Out at Rosedale (Roseville, MN) they’ve opened the most upscale food court I’ve ever seen. It’s called The Revolution and looked, at least in spots, delicious. Too bad I won’t be partaking. Why?
Only credit, debit, or gift cards? Really? This pronouncement, once you think about it, is mostly just garbage. Let’s do a quick dissection:
- Smoother service. Really, folks, we’ve all learned how to wait in line. Really. And, you know what? Your long, slow lines are going to be one hell of a lot longer and slower if you lose connections to the central credit servers. I’ve seen it happen and, if you’re lacking a cash option, your customers are not going to have a happy experience. They’ll have all those wonderful smells, cash in their pockets, and yet not be able to buy any of those products that smell so good. Ah, of course, you could equip your vendors with those big old credit card manual processors. Remember them? <klunk, klunk, scribble> They will be significantly slower than straight cash.
- Cashless terminals. Sure, of course it’s logical that the presence of cashless terminals require your entire facility be cashless. Of course they do! (Why are you shouting?) Of course … Of … course. Oh, wait. Maybe not. Logic. So much for that point.
- Cleaner. This might possibly be true. But, given the lack of cries of calamity, I doubt it’s a major problem. How about just issuing latex gloves to the cashiers?
- Easier. No, just no. But I’ll defer this explanation.
- Safer [for customers]. No, not really. A stolen credit card means a big drain on your account, and while the issuer will cover [most] of it, that just means higher interest rates for everyone using credit. Cash is not open-ended like a credit card, and, depending on how it’s carried, can be more difficult than a card to subtly steal. And not nearly as attractive to thieves who know how to use a stolen credit card.
- Safer [for vendors]. Yes! You’re right! Cash must be moved physically, and many merchants prefer to take a discount on their profits to handling cash. It makes sense. BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER TO ME. Your problems are your problems. Don’t impose them on me.
- No-Cash. This policy is legal [although the informal reasoning presented in the link provided eludes me] but unfriendly to those of us who don’t care for plastic, whether their reasons are monetary or ecological. A little confused on that last point? Plastic is, after all, plastic. Consider this: Best Buy has stopped issuing plastic gift cards, because they’re, well, plastic. They’ve gone with paper, which is presumably recyclable. So you’ve lost those folks who think it’s more ecological to go with cash than credit cards. (I don’t actually know if that’s true or not.)
Now, back to the Easier point. In the short-term, many customers find it easier to use credit cards. Some use it for acquiring more and more stuff, others for budgeting.
But I’m a software engineer, and I’ll tell you what – credit cards are now all about computers, and what we’re generating here is a data trail for consumption by the Big Data analysis centers. These are used for a variety of operational purposes, but functionally, they’re mostly the same – how to extract more money from your wallet. As a consumer, I might like that (no, I’m not kidding – think of how hard it is to find stuff you want if you have specialized needs), but then again I might not. Discipline can be a problem for some folks.
Other purposes are more sinister, and mostly center around acquiring other information about you, such as your habits, your acquisitions, your physical locations, all the sort of things that most people would prefer to be kept out of sight. Which is not to say that they aren’t anyways. We spray off data every time we go online, every time we cross the visual field of a surveillance camera, etc etc. But it takes a lot of effort to bring all those things together, because the databases are disparate.
Which is why I dislike this scheme. By forcing you to disgorge your data into their computers, they learn a whole lot about you in a way that doesn’t require cross-referencing schemes across multiple databases. This is basically a corporate grab of data that they can analyze and make more money off of.
Not to mention they’re forcing you OUT of the generally accepted monetary system of the United States, and into the corporate controlled monetary system of credit & debit.
So, call me a crank if you will, and I’ll regret not sampling the pizza, but “Revolution” this is not. This is all about corporate profit and how to maximize it at your expense. And shitty, fallacious signage.
