I enjoyed Richard Jones’s article (24 January) on how we should not abandon cash for credit cards, and I agree with it 100 per cent. I would like to add two other points in favour of cash which were not included in his article.
First, credit card companies are private companies and can refuse service to anyone they want. This could be used for political ends if the company so chose. Service could be refused to a pharmacy in America that insisted on selling birth control and sexual fulfilment items, to a Christian wedding supplies business that refused to sell to gay couples, or to a sex worker who wanted a credit card payment gateway for her customers to use. This may sound far-fetched, but I know of examples where exactly this sort of thing has happened.
Second, I think it is only a matter of time until hackers realise the opportunities offered by AI. Hackers enjoy disrupting computers, sometimes for profits by fraud, and sometimes just to show themselves how smart they are. A hacker could create an AI hacker which would use powerful AI techniques to create viruses. Such an AI hacker could reproduce itself quickly and create innumerable duplicates of itself all over the internet. It could cripple the banks and credit card companies. We have already seen the chaos that can occur to credit cards when a telephone service is victimised. Cash would be the only defence.
It won’t be long before Sovereigns and Shillings are the only thing that makes sense. All currencies, made from nothing, eventual return to their intrinsic value. Given our cash is plastic, you can’t even wipe your arse with it, but compared to bits in the aether, it’s better than the alternative.