cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13133455
It used to be that you could insert a coin into a washing machine and it would simply work. Now some Danish and German apartment owners have decided it’s a good idea to remove the cash payment option. So you have to visit a website and top-up your laundry account before using the laundry room.
Is this wise?
Points of failure with traditional coin-fed systems:
- your coin gets stuck
- you don’t have the right denomination of coins
Points of failure with this KYC cashless gung-ho digital transformation system:
- your internet service goes down
- the internet service of the laundry room goes down
- the website is incompatible with your browser
- the website forces 3rd party JavaScript that’s either broken or you don’t trust it
- you cannot (or will not) solve CAPTCHA
- the website rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the bank rejects your IP address because it is a shared IP
- the payment processor is Paypal and you do not want to share sensitive financial data with 600 corporations
- the accepted payment forms do not match your payment cards
- the accepted payment form matches, but your card is still rejected anyway for one of many undisclosed reasons:
- your card is on the same network but foreign cards are refused
- the payment processor does not like your IP address
- the copy of your ID doc on file with the bank expired, and the bank’s way of telling you is to freeze your card
- it’s one of these new online-only bank cards with no CVV code printed on the card so to get your CVV code you must install their app from Google’s Playstore (this expands into 20+ more points of failure)
- your bank account is literally below the top-up minimum because you only have cash and your cashless bank does not accept cash deposits; so you cannot do laundry until you get a paycheck or arrange for an electronic transfer from a foreign bank at the cost of an extortionate exchange rate
- you cannot open a bank account because Danish banks refuse to serve people who do not yet have their CPR number (a process that takes at least 1 month).
- you are unbanked because of one of 24 reasons that Bruce Schneier does not know about
- the internet works when you start the wash load, but fails sometime during the program so you cannot use the dryers; in which case you suddenly have to run out and buy hanging mechanisms as your wet clothes sit.
- (edit) the app of your bank and/or the laundry service demands a newer phone OS than you have, and your phone maker quit offering updates.
In my case, I was hit with point of failure number 11. Payment processors never tell you why your payment is refused. They either give a uselessly vague error, or the web UI just refuses to move forward with no error, or the error is an intentional lie. Because e.g. if your payment is refused you are presumed to be a criminal unworthy of being informed.
Danish apartment management’s response to complaints: We are not obligated to serve you. Read the terms of your lease. There is a coin-operated laundromat 1km away.
Question: are we all being forced into this shitty cashless situation in order to ease the hunt for criminals?
My building management uses prepaid cards you have to mail order for the first use. Then you can top them up via credit card and phone verification. My card broke, so I sent it in (on my own cost), but it got lost in the mail, so all money that was still on it was lost. Had to pay for the fee of getting a new card.
…in other news, I am now radicalized
It really seems to showcase that schools have lost some competency with engineering. It’s a fundamental failure of basic principles when an engineer introduces a fuck ton of factors that can go wrong in place of something simple that just works. It’s an embarrassment to the engineering discipline.
German engineering used to be held in high regard¹.
It’s like the irrational drive to make everything as electronic as possible is somehow causing engineers to miss the KISS² principle.
Consider why cars do not add a supplemental steam engine.
Superficially, you see how much heat energy a fuel combustion engine wastes and might reasonably think: why not use that heat to make steam that powers a steam engine that adds power to the drivetrain? Engineers decades ago figured out that the complexity that adds to the overall system has too much of a diminishing return. Today’s engineers are a regression in their inability to avoid excessive complexity.
¹ To be fair, I don’t know if the machines were designed in Germany… just that they are used in Germany and Denmark. Nonetheless Germans would have an expectation of high engineering standards to be deployed.
² KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Only taking cash does not “just work” in denmark, because many people don’t walk around with cash anymore.
It’s not spontaneous shopping. People don’t walk around with dirty clothes either. A laundromat inside an apartment building for the residents living therein is not in the market for people walking around. Customers do not need to carry around cash and need not buy a special wallet because they are walking directly from their apartment to the basement on a planned basis. They can put the cash in a sandwich bag and set it on top of their clothes.
Cash is inherently inclusive.
Cash accepts all people without exception. So cash just works from all standpoints: socioeconomic, legal, and from an engineering point of view. If someone does not like to touch money, that’s not cash failing to work; that’s a manifestation of Tyranny of Convenience (as described by Tim Wu) by someone choosing not to touch money. Such consumers are their own problem. Laughable to call that preference an engineering failure.
Banking is inherently exclusive.
Many demographics of people are involuntarily excluded. Banks have refused to open accounts for me. Banks are in the private sector and have a right to refuse service to people. European banks cannot refuse someone a “basic” account, but those basic accounts are not required to be free of charge and they cannot accept cash deposits so if you’re starting with cash such accounts are broken from the start. For people who banks accept there are countless disempowering circumstances consumers are forced to accept in return. Unlike those who don’t like to touch cash, people voluntarily objecting to banking have countless good compelling reasons for not pawning themselves.
Banks violate human rights when they treat people differently based on their national origin. The privacy abuses actually also undermines human rights, as well as environmental harm inherent in forced periodic phone upgrades and in the banking industry’s fossil fuel investments. So when a consumer demands #forcedBanking because they don’t personally like the burden of carrying cash, it’s rather selfish that they prioritize some trivially esoteric convenience/novelty above human rights and also above people’s need to be free from nannies. So there is a very strong case for people to not bank by choice even if the bank accepts them. By comparison, it’s fair to dismiss anyone who supports forced banking simply on the basis of not liking the inconvenience of cash.
A forced banking design violates several rules of the IEEE Code of Ethics
The banking sector discriminates against people on the basis of national origin. So when an engineer designs as cashless system, they violate ¶7 of the IEEE code of ethics.