Tipping In A Cashless Society
I went to a local coffeehouse this morning. Like many coffeehouses, they don’t accept cash. They only take credit cards and debit cards with one exception: TIPS. There is a top jar where customers can throw loose change and crumpled up portraits of George Washington. The problem is:
- Cash is inconvenient. It requires a special trip to the bank to obtain.
- Many of the coffeehouses will not accept pieces of paper with the words “legal tender” printed on them.
- Spending with my credit card pays me 150X more than storing money in my savings account.
- Some payment terminals do not allow customers to leave a tip on their credit card.
I was not able to tip my barista this morning because I didn’t not have any paper cash money to put in the tip jar. Their payment terminal allowed me to pay the merchant with my credit card, but it did not give me an option to pay the barista. The barista also did not take credit card payments. I paid for my coffee and the credit card gave me like a 7 cent tip, but I was not able to tip my barista. I wanted to tip the barista, but the barista did not take any of my form of payments. In economics, this is called the coincidence of wants problem.
A Personal Tipping Page
Here is a link to mypersonal tipping page. I don’t work for tips, but I like to write a little code using the API of Strike, the company that makes these tipping pages. I don’t work for Strike. This is a hobby for me, but it solves this tipping problem.
It also gives me a lightning address, [email protected] It looks like an email address, but it is used to send me money instead of spam.😏 This is a great way to accept tips from people who do not want cash, You just need to choose dollars in the app. You can get your own tip page by downloading the app from the google play or app store. You can get the Strike App by using this link*.
Be aware that if you want to receive USD or your local fiat currency. You will need to change the settings.
My incoming payments are automatically converted to USD, which might surprise many of my friends and family since I’m one of those dorks that’s been talking about nerd money for so long. At the end of the day, however, I still have bills to pay and this is the currency those bills are denominated in.
Cash On The Cash App
The Cash app is popular in my area. Many people already use it. Maybe I should ask baristas if they have a cashtag from the Cash App. My cashtag is marc26z. This is straightforward. If you have my cashtag, you can send me money. I can spend that money with my card. The cash app let’s you design your own debit card. You can draw on it or add symbols. Here’s the card I designed.
If you want to accept cash using the cash app, download the app from cash app*
What Makes These Different From Other Payment Solutions
I don’t have time to convince you that p2p electronic cash is worthy of your study. I just want to tip baristas again. In a world where cash-money is in danger of becoming extinct like the dodo-bird, tips will require electronic payment systems. These are two easy solutions to this problem.
I like the tipping pages of Strike, but Cash App has a bigger network effect. Many people in my community use the cash app. It's convinient because it comes with a card. It makes it easy to spend money without using a credit card. I use them both. Although I cannot directly spend the money I recieve in the Strike app at most stores. O can buy an Amazon Gift Card as well as hundreds of other popular retail stores within the Strike App. On the other hand, the Cash App Card makes it very easy to spend at brick and mortar stores. Some of these stores offer cash back called boosts. Sometimes Strike is better. Sometimes the Cash app is better.
What makes these two apps interesting is that they are interoperable. i can move money from Strike to the Cash App within seconds and vice-versa. Other payment rails take days to move money from one place to another, but these two apps can move money between each other with little effort and extremely low fees.
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https://nostree.me/npub1marc26z8nh3xkj5rcx7ufkatvx6ueqhp5vfw9v5teq26z254renshtf3g0
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