Most of the people who don't have credit tend to be lower income, minority, immigrants. It just seemed to me, if not intentional, at least a form of discrimination," Philadelphia City Councilman William Greenlee told the Wall Street Journal.
New Jersey later followed with its own measure, which Governor Phil Murphy signed into law on March 18.
"This idea of 'we don't want to accept cash' just marginalizes the poor, young people who haven't established credit yet, people who prefer to pay in cash," Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, a sponsor of the bill, told WNYC.
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Read More
Read More
The Defiant | Dan Kahan | Apr 29, 2021 ETH is breaking new all-time highs of just under $2,800 on Thursday, and the breathtaking rally from $200 a year ago is coming with a boom in users. MetaMask said it has surpassed the 5M monthly active users milestone, while a popular Dune Analytics dashboard shows DeFi users just recently climbed above 2M for the first time. MetaMask Boom MetaMask’s active user base has grown 400% during the past six months, according to the April 27 blog post. The DeFi wallet had reached 1M cumulative monthly active users across its browser extension and mobile app for the first time in October 2020. Now in April, MetaMask is reporting over 5M active users over the past month. FFCON21 May 11-13: Join us for VIP Masterclasses on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Workshops MetaMask attributed the influx of users to a combination of factors including the NFT craze and increased interest in DeFi from people in what the company calls “the Global South.” “India and Indonesia are both in the top 5 countries in terms of MetaMask mobile adoption, while Vietnam and Nigeria are in the top 10,” the post says. “Many people in these ...
Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
Bloomberg Opinion | Matt Levine | Apr 28, 2021 Tesla Bitcoin I wrote back in February: A funny thing for Elon Musk to do would be: Tesla Inc. buys some Bitcoin. 2. Tesla announces that Bitcoin is good now and that it bought some. 3. The price of Bitcoin goes up, because institutional adoption of Bitcoin is good for its price, but also because, by the Elon Markets Hypothesis, anything that Musk buys goes up. 4. Tesla sells some Bitcoin, making a profit. 5. Musk tweets that the price of Bitcoin is too high. 6. Bitcoin prices go down due to the Elon Markets Hypothesis. 7. Go to Step 1. Well, on Monday Tesla announced earnings, and guess what guess what guess what: Tesla pulled a new lever to juice earnings in the quarter, generating $101 million in income from selling about 10% of its Bitcoin holdings. Profit from the cryptocurrency and the sale of regulatory credits and tax benefits contributed about 25 cents to Tesla’s adjusted earnings of 93 cents a share, allowing the carmaker to beat Wall Street’s 80-cent average estimate, Dan Levy, an analyst with Credit Suisse, wrote in a note Monday. See: Elon Musk says people ...
Read More
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