A five-year old can sell lemondate more easily than you can sell some web service that you made. That is how easy cash is. Cash is great. Where is internet cash?
I think people are afraid of this bad property of cash, which is that if someone takes it from you, you can't get it back. It's kindof like gold in that way. It's a physical object. Whereas, banks and credit cards and PayPal are safer, in that they let you 'undo' transactions, either because you didn't do the transactions, or because the merchant didn't deliver the goods.
That's great peace of mind, but you pay for it. You pay a transaction fee to cover the cost of fraud. It's kindof like insurrance for getting robbed.
Unfortunately, it makes things complicated, and introduces friction, especially at low levels of money, i.e., micro payments. Transaction fees typically go up as the transactions become smaller.
Why do people fear cash?
- Governments don't like it because it's easy to avoid various taxes.
- There is the fear of money laundering.
There's bitcoin, but bitcoin seems like such a waste of computation, and for that reason feels unstable. Maybe I don't understand it..
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