Today, I travelled out to Baltimore for another week of workshops. Along the way, I saw how cash is no longer the legal tender it once was. The day started with a Flyaway bus to LAX. The Flyaway used to be a nice cheap roundtrip, but it has gone up to $14! Youch! Further, they no longer accept cash or use tickets — your charge slip is your receipt. Although this isn’t a problem for me, I could see it being a problem for those without credit/debit cards (such as young adults). I saw something similar on the airplane: United now only accepts credit cards for on-board food and alcoholic beverage purchases (and their prices have gone up: $6-7 for the boxes, $9 for the meals). Again, not a problem for me, but it could be a problem for some.
But what gets me most of all is the non-acceptance of cash. The ability to do things anonymously in our society is rapidly disappearing. Cash is going away, being replaced by a plastic society (which makes more and more money for the credit card companies, who get a small slice of every transaction).
Do others find this disturbing?
