Cash..... Reports Of Its Death Are Greatly Exaggerated?

This is a kind of strange journalism in which the title of the story does not actually reflect the facts that are in the body of the story.

This is a Canadian story but, just the same, I can judge by my frequent trips to the supermarket. Almost everybody is using plastic. For one or two items, cash may be preferred. I used to use cash, then went to personal checks, but, for the last couple of years, it's been cards.

If physical money were to no longer be printed there would be a renewed interest in old money and a resurgence of barter.

I would predict the exact opposite. Once something becomes obsolete and is no longer in everyday use, it leaves the realm of "mass market collectable" and becomes the interest of a "specialist collector of historic artifacts".

Look at it this way. How many collectors of swords do you know? I know one, one of the moderators on this forum. One. Or ancient ceramic oil lamps? I don't know anyone who actually collects those, though there are a few such people around. Both of those things were invented before coins. These things were once everyday items, and people collected them - but now, they're historical curiosities, collected only by a few people who have read about them in history books, but never actually had to use them for their intended purpose.

Or a more modern example, consider phonecards. Phonecards used to be big, the latest craze back in the 1990s - but the phonecard market collapsed once phone companies stopped making them and switched to using regular credit/debit cards in their phones, then public payphones themselves became mostly obsolete with the rise of ubiquitous mobile/cell phone ownership. A coin club in a neighbouring city which I occasionally attend still has "coin and phonecard club" in its name, but it's an anachronism - none of the members still collect phonecards.

Similarly, so few letters these days are received with postage stamps on them, that stamp collecting is rapidly dying off. It is my fear, but my assumption, that this will eventually happen to coins, too. Coins are 2600-year-old technology, becoming obsolete. Once coins disappear from public familiarity, then coin collecting too will shrink and collapse.

If we take the long view ...

Before 3,000 years ago, there was barter.

Since then, we have had a system of media of exchange backed and regulated by sovereign entities (a generalization, but probably good enough). The first medium was metal coins ... that evolved to combinations of metal and paper, and now we have metal, paper, plastic, purely electronic transactions, etc. But these media still mostly represent currencies backed by sovereign entitites.

It seems to me the only new things under the sun are the crypto-currencies.

BTW, my issue with the tone taken in that article are that they seem to compare supply of cash to demand for credit. It would have been more convincing had they compared the percent of the economy in cash transactions to the percent of the economy in credit transactions. I suppose they didn;t do this because there are precise figures available for credit transactions, but not for cash.

My 30 year old son NEVER carries any cash.
I have seen him swipe his debit card in soda
machines several times over the last 10 years.

Me...I an never completely out of cash in my
wallet. At least $20.

I too think cash is slowly vanishing. However, there are so many places that only cash is used makes it's end not to possible for now. For example at all flea markets possibly 99% of all transactions are cash. And try to use a credit card at a garage/yard/estate sale. Then too so many places like pawn shops deal mostly in cash. Of course there are farmers markets, coin shows, gun shows, computer shows, etc. where almost everything is done in cash. I wonder what would happen if a drug addict tried to deal with a drug dealer with a credit card. The necessity for computerized monitary systems due to transactions between different countries does make the loss of cash something that is going to happen but sure may take a long time.