I'm very not a fan of the idea of cashless society, but unfortunately I think it's coming everywhere. It's what they are pushing with agenda 2030, great reset etc... not only cashless, but 1 world currency ruled by a few large corporations and government (probably UN).
The issue with this is how they'll be able to track every little thing. Not to mention it will make business inaccessible for very small business as they won't have the budget to setup the necessary infrastructure to process payments. Ex: needing a credit card processor, merchant account etc... all those things tend to have monthly fees. Or even simple things like yard sales etc, that's pretty much not going to be possible anymore. Not to mention since everything will be tracked you'll probably be expected to pay all sorts of taxes on even very minor transactions, where the legwork, accounting etc of paying the taxes would just not make it worthwhile.
Not to mention all the other things mentioned like power or network outages etc.
Both those statements are rubbish! There are no plans for a worldwide currency, we have the Euro fiasco to set us straight there.
Small merchants shut out? really? I'm a tiny business, I have never ever dealt in cash. I'm so small that when card processors contact me offering their services the answer is generally no. I use paypal and stripe or you can do a bank transfer. Bank transfers are free, Paypal charge me 3.4% and stripe charge me 1.5%, without them I would never have started in business, cashless has made my business like many others that would not be operating if it were not for cashless means of payments and the internet. Cash is not free as I explained earlier. Cash machines need making, installing, maintaining and someone has to be paid to come out and fill them up. The notes need printing and distributing and returning and counting, it's a costly pain in the ass. Having a bank you can walk into costs money, you want to pay for all that? be my guest to but don't complain about the cost.
As people do not carry cash so much even small businesses at things like fates can take payment by card, maybe they can now sell larger value items as people don't go to fates with big wads of cash so if you want to sell something expensive you are out of luck if you don't have a card reader.
I think cash should be around for as long as people want it. I generally have some cash on me but generally use card.