Scott also attacks the hubris of the project, whose message of convenience for emerging markets seemed to miss the desire to not be yoked to the mighty dollar. Its failure to launch could reflect the limits of Big Tech’s power - but perhaps is simply the distrust engendered by the big blue social network. Scott’s argument is supported by cases such as Diem, the Facebook digital money project formerly known as Libra. Being able to withdraw a £10 note does not guarantee that merchants will accept them ![]() Our eyes may have been focused on social media companies and their use of our information who can see our transactions and how it’s used has received less attention.Īccess is only one part of the equation. Without being able to cash out, Scott argues, we also find ourselves at the combined whims of Big Tech, Big Finance and the liminal zone of fintechs, with data open to private parties and states alike. ![]() By contrast, payment innovations such as buy now, pay later have proved so enticing to retailers because they promise to increase the amount customers spend. It remains popular in areas of deprivation because it is an effective budgeting tool, its very physicality a barrier to overspending. “If you live in a major city, you might be able to choose your brand of smartphone, but you cannot really ‘choose’ whether to use a phone,” writes Scott, in much the same way that many stores may accept different forms of digital payments but they are all of the same kind.Ĭash is the fuel of capitalism but is also a useful source of friction, writes Scott. Visa’s “cash free and proud” campaign from 2016 stands out for the baldness of its effort to make cash “peculiar” by 2020 (a goal it achieved with help from the pandemic).Īll of this contributes to an increasingly illusory choice. Credit cards and newer digital payment methods have advantages such as portability, but Scott points out the considerable efforts made to position cash as defective. Rather, it is a roadblock against a greater concentration of data collection and power within Big Tech and Big Finance companies - a combination of players that is pushing us to adopt its own “cloudmoney”.Ĭloudmoney does well to map out how the switch away from cash is being spun as natural progress. Journalist and author Brett Scott, who previously wrote The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance (2013), takes a rather different line: “We must vigorously assert our right to use cash, and to see that as a political act,” he writes.Ĭash is not stopping human progress. More futuristic avenues, such as paying with a wave or a smile, are growing, with an underlying narrative that a shinier, more frictionless, and more convenient payment system is what we all desire. Even that is looking old hat - you’re more likely to simply hold your phone or watch up and double click. ![]() ![]() Instead, you could pay with a debit or credit card - perhaps with chip and pin, but more likely today with a contactless tap. Notes or coins are treated as an inconvenient and dirty product of the past, fit only for tooth fairies and low-level tax avoidance (or in some cases, rather unsophisticated money laundering). Paying in cash, for those living in metropolises, is often treated as an anachronism, akin to filing a story with a typewriter or using a payphone.
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