Friday, November 2, 2012

The end of cash, the beginning of a digital economy


Money is the most important abstraction that human beings have ever devised, but that abstraction has not been fully embraced. The process of configuring the systems we enjoy nowadays has taken a long time, as is always the case with this kind of development. 

At the beginning of human history, when societies realized that they need to interact with other societies because of a shortage of resources, they took up bartering for many generations. As the time passed humans realized that a more sophisticated process was needed. So in the first coins were minted in Lydia in the 8th century B.C.


Nowadays, cash’s role is waning, as mobile and encrypted currency let us plug directly into the digital economy. Our society is taking us to new contexts that need some changes in the kind of currency that we use. New technologies are appearing every day and force us to change how we purchase things. One solution to monetary gap left by cash for comes from a new application by Apple. Passedbook is the simplest way to get all our passes, like Boarding passes, tickets, store cards and coupons: you buy them via the Appstore, you receive a code that you show in stores, and it is charged to your credit account. 

Money is not disappearing, it is just changing. Digital or electronic money it has a lot of advantages, but it also have some problems related to the insecurity of the internet, like phishing and identity theft. 

Are you willing to change the way you  buy?

If you want to learn more about this topic, click on the next article:

Time for cash to cash out?


1 comment:

  1. I think, money actually is disappearing, but globalization makes us feel we need to adapt the way we employ our financial incomes to be constantly updated. Now, we have plenty of credit cards, which allow us to buy whatever we want, no matter the store it is. It is known that the biggest commercial stores have implemented this system some years ago and that now we have the opportunity of buying without moving out from home. However, this option may contract us some negative consequences.
    There have been many times in which people have had to spend a lot of time waiting for recovering a system that has collapsed in supermarkets or big stores. Other times, the credit card does not let you proceed with a simple operation, because the device does not recognize the password you signed in.
    These problematic situations make me reject being part of a brand new era , in which real and not virtual or digital money is the protagonist of the story.

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