AMC says it will accept bitcoin as payment for movie tickets

[Allan Young]

For me it's the service charges. Someone comes in and buys his ticket. Runs the card. Moves over a few feet and buys his popcorn. Runs the card. Goes into watch the movie, comes back out partway to get another drink. Runs the card. His kid wants a candy bar, so he's back again to run the card. And I'm paying a service charge every single time, so to make up for the average service charges I'd have to raise my admission prices by about $2 or start charging 50 cents more for the popcorn and drinks. Nothing would be accomplished other than making my customers pay more; I'd end up with the same thing I have now at the end of the night. I don't see a win here

A minimum payment for a card transaction would partly solve those scenarios - plenty of businesses have that restriction. Or implement a card surcharge - again, such a charge is not rare. Your tickets are $9, right? Square provides a system whereby you'd pay 34 cents for a single ticket sale (2.6% + 10c), so nowhere near the $2 admission price rise you're claiming you'd need. With a nominal surcharge of say 50c, you'd actually make more money on that transaction.

Everyone around here knows that they have to bring cash when they come to the show, and if they didn't know before they find out fairly quickly when they get here. There's a bank with an atm on the corner, so it's just a half-block away and it's not hard for people to just zip down there to get some cash.

Fair enough I guess. Small-town rules might be different. You're still inconveniencing some customers though.

[Frank Cox]

If I raised the ticket prices by $2, then that would net me somewhere between 50-85 cents after paying the GST and the rent to the movie company.

That would cover the card service charge when the customer buys his ticket and maybe his popcorn and drink. But nothing was gained (or lost) other than taking another $2 out of the customer's pocket when he walked in the door. And when he comes back to get another drink or candy bar I'm behind. Less than $2 would mean that I'd have to raise the prices for the popcorn and drinks as well, and all of this just to stay in the position that I'm in right now without raising any prices at all.

I don't think card surcharges are allowed here. At least I've never seen one anywhere, and I'd imagine that at least some businesses would have one if they could. I have seen minimum required purchases, but that would be a loser too.

"I want to buy this candy." "$1 please." "All I've got is this card."

[Marcel Birgelen]

I think COVID-19 has been a game-changer for electronic payments... I can't speak for the rest of the world, as I've not seen to much of it the last year and a half or so... but what I've seen here is the following:

- In the Netherlands, paying stuff electronically via debit cards, rather than credit cards has been around since the end of the 1980s. In the last 15 or so years, it has become common to pay for small transactions via debit card. NFC payments were common even before COVID-19 started, but are now the defacto standard. Ever since COVID-19, electronic payment terminals are now everywhere, even if you want to take a toilet break, you're going to pay for it. Not having any cash is no more excuse, as there are NFC payment terminals now... Actually, paying with cash is sometimes even frowned upon. I don't know if it's legal, but some locations don't even accept any cash anymore... Actually, I've read that most transactions in the Netherlands nowadays aren't even executed via cards anymore, but via NFC payments using mobile phones and/or smart watches...
- In Germany, cash used to be the absolute king. While paying medium sized amounts in a shop via card was nothing special, smaller transactions were still mostly cash. Even paying cash at a hotel was nothing strange, many, mostly smaller hotels even preferred it. Although electronic payments were on the rise, COVID-19 has done its part now and payment via NFC for small amounts is now totally the norm. You still can pay cash though, compared to the Netherlands, I've yet to find a place that actually refuses cash payment.
- Belgium has always been a bit of a middle ground between the Netherlands and Germany if it came down to electronic payments. But COVID-19 has done its part here too, paying via NFC for small amounts has become the absolute norm and cash is on its way out.

Do I approve those developments? I guess I have mixed feelings about them... what worries me most is the speed in which stuff is transitioning. We're now putting all our faith into some electronic systems we, ourselves, have zero control over. If we abandon cash entirely and those systems fail, we can't even pay each other anymore for bread and water...

[Allan Young]

The Scandinavian countries seem to be the world leaders in the head to cashless societies. Sweden actually has a law which makes it legal for a business to refuse to accept cash and as a result "No Cash Accepted" signs on stores are now commonplace. Swedish banks even dish out debit cards to seven-year-olds to save them from having to carry cash.

I've barely used cash for several years now, never carry it around and actively avoid places which don't accept cards. When I last visited Sweden in 2019 it was the first time I'd travelled to another country without taking any local cash and despite a bit of initial nervousness it turned out to be a total breeze.

Which is why I was curious about the likes of Frank's cinema refusing to accept them, particularly from a cost/benefit standpoint. For instance, there's this titbit from a Swedish researcher into cashless societies (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sweden-cashless-society).

It’s a lot more costly for a merchant or retailer to handle cash payments than card or electronic payments. That includes the work that is connected to cash – to count the bills, to return the change. There are also fees for cash-in-transit service companies and insurance companies have higher fees if a store handles a lot of cash since the risk of robberies increase.

[Randy Stankey]

So, it’s become too much work to count money, these days?

That’s pretty sick!

I suppose it will soon become too much work to go to the bathroom, too!

[Kenneth Wuepper]

No, it is really the total reliance on digital systems that is the problem.

The other day at a Wendy's their server went down. There were 8 cars in line and 10 people inside. The cars were warned off and all but two of the people inside left. The other two decided they could just order as they whipped out their phones and went to the app. It was also not operating since there was no way to receive their orders in the kitchen. They finally left.

Apparently ours was the last order before the computer failed.

Net result, no one was served since they could not order, then could not pay since the cash register would not open despite the fact that the operator could not make change without the computer figuring it for him.

We really have turned our world over to the "chips".

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's not all that long ago when I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at the outskirts of Paris somewhere around midnight. I paid my overpriced parking ticket and took the car out of the lot. I was pretty tired, so I didn't really watch the fuel gauge until I rolled into Belgian territory... Well, nothing was lost, as there were sufficient service stations along my route...

I pulled into the first one. Like common in the U.S. like forever, most service stations around here require some prepayment in order to be able to fuel up, at least at night. I didn't have any cash on me, besides a bunch of US dollars, which nobody wanted to accept. I tried every card I had: debit cards, credit cards, none would work. The system would always return some kind of error.

No big deal, I thought, so I pulled into the next station on route... same story, no card worked...

The guy doing the night shift at the next service station told me outright: No cards, something wrong with the system...

The story continued at least twice, as it became clear to me that there was some kind of national outage...

In the end, I pulled into the Netherlands on my last fumes and managed to put some gas in the tank.

I've traveled through Norway and Sweden in 2018 and 2019. Yeah, you can do everything "cashless", just like "home", but I still had a few backup euros with me. Yeah, it's neither countries native currency, but it is at least a good backup in case our fancy electronic payment services fail.

I had the same kind of experience back in 2017, when I was stranded in the middle of Kenya (actually, it was in Lamu at the coast, but still felt like in the middle of nowhere*) and the flight I'd booked and paid for apparently didn't exist... I guess after they tried to run every credit card at least through 5 different processors, the credit card companies finally gave up on me and blocked all my cards because of potential fraud. Well, I was happy to have a few hard dollars on me, because that was what bought me a ticket out of there...

* Lamu is a kind of place everybody that wants to see something in this world should put on his/her bucket-list, as long as it still exists in its current form...

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

While there is nothing to prohibit a business from accepting debit/credit cards, here in New Jersey USA and some other states businesses (with a few exceptions) MUST accept cash by law.

[Mike Blakesley]

The story continued at least twice, as it became clear to me that there was some kind of national outage..

It is kind of scary how much we rely on being "connected." I am pretty certain that the next war in this world will probably be internet-based. If we lose internet at my day job, we can sell items that have a price tag -- but that's all, because we'd have no way to look up prices. And we'd have no way to order more stuff, because all of our ordering is internet based. And we couldn't call, because.... internet phones.

At the theatre, we could play out the current movie but we'd have no way to get keys for the next one, unless they were sent via Fed Ex or something. And how would that business work without internet?

I hope it never happens but it does, it won't be pretty.

[Mark Lane]

Is there any particular reason for holding out on accepting card payments? I can't imagine it's an issue of cost these days - the readers are dirt cheap (and in some cases, free) and the commission rates are only around the 2% mark. Don't the benefits of accepting cards now outweigh the hassle involved with cash transactions (schlepping regularly to the bank, for instance)?

About the only reason for remaining cash-only I can think of is lack of a decent WiFi or cellular data connection to process the payments, but maybe I'm missing something.

I already have to much technology in my life. Cash is easy. Cash doesn't break down, and Cash saves me money allowing for more profit. .. and it makes bookkeeping much easier.
A ticket to a first run movie is as low as $3.00. Large popcorn is $3.00 with .50¢ refills.. often times the amount that would be put on the card would not justify the cost of taking the card. The theater has been cash only for 74 years and most people know to bring cash. If someone new comes to the theater without cash, we tell them to pay the next time they are in town. After four years, I think we have only be ripped off once by doing this.. everyone comes back and pays what they owe. If there is time, they can go across the street to the cafe/bar and use the ATM machine.
We are in a town that has no police department, where people don't lock their house doors or cars. My neighbor keeps the keys to his antique car on the car's floorboard. People ride their bikes to the theater and lean them up against the building, unlocked while they watch the flick. Our gas stations are a pump before you pay. I am not worried that someone will cheat me out of a $3.00 popcorn.
Being cash only is part of the charm, it is traditional. I don't think I am losing out on any sales by being cash only.

[Leo Enticknap]

I tried every card I had: debit cards, credit cards, none would work. The system would always return some kind of error.

I had a similar experience courtesy of the millennium bug ... or more accurately, the absence of one. In early December 1999, my bank wrote to me telling me that they would shortly send me a replacement debit/ATM card, because they thought that my existing one would stop working on January 1. I was away from home from December 24 through early January, spending Christmas and the new year with relatives 250 miles away. At some point between Christmas and the new year (but several days before the event itself), my existing card stopped working, and I hadn't received the new one before leaving town. In those days (this was in the UK, before I emigrated), there were quite a few places that either didn't take credit cards, imposed a significant fee for using a credit card, and/or had quite a high minimum purchase figure (minimum purchase GBP20 or you pay a GBP1 fee was typical): so you couldn't just use a credit card for everything. I went into a branch of the bank near where I was, and they told me that they were deactivating old cards 2-3 days after new ones were mailed, to force people to stop using the possibly faulty ones ASAP.

Ever since then, I've always made sure to have enough cash with me to cover any over-the-counter retail purchase that I try to make with a card.

While there is nothing to prohibit a business from accepting debit/credit cards, here in New Jersey USA and some other states businesses (with a few exceptions) MUST accept cash by law.

California had such a law, but Governor Newsom suspended it by decree as one of his covid emergency measures (the thinking at the time being that the virus could live on the surface of bills and coins). A lot of fast food places in particular now won't accept cash, and have notices up to that effect at the checkout.

[Randy Stankey]

No, it is really the total reliance on digital systems that is the problem.

I think it's more like abdicating responsibility and relying on technology as a means to be lazy.

A cashier's job is to count money. That's why the first four letters of the word "cashier" spell "CASH." Counting and keeping track of money is the thing that a cashier is hired to do.
When I was a kid, my father owned a bar where he made me take orders and run the cash register. He was super strict on the way I was to go about it. If I didn't do things exactly the way I was told, I got slapped upside the head...like the way Gibbs, from the TV show NCIS, would head-slap Dinozzo except it wasn't funny.

The thing is that it doesn't actually take much in the way of math to do the job. If you can count to 100 by fives, tens or twenty-fives, you can make change. It only takes a little bit of practice.

Having a cash register or POS computer calculate change is a good convenience that makes the job faster but it doesn't take away the responsibility to know how to count money in the first place.

The only reason for not knowing how to make change is laziness.

I once had a new trainee in the booth who I took down to the loading dock in order to pick up a bunch of film cans that had just been delivered. There were four of them. I figured that I could carry two and my trainee could carry the others.

I grabbed my two and the other guy grabbed the others. He immediately started complaining how heavy they were. This guy was average sized and able bodied. He should have had no problem carrying those cans. Maybe we could have used a two-wheeled dolly but we were only ten steps away from the freight elevator. I figured it would be a simple thing. He whined and complained the whole way.

Finally, I got fed up and said, "This is your JOB! It's what you are getting paid to do. If you don't like it, you can go back to working downstairs."

If the kid had put forth a little effort, I would have gone and found him a cart but, with all the whining he did, I didn't want him in the booth. The kid didn't even last a whole day before I sent him back to where he came from.

To me, it's plain and simple. He was perfectly able to do the job but was too lazy.
I'm not talking about the kind of lazy where somebody might take a shortcut sweeping the floor by pushing the dirt into the corner. I don't mean the kind of lazy where somebody stops to talk to a friend for two minutes. I mean the kind of lazy where people fundamentally don't want to do the things they are supposed to do as part of their job.

Those people at Wendy's could have made due with a pencil and a piece of paper plus, maybe, a calculator. They could have taken orders by hand and written everything down. When the computers came back on line, the manager could have typed the orders in by hand. Instead, they rely on computers to such a degree that, without them, they can only stand there with their dicks in their hands.

The same goes for digital cinema. I don't care how may excuses people make about digital movies being cheaper or more efficient or anything. It's all just bullshit.
The real reason is because people are just too damn lazy to do their jobs. They have given up their responsibilities to the machines and, when those machines fail, they are out of luck.

Like Mike says, when the internet goes down you can't even play the movies you already have if you can't get the keys to decrypt them.

[Allan Young]

A ticket to a first run movie is as low as $3.00. Large popcorn is $3.00 with .50¢ refills.. often times the amount that would be put on the card would not justify the cost of taking the card

From the brief searching around I did on bringing the subject up, it does seem that North America is currently at a disadvantage on this front. The cheapest options for small businesses mostly seem to have a standing charge in addition to a percentage commission. In Sweden (and the UK) the total charge on those $3.00 sales with a basic account would be a flat 1.75% or 5.25¢. Popcorn refill - 0.88¢. Easily affordable, no?

Maybe the costs will come down at some point. For reasons I really don't understand, the USA always seems to be behind the rest of the Western world when it comes to banking technology. For years after magnetic strip swiping became commonplace in the UK, in the States I was still having my card details carbon copied. For years after the introduction of Chip and PIN, I was still having to use the magnetic stripe. And it seems only relatively recently that contactless payments have become as widely accepted as in the UK.

ETA: By complete coincidence, just after I'd finished replying an article popped up on the BBC news regarding Mastercard's plans to remove magnetic stripes from all cards, the details of which illustrates the behind-the-times situation in the States. European banks will begin the removal in 2024. US banks - 2027, and even then prepaid cards will be exempt.

https://www.mastercard.com/news/pers...gnetic-stripe/

Being cash only is part of the charm, it is traditional. I don't think I am losing out on any sales by being cash only.

You're in the same boat as Frank though - small town rules apply. It may currently be charming and traditional but it seems to me that the days of cash-only businesses are seriously numbered. It's a march to the future that Covid has only accelerated.

[Randy Stankey]

There is a small, country style restaurant nearby that has a sign on the door:

”In God we trust. All others please pay cash.”

They’ve been there for decades and are still going strong.

It helps to know that the owners are Amish. (Or Mennonite but I figure it’s impolite to ask.)

[Leo Enticknap]

For years after magnetic strip swiping became commonplace in the UK, in the States I was still having my card details carbon copied. For years after the introduction of Chip and PIN, I was still having to use the magnetic stripe.

The stripe is still used exclusively in lots of places. Smaller retailers, pop-up stores, roach coaches and the like tend to have USB card readers hooked to an iPad or laptop, which are usually mag stripe only. These also tend to be the places that don't want to take cash, which annoys me, because these stripe readers strike me as pretty insecure (all it would take is some malware lurking on the iPad, and every card passed through that thing could be skimmed).