I'm starting to see a new front in the connection between advancing technology and resistance to it being wrapped up in grand control conspiracies with this whole "cashless" thing.
This is a free market business thing, not a government thing. This is the free market telling you that they don't want to deal with hours of sorting/transporting/storing dirty paper and heavy coins. This is businesses telling you to tap your card and move on, not hold up lines with making change or writing checks.
This is literally businesses telling you what to do.
This is literally businesses tapping your purchases to your name/card.
This isn't a government control scheme. It's pure capitalism. 100% capitalism.
In a previous life I worked for a data harvesting and mining operation. They knew a LOT about anyone, whether they had a "rewards card" or not. Many would be surprised how easy it is to gather information and how much of it has already been gathered.
They use it to sell you things, not to elevate your importance to being a focus of a world-wide conspiracy.
They use it to save themselves money on postage and time not sending you offers that aren't targeted, not to find some secret information to take your family down and enslave you.
They notice you bought lumber, certain types of joists, and deck nails. Then they send you coupon for deck furniture a week later... We worked with Home Depot and Lowes maintaining their customer database. We worked with a crapton of other major corps.
So yeah, resist if you feel like it, but the strong arm of capitalism wants your data to flow easier so they can get ahead of the curve to market to you. The US government doesn't give a flip that you're buying coffee at Starbucks.
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