My experience in the US is you pay fees whenever you withdraw from a bank that isn’t your own. In other countries, you don’t pay fees unless you withdraw from an independent machine, and even then many are free.
I dunno though, I had a cushy US bank with no branches of their own, so they didn’t charge fees anywhere. BoA were bastards though, and I’ve heard terrible things about Chase.
Objectively, bitcoin is better for online transactions. It’s not even all that safe for buying drugs - every transaction is recorded permanently in an open ledger, so it’s actually much easier to trace (at least up to the end points where traditional currency is exchanged).
It might be less widely accepted, but that’s only because of how insidiously endemic MasterCard and VISA are.
That’s the real crux, banks charge businesses to deposit cash. They do it in such a way that there’s no way to escape their ever-increasing fee percentage.
The mattress solution is more and more appealing, imo.
Also the government heavily incentivizes electronic payments because those can’t be pocketed without paying VAT. That’s a MONUMENTAL amount of tax fraud being chipped at by the progressive disappearance of cash.
Unfortunately I think the amount of cash tax fraud that exists is far more reasonable than the amount of straight up fraudulent, yet “legitimate”, expenditure that governments allow. See, for example, covid PPP loans.
Yes that’s fair enough, cash doesn’t work online - but bitcoin is a better solution for online transactions than cards.
I mean, we haven’t even got into the subject of data tracking. If you think Facebook is bad, consider for a moment how much your card provider knows about you. Banks and card companies have learned from Facebook, and data brokerage is now a trillion dollar industry - with only 8 billion people in the world (many of whom don’t use the internet or have data being traded), that means your data is worth roughly $1,000 a year. Surely, as the manufacturer of the data, you should be getting some of that?!
Yeah, those are the only ones that might charge. Standalone ones in shops, not at a bank branch, and in particular in places where people might be out drinking.
Other countries don’t have ATM fees, either. I can go to almost any cash point with any bank and withdraw for free. It’s only certain ones that charge, typically places with a captive audience eg festivals or certain retail parks.
The US is incredibly strange for charging people money to get their cash.
Ew email does not sound like the place for cash transactions.
But yeah, most countries these days have instant bank transfers. The US is ancient when it comes to payments, “cashing your payslip” isn’t a thing in much of the rest of the world.