I think we very much need both in society – for different purposes and for different personal preferences/lifestyles/circumstances (whether as a business or a customer). Just like we wouldn’t seek to get rid of tea, just because coffee is getting a lot more popular, or vice versa.
I do think that cash is helpful for children and some people with learning difficulties, as there’s a certain amount of understanding and assumption that you need to use cards, which comes naturally to most people, but isn’t necessarily obvious to very young and very vulnerable people.
Also, whilst some traders who prefer/only accept cash are undoubtedly doing so to avoid their taxes, many sole traders and tiny businesses, for whom their profit is effectively their own wages, will legitimately put everything through the books, but then avoid paying fees to pay it into the bank and then paying more fees to withdraw it again.
I think those people dismissing it as conspiracy theory are maybe not thinking of the whole picture. Especially the PP who then went on to show it as an undeniable conspiracy FACT in China!
Yes, some people take it way too far, but how on earth is it a ‘conspiracy theory’ to say that banks can track your online/card spending but they can’t track cash spending? Banks can already be required to pass information to the government when ordered to do so; the way things are going, it would be the easiest thing in the world to ‘defund’ and ‘financially cancel’ anybody who expresses dissent from ‘official’ policy – just like seems to have happened already with Farage (granted, that’s in-house rather than the work of the government). Yes, if you become a complete persona-non-grata, the banks can easily cut you off, so that you can't access cash either; but not if you have the occasional transaction which would not be considered 'favourable' and which you may want to make discreetly.
Look at the ‘TERF-blocker’ programme on social media, where those who hold ‘controversial’ views simply press a button and you can’t ever interact with them on SM at all – no questions asked, no individual considerations at all. Fine if you don’t care about having anything to do with the TRAs online – that’s no biggie; but if your bank could do the same to you, because ‘somebody’ along the line found that you had financially engaged with a socially-verboten person or organisation, that might be a tad more inconvenient.
We’re not talking about people with extreme views – simply openly and peacefully expressing the same views that almost everybody held just a few years ago (in fact, the majority still do, but are too frightened to speak up), you potentially risk a huge amount before too long - as our friends in China and other countries are already experiencing right now.