activistPnk

True, but this is a minority of transactions, so it doesn’t really influence the culture by much. No store is going to leverage the “non-eu-expat-without-bsn-cash-only” segment of the market.

ATM numbers have really dropped in Belgium and the backlash is that there is now pressure (and possibly plans) to bring the ATMs back in order to accommodate tourists. At the same time there is a somewhat global movement to try to steer tourists away from the tourist hotspots and toward smaller cities. But if they want to get their eye on the ball, they need to fix the ATM situation which neglects tourists in the small cities.

Cards are not as versatile as you make them out to be. EU cards used inside the EU, sure, but in the US and UK you have several complex factors:

• most banks burn you on the exchange rate and some rare ones have zero markup, so travelers are limited in which of their cards they use
• Mastercard/maestro is the most popular in Europe but its popularity is lower in the US and perhaps UK as well
• proper credit cards are very common in the US, most commonly Visa, but merchants sometimes refuse them because of the chargeback risk. Credit cards can be used to get a “cash advance” from the ATM, but the fees for that are often very high. There are lots of tricks to reduce the fees a bit but most consumers are unaware of them. So consumers are often pushed to use a debit card at the ATM.
• Discover has no foreign exchange costs which makes it very interesting for tourists but it’s blown by low acceptance.

Well, I could go on but the main issue is eurozone cards work trivially in the EU, but there is much more financial instrument diversity outside Europe that’s not well accommodated in Europe. Outsiders can’t just pick any card out and expect it to work Europe and to not get burnt on overhead. If a shop were to accept Diner’s Club and also offer fee-free cashback, it would lock-in business from US tourists and expats.

When you take away options and enshitify the ATMs, it increases complexity on an already complex situation. I may not go back to a small town in Netherlands knowing that I could again be trapped with an ATM monopoly that mistreats my cards. We need more options like shops that offer cashback.

Paypal is not a good alternative.

For the Netherlands, all ATM withdrawals are free,

Try a non-EU card. Dutch ATMs charge a transaction fee of ~€4 to non-EU cards.

and all debit transactions in stores are free

Acceptance can be an issue. US banks have very favorable card features for the consumers, like chargebacks. If a consumer has some kind of complaint regarding a purchase, banks will claw back the money from the merchant until the merchant provides proof that counters the consumer’s claim, and I believe the mediation is all in English. They make it very easy for the consumer.. the card holder simply calls their bank and says “dispute charge X” and briefly states the reason. Then the merchant faces a paperwork burden over a potentially small amount of money and often don’t bother, which means they lose by default. US consumers take advantage of this option enough that merchants in the EU sometimes refuse US cards because of the risk of chargebacks. It violates the Visa merchant agreement to treat foreign cards differently but it’s not enforced by Visa/MC. I’m not sure if any Dutch merchants discriminate against foreign cards but it’s certainly a thing in Europe.

USians also have Discovercard (Diner’s Club). This card has very low acceptance in European shops, but ATMs often accept Discovercard.

Is this related to your previous post where you complained that your card kept getting rejected (resulting in your blaming the machine instead of your card/bank)?

Indeed. The ATM machines themselves are persnickety and faulty when there is no problem on the bank’s side. The ATMs output bogus messaging. And because choice of ATM operator is diminishing, ATMs are a non-starter in some situations. They cannot be relied on.

Indeed, that’s what happened to me. Paypal killed my account and kept the money. It was not enough money to justify bringing a court case so Paypal got away with it. So I’m done with Paypal for sure.

In fact, I also avoid cashless Dutch cafes that insist on using Zettle as a payment processor because Zettle is Paypal.

I get rid of them pretty quickly by saying I have no bank account. I might start adding to that “take cryptocurrency?” so they leave with the idea that maybe they should be open to cryptocurrency.

@youmaynotknow is spot on. But consider this a very basic primer on just a small fraction of privacy abuse by banks:

• 24 banking problems solved by cryptocurrency that Bruce Schneier does not know about

So there’s 22 privacy abuses by banks to get you started. And that just barely scratches the surface.

You can somewhat ignore paragraphs 15 and 23 in terms of privacy. OTOH privacy is hand-in-hand with control and paragraphs 15 & 23 reflect control being in the wrong hands.

Banks abuse our privacy in countless ways. This could fill a book. This policy amounts to forced banking. I boycott banks. Banks have us by the balls and they abuse that power. A bank recently told me (in effect) to fuck off if I don’t have a mobile phone number to give them.

It’s impossible to define the amount in relative terms such as “average EU monthly salary +25%”,

It’s not impossible. Indexes are published. This is what they do with rent in places where rent is controlled. Landlords cannot increase rent more than an index. So they have to do the math. And in this case it’s not even a variable baseline like rent, it’s fixed, so the calculation can also be published so people need not do any math.

That’s net (take-home pay), not gross. Tax is high enough that you need to double that figure (€4,400) to get the gross pay. And just wait till you account for inflation, which the EU cash limits apparently fail to account for.

this poll shows it’s non-partisan:

https://layer8.space/@hyakinthos/112554837920009346

The left respects privacy far more than the right. But the left also has that high-taxation tendency. The outcome of that tug-of-war within left-leaning people results in ~73% embracing cash -- just like the conservatives who don’t give a shit about privacy but have contempt for tax.

Beware on your next trip to Netherlands, where some bars refuse cash and conceal their contempt for cash (reference)

I just linked your post from that one because it fits well with the story.

(edit) BTW, I would like to see your workmate’s story published in a blog that serves better as a reference. It needs more exposure in a venue that’s not quasi temporary. I would even print hardcopies of it to distribute to cashless bar owners. So a nicely typeset PDF would be useful.

What country was that? I heard about a Belgian who tried to withdraw €10k from her bank account. They refused and also called the police who interrogated her and made a report. Belgian banks have cash withdrawal limits written in the contract. Even pulling out €3k raises eyebrows in Belgium. So withdrawing €30k trouble-free would probably require withdrawing €2.5k once per week over the span of 12 weeks. Is the car seller willing to hold the car for a buyer that long?