this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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Europe

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[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Lack of cash in a crisis might be an issue, but cash itself is not the solution.

In a complete breakdown, cash would only work for a few days and there'd be all kinds of other more serious issues than someone not being able to pay.

Securing a domestic infrastructure of power and network is obviously crucial, but I think it's worth remembering that people survived just fine before it was possible to swipe a card, even in times or places where cash was useless. Food stamps and ration sheets were used all over the world in times of crisis. I'd be surprised if the Swedish government doesn't already have such a plan for the worst case scenario.

Sure, go ahead and save some cash in your doomsday bunker, but I bet you'll be eating the cans of tuna long before the cash bills provides anything of actual value.

[โ€“] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

what a weird headline.

as a rule, we never use cash. i've been carrying around 500 kronor in notes for years, and i can't get any use for them because people would rather take swish than deal with the hassle of cash. even in a blackout or network failure at the supermarket cash would be no use because they all use digital cash registers than ingest the bills and spit out change automatically.

the thing we are being told by our government is "don't put all your eggs in one basket". we are being recommended to keep two payment cards from different issuers, as well as cash. this is all for redundancy, not because something has broken.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Exactly and Sweden is also fast becoming completely cash free. Guesstimates close to 50% of our stores are (or are soon becomeing) completely cash free. It's rare to find a store that takes cash at all here.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

500 kr is the exact amount of cash you need at very specific vendors, the only place where they don't do swish at all ๐Ÿƒ

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

except in sundsvall

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago

Cash is king, long live cash

[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago

A clickbite title for an interesting article. That is so so sad! The problem with the cashless "utopia" is not in the system, that worked for years, but "in the context of today, with war in Europe, unpredictability in the US and the fear of Russian hybrid attacks almost a part of daily life in Sweden" So, like always, when a society with high level of democracy, science, philosophy ecc. faces the barbarians. The barbarian win.

[โ€“] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago

Clickbait. TLDR: it's safe to have cash, because times are weird.