Rambling on the next new normal

[metawidget]

I wonder what the next normal that comes after this normal looks like… one guess is that cash won't bounce back to it's previous popularity. Some hipster sorts of businesses were already trying going cashless; last week our local dépanneur (an unironically retro place) had a no-cash sign. I hope non-cash options become way more accessible to marginalized folks if this happens — I know in many developing countries, cheap feature phones often serve as changepurses. Here, we have half-decent e-wallets in our transit systems — if governments and transit agencies got out of the fare enforcement business (which they're largely doing in a bid to keep drivers distanced now), maybe the technology could be hauled over to cheap touchless payment systems.

Comments

[blogcutter]

I've been thinking along similar lines. There are all kinds of brave new ways to pay for things now and while I don't necessarily want to put a stop to those, it seems just wrong to outlaw cash entirely under non-pandemic conditions and in general, when it is safe to use. After all, pick up a twenty-dollar bill and it's written right on it: "This note is legal tender in Canada." Trouble is - it's often NOT, even when purchasing Canadian government services, such as buying a passport.