On Cash
Though it&#x27;s hardly the author&#x27;s point, carrying a bit of cash for outages, emergencies, and incidentals is probably smart, and then you have a bit for the exceptional busker. You can still do your day-to-day spending from a card. Or cards, whichever gives better perks for the store in question.<p>And there&#x27;s the rub: most payment networks charge the merchant, and through the elaborate tendrils of corporate ownership kick a proportionally smaller amount back to the customer. Still, it&#x27;s a reward that&#x27;s nice to have, and coupled with fraud protection, three weeks of delay in due dates, single-item usability, and a built-in credit line, credit cards are winning out among those who can obtain them.<p>Card surcharges are one way a merchant can pass on the cost of credit card acceptance to the customer, and are currently a state-by-state issue, but big retailers don&#x27;t want to surcharge lest they create friction and lose shoppers to a competitor. This furthers the price pressure on small merchants or moves them further upmarket where price is less of a factor. Companies like Square (physical) and Stripe (online) able to make headway by simpler fee structures, ease of use, and a welcoming attitude towards small businesses.<p>Meanwhile, Google&#x27;s much-rebranded payment network, Apple Pay, and Samsung&#x27;s me-too Pay are an attempt to leverage the market penetration of cell phones to gradually ease people into different payment habits. It&#x27;s not hard to envision a situation where in a few years, the cellphone-making companies of the world have cut out the likes of Visa and Mastercard from payments, giving them negotiating power with banks, merchants, and other payment networks. This is a particularly plausible outcome for Amazon, who is extremely intent on being a complete end-to-end solution for customers for anything that they&#x27;d want to buy.<p>In a world like that, cash becomes an instrument of those for whom lenders don&#x27;t want to extend a line of credit, or those who can afford to use other payment instruments, but are paying extra for their privacy.