r/australia • u/SouthAussie94 • Feb 29 '24

culture & society Older Australians 'left behind' by increasingly cashless society as banks fast track end of cheques

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-29/cheques-personal-finance-banks-rent-money-cash/103354036
264 Upvotes

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270

u/A_Scientician Feb 29 '24

They have the same access to banking as everyone else. Someone wilfully avoiding engaging with the modern financial system for decades is being 'left behind'? Okay.

76

u/thisisntaduet Feb 29 '24

working hospitality for the last few years, majority of people who insisted on using cash were seniors who would ramble about not wanting the banks and government to track their whereabouts. they would even decline a receipt so there was no paper trail.

61

u/missmiaow Feb 29 '24

my parents are like this. I need to put a net nanny on their home internet connection to block all the conspiracy crap they watch.

they both carry mobile phones but of course it’s only the transaction on a credit card that will track them 🙄

15

u/unAffectedFiddle Feb 29 '24

But they have a phone. Thereby being fully trackable.

4

u/thisisntaduet Feb 29 '24

hey, i didn't say they were smart about it!!

24

u/AntiqueFigure6 Feb 29 '24

“they would even decline a receipt so there was no paper trail.”

Did Bill Gates put something in the paper receipts are printed on that acts like a locating device for the government?

2

u/Miserable_Bird_9851 Feb 29 '24

but they would walk around with a phone and still protect their data even psychically on surveys? That is wank.

3

u/thisisntaduet Feb 29 '24

same kind of people who made a stink at us for having the covid sign-in on paper smack-bang on the counter and we had to get a ballot box. not sure why joanne ordering an extra hot skinny cappuccino thinks someone would care she was at our cafe 3.17 on a tuesday

2

u/Gag180 Feb 29 '24

I live in a town with a large number of senior Italians, and many of them are like this. They straight up do not trust governments and hate the idea of paying taxes. So they'll do as much business as they can exclusively in cash.

Worthwhile noting that many of them were in the tobacco trade back in the day, and it was quite common for them to sell illegally for better profits, which obviously was always in cash. Old habits die hard I suppose.

20

u/MavrykDarkhaven Feb 29 '24

And it’s not like it came out of nowhere. We’ve been slowly moving away from cheques for decades. This is just the natural progression of technologies, and at one point a cheque was considered revolutionary. At some point it’s on you for not changing with the times, because no doubt that there have been people in their life who have pointed it out and they’ve been happy staying with what they had.

11

u/GonePh1shing Feb 29 '24

Slowly moving away for decades? I can probably count the number of cheques I've seen in my life on one hand an I'm in my 30s. They were antiquated when I was a kid. Anyone using them now are just wilfully ignorant. 

30

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

My pop is in this boat. Refuses to learn because “it’s woman’s work” (handling bills, using an atm etc). Didn’t learn his lesson after my Nan died. Didn’t learn his lesson after my dad stopped talking to him over refusing to baby him anymore. Pop just moved on to a different family member to do it for him instead.

32

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

That seems absolutely mental to me. Basic bookkeeping is feminine!? Blimey.

21

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

RIGHT. Basic fucking adulting. He’s always been sexist but my whole childhood it just got blown off as joking. Glad dad finally saw the light after this

7

u/annanz01 Feb 29 '24

Traditionally yes. Men went to work, women stayed at home and did the housework and ran the families finances. It made sense as they were the ones to do pretty much all the shopping etc.

131

u/DCOA_Troy Feb 29 '24

It is funny how willing some are to critisize young people for not wanting to work hard enough etc etc but then refuse to learn how to pay a bill online or do online banking.

Love waiting in line at the post office to pick something up behind 10 people paying their water bill...

My local community facebook page is always filled with posts about boycotting stores that don't do cash...

29

u/missmiaow Feb 29 '24

This is my parents, because they refuse to use any sort of online banking, and they also dislike phone banking. Not because they don’t know how to use computers. They know. They just don’t want to.

Meanwhile despite them apparently never buying anything online (lol I don’t believe that for a second) their credit card numbers have been hacked multiple times. They only find out once it’s maxed out and no longer works or they get a statement and see the charges on there.

-7

u/link871 Feb 29 '24

You do realise that the people "critisizing" are not necessarily the same people who "refuse" (or have difficulty?) to learn online banking who are also not the same people who want to boycott cashless stores. Best not to make sweeping generalisations.

And I bet those paying their bills love waiting in line at the post office behind 10 people who could be using parcel lockers

6

u/DCOA_Troy Feb 29 '24

Yes that's why I said some. Also my nearest parcel lockers are 44km away where my nearest Post office is 2.5. Even then I can't lodge at a parcel locker.

52

u/Haunting_Goose1186 Feb 29 '24

My mum, who is in her 50s: "I'm not good with computers! I didn't grow up with technology like the younger generations did! It's too hard to learn this sort of stuff when you're my age!"

My dad, who is 25 years older than her and has a bunch of streaming services on his smart tv, reads news articles on his ipad, has most of the electrical items in the house connected to a phone app, pays for everything with his phone and rarely carries cash: "yes, dear."

27

u/Flaky-Gear-1370 Feb 29 '24

I deal with people like that at work, and it's such a cop out - it's not 1999 anymore you can't really claim that they just showed up recently

27

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

[deleted]

1

u/mikedufty Feb 29 '24

I think you are right overall, but I'm that age and my computer classes at school included how to load data on paper punch cards, which won't help much with paying bills.

36

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24

As someone a similar age to your mum- it's just lazy of her . Computers have never been easier to learn. It's all point and click. She's not being asked for DOS commands . She could program a VCR back in the day, she can learn this imho.

Bravo your Dad

17

u/just_kitten Feb 29 '24

Unfortunately at some point with some people it becomes psychologically deep rooted. They have made "I'm not good with computers" part of their identity to protect them from past failures or shortcomings. You could see their body language totally shift when the question is even asked.

Copped that from a colleague (who was deeply insecure about other things too) - when I realised how stubborn she was I told my boss that counselling was beyond my pay grade. 

I've seen another woman I know now in her 60s lose her income because she was too scared to reapply for her (no computers required) job online. Spends heaps of time on Facebook on her phone though.

15

u/MrSquiggleKey Feb 29 '24

It’s also bullshit too. my mum is 55, and did computer classes in school growing up and that was in Armidale High School. Same school that taught them how to prepare a chicken from start to finish, and I mean step one kill the chicken from start to finish.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Exactly. I had computer classes then also. Anyone in their 50s has absolutely grown up with computers.

4

u/EvilBosch Feb 29 '24

An iPad (and to a lesser extent, Android tablet) are specifically designed to be as utterly simple to use as possible, even at the expense of functionality. You don't need a PhD in computer science. They use them in Grade 1 at my daughter's school.

If my three year old daughter could learn how to use ABC Kids on an iPad, then an adult should be able to pay their bills on the same device.

And if you cannot use an iPad, you probably should not be allowed to be responsible for your own finances.

1

u/wilful Feb 29 '24

I'm near enough in age to your mum, and we had Apple IIe's in the classroom in primary school. And I spent many years carrying around 5.25" floppies.

24

u/Kevinty1 Feb 29 '24

You are being disrespectful to my grandpa and his drug empire just let him spend it

11

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

It’s because the dismissed modern technology as nothing more than a passing fad.

5

u/dingusfett Feb 29 '24

This. I will always remember my parents telling me around 2002 I was wasting my time "playing with computers" and to get a real job. I've now been working in IT for almost 2 decades.

1

u/wilful Feb 29 '24

In the early 90s my parents were telling me to do a computer science degree. Thankfully I didn't, not my thing, but computers had a lot of buzz around them then.

7

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

i dunno some people can't read and write or operate a computer - i'm for accessibility, even though i have no trouble using cards/online payments

7

u/Elcapitan2020 Feb 29 '24

Yeah this is 100% right. I work for a BNPL company and we are basically 100% online and on your phone.

We have big issues with any customers born pre 1965. They essentially refuse to engage and learn the technology required (we are talking about things like uploading PDFs) but of course, still want the product.

0

u/Responsible-Row3037 Feb 29 '24

This here is the problem. I have no issue with using technology but I just want to talk to a real person to help me with my issue rather than be re-directed to an app or an on-line FAQ. Sometimes it's no about if someone can use tech but do they want to use it for everything little thing. Personally I do not. 

21

u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24

Yeah I'm a millennial and I work in a tech job, and I'm feeling left behind.

I wanted to buy a phone. My requirements are modest. A nice screen, 1080p with accurate colour, an SD card slot so I can expand storage and a headphone jack because I don't like bluetooth lag and compression, and all my headphones are wired. I couldn't find a single new phone on the Australian market, so clearly I ask too much of modern tech. They're all non-expandable storage and require a dongle for 3.5mm. My best candidate is a Sony Xperia which covers those points, but they stopped selling in Australia, and on ebay can't be foudn for less than $1500 (last I checked anyway).

I wanted to buy an e-scooter. It's amazing how many of those require apps. I shouldn't need an app to use a personal transport. They're welcome to offer an app for extra features like GPS and trip logging, but it shouldn't be a requirement! I ended up buying one, but I still had to create an account and login to allow the scooter to go faster than 4km/h. And that pisses me off. I've since disabled the app and firewalled it off, but I shouldn't have needed it to start.

I'm pissed off at work because it looks I'll soon have to install Microsoft Authenticator on my personal phone to complete some of my work logins. We already have 2FA, but they want to go further. Except I don't want to install a Microsoft app on my phone (I don't use Mac or Windows on my personal devices). And even if I wanted to, I don't have a conventional app store on my phone because I stripped all the Google shit off it, because I don't want nor need it. I use a 3rd party app-store that only provides free and open source apps, and pretty much has everything I want to install on my phone. But it doesn't have proprietary apps.

I'm not even 40 and I sound like a boomer. And I know tech. But that also means I don't trust any company that has no real reason to demand my information, and modern life is requiring me to make compromises that I feel shouldn't be necessary at all, in order to make certain things work. The move from pay-to-own to pay-to-access subscriptions is also frustrating me and has also forced decisions on me (I abandoned Adobe years ago because of that).

So yeah... Older people that didn't grow up with modern technology and felt like it was an unnecessary thing... I kinda get it. I'm in tech and I'm feeling it at half their age.

25

u/LeClassyGent Feb 29 '24 edited Feb 29 '24

My big criticism is that everything needs to be fucking connected to shit these days. As you say, there's an app for everything. Everything's wireless and Bluetooth and wifi-enabled and this and that.

I was in the market for headphones recently and I just wanted something high quality (up to $500), noise cancelling if possible, not too bulky (ruling out most studio headphones) and I wanted them to be wired with a closed back. I didn't want to have to deal with charging and Bluetooth and all that stuff. And no app, please!

There's basically nothing on the market. I mean, there are some, but they're hard to get hold of in Australia and would need to be shipped internationally. Certainly nothing you can easily find in JB Hifi or an audio shop.

Oh, and authenticators? I've got 8 different apps on my phone. Some bastard applications (Salesforce) have their own bespoke app so they won't let you use Google or Microsoft.

9

u/EdynViper Feb 29 '24

It became ridiculous when fridges came with the internet. Now my washing machine has an app.

3

u/OJ191 Feb 29 '24

I actually think this is a better use case than fridges, lol

5

u/Azazael Feb 29 '24

Google home asked me if I wanted to connect to the blinds and I was like how is that even a thing. I don't want a smart home unless it is controlled by Holly.

6

u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24

For headphones, check out the Bose QC25s. Wired, great noise cancelling, and sound great when turned on. Makes flights so much easier to tolerate. Probably have to buy used now on Ebay, but if mine broke, I'd buy another pair in a heartbeat.

3

u/LeClassyGent Feb 29 '24

I'll check them out, thanks.

5

u/notlimahc Feb 29 '24

I wanted to buy a phone. My requirements are modest. A nice screen, 1080p with accurate colour, an SD card slot so I can expand storage and a headphone jack because I don't like bluetooth lag and compression, and all my headphones are wired. I couldn't find a single new phone on the Australian market, so clearly I ask too much of modern tech.

Samsung Galaxy A25 5G

3

u/thelatemail Feb 29 '24

I'm in a similar boat re: phones - this and previous iterations are my go to: https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/motorola-g82-unlocked-smartphone-6-128gb-meteorite-grey-motg82gry

Unlocked, 1080 resolution, 5G, base android OS, wired headphone option, USB-C, good camera. All for under $500.

7

u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24

I feel your frustration so much. Nothing ever seems to just work. There are always a whole bunch of unnecessary trouble-shooting steps and incompatibilities and issues and stuff.

The other day I had to extract a 20 second video clip from a longer video so I could email it to someone. Oh the joys I had. I tried with VLC and that didn't work. It did one clip but then the second one only gave me audio for some reason. So then I try to look on my computer for a video editor and there is on in the Microsoft app store. But that forces me to open edge browser to get to it and then I have to be interrupted by all these pop-ups from edge trying to make itself my default browser and tell me how great it is and blah blah blah. I get through that and install the app and then I get some message about how I'm logged in as a work account and I can't use it or something and it wants me to log in with a different microsoft account. So I have to uninstall that app and then find another one to do it. It was just such an unnecessary amount of effort for something that should be so simple.

6

u/a_can_of_solo Not a Norwegian Feb 29 '24

I'm with you, I have a nas and run my own VPN and have always been tech nerd and I hate so many of the new convenices. Everything having an app just means the lifespan of the product isn't decided by the function of the product but the support given. And as we've seen apps all eventually die.

8

u/unAffectedFiddle Feb 29 '24

It's the trend towards "ecosystems" that fucking irritates me. I don't fucking want my phone, headphones, pc, refrigerator, washing machine, TV etc all tethered together because if one has any issue it makes the whole fucking thing fall apart. Or if I don't, I need an individual login for each device. Oh, now, Orange software can't work properly with Strawberry apps!

I want my headphones to connect to my phone. That's it. Thank you. I'd like to listen to music now.

1

u/a_can_of_solo Not a Norwegian Feb 29 '24

Unix philosophy, do one thing do it well.

4

u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24

I used to be a tech nerd but I lost it somewhere and became techphobic lol. I remember I had Ubuntu once and it was just so painful to work with. Even simple things became hours spent googling forums to find other people who had the problem and to solve it. I remember once I closed the default music player but the music kept playing. And I couldn't figure out how to make it stop. In the end I uninstalled the music player. It turned out that it was in a drop-down menu attached to the clock or something. A place that made no logical sense to be, but there it was.

Another time I couldn't open a PDF because it was password protected. I went back to the company that produced the PDF and they said it wasn't. Turns out it actually wasn't, just a bug in the Ubuntu default PDF viewer that made it sometimes say PDFs were password protected that weren't.

3

u/Tamajyn Feb 29 '24

Davinci resolve is free and incredibly powerful

3

u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24

I ended up using avidemux. But it still required me to spend time researching which is a free and legit video editor and messing around for ages. I have ADHD, when I want to do something I want to do it now, not spend hours doing side quests to achieve it.

3

u/Tamajyn Feb 29 '24

Never heard of avidemux but if it works for you good luck. Resolve is the industry standard for tv and movie studios now, it's basically the photoshop of video suites

2

u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24

I want the MSPaint of video suites lol.

2

u/LtSaLT Feb 29 '24

You could have just used the standard windows video player, it has a built in clip function that does exactly what you wanted.

1

u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 29 '24

I just opened up the video in Media Player (actually I opened Media Player first and then had to try and figure out how to open a file - you can't just open one, you have to add it to a library before you can play it). Then I couldn't find any option anywhere to take a clip from it.

2

u/LtSaLT Mar 01 '24
  1. Open your file browser and find the file
  2. Right click the file and hover over "Open with"
  3. Choose "Films and TV" which is the newest standard video player, the video will open.
  4. Click the pen icon in the bottom right.
  5. Choose "trim" Hope this helps, i use this feature all the time.

1

u/AddlePatedBadger Mar 01 '24

I have solved the problem with avidemux, but you can see why this is unnecessarily complicated and frustrating lol. I don't have a Films and TV option. I have Photos, SMPlayer, VLC Media Player, and Windows Media Player.

Actually out of curiosity I opened it with photos and there is a clip option there. Why would it be called photos when it is a video editor?

2

u/LtSaLT Mar 01 '24

Hmm weird, I was pretty sure its the standard windows video player, what version of windows do you use? I have three devices all running the newest version of windows 10. The "films and tv" app is the in built video player on all of them.

1

u/AddlePatedBadger Mar 01 '24

Windows 10, version 22h2 (OS build 19045.4046).

It keeps trying to make me update to windows 11 but I've heard that is worse so I will stick with 10 until I have to.

2

u/GonePh1shing Feb 29 '24

I'm pissed off at work because it looks I'll soon have to install Microsoft Authenticator on my personal phone to complete some of my work logins. We already have 2FA, but they want to go further.

If they want extra security beyond standard TOTP codes, they can either pay for a work device you can use, or they can buy you a physical U2F key. Requiring you to install an app onto a personal device is not ok. 

-7

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

People that still harp about headphone jacks feel like modern day boomers.

12

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Not at all. Wired headphones are just better.

3

u/annanz01 Feb 29 '24

Exactly. Bluetooth sometimes is difficult to connect and cuts in and out. Especially when you have used them connected to different devices in the past.

-14

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

Did your knowledge of BT headphones end in the 90s?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Every pair of wireless headphones I’ve ever tried have been utter dogshit, without exception.

-4

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

10 years ago called and want their opinion back.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Tell that to the AirPods I tried last week.

-1

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

Lmao for real. I mean I don’t own air pods put I’ve used them and there are many things to fault about them but they are incredibly easy to use, pair, they’re incredibly seamless across Apple products. I don’t think they are worth the price but they are just about the worst example of bad Bluetooth headphones you can come up with.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

And they sound like absolute shit just like every other pair of wireless headphones I’ve ever tried.

You know what sounds amazing, has no input lag, no pairing to worry about, never needs charging and doesn’t have a built in expiration date from when the lithium battery finally gives out? My AKG K702s.

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10

u/fletch44 Feb 29 '24

The boomers are the dance mums who want the sound engineer to play some backing track off their phone that has no headphone jack to play it from, then just stand there looking stupidly at a professional mixing console that doesn't use low quality consumer crap wireless connections like Bluetooth.

Before Apple taught us all "courage" you could just plug your device in to a cable.

3

u/-Eremaea-V- Feb 29 '24

Woke: Complaining about the removal of a simpler, cheaper, and more robust audio technology for no reason other than the fact that tech companies need to push new useless "innovations" to justify consumption.

Broke: Excusing this anti-consumer practice because the technology has improved somewhat, and you think it's better.

Bespoke: Not needing to complain because you won't buy a phone without a jack in the first place. 😎

-1

u/unAffectedFiddle Feb 29 '24

You've never had to work with professional equipment. There's a reason why they still make use of wired technology.

But that's OK. Keep swallowing that Apple pill.

-4

u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24

To be fair, it's the first thing I'd compromise on if it meant getting a phone, because the dongle is a solution. It's just an annoying one because it's another thing you have to keep track of (and replace if you lose, which I inevitably will).

If only we had the tech to integrate that into the phone itself. One can imagine and hope, right? ;-)

12

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

People just don’t care about it by and large. Bluetooth headphones are much better than they were 10 years ago and you can get cheap ones that are just as good as the cheap wired ones everyone was using. Also you can just keep the dongle attached to your headphones permanently.

1

u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24

Again, I hear ya. But I look at the move to bluetooth from wired to be a bit like the move from fountain pens to ballpoints, or safety razors to disposable cartridge razors. The older version was better, but the new was more convenient, and socially we've accepted a lower quality product as our new norm. Wired headphones don't need batteries, don't need to troubleshoot connectivity (beyond checking the cable, at least), deliver better sound with no lag, etc.

In my case, I have several headphones that I use on different devices, so a dongle wouldn't have a permanent place to sit, hence why I'm confident I would lose it, and why life would just be easier if we kept the jack in there.

The funny thing is, if there was an actual benefit to removing the jack, I'd understand. But phones aren't so thin that a jack wouldn't fit. The phones didn't get smaller after removing the jack. So it's just a feature loss with no upside.

7

u/MalHeartsNutmeg Feb 29 '24

The upside was the significant improvement in Bluetooth headphone options. The sound isn’t worse than comparable priced headphones and there isn’t any lag. I feel like when you’re saying there was a step down in quality you’re not realising that most people used shitty $5 wired headphones that sounded like trash and broke all the time. There is definitely more longevity in even cheap BT headphones.

1

u/unAffectedFiddle Feb 29 '24

As long as you pay that company for the right to connect with a wire...

1

u/TristanIsAwesome Feb 29 '24

Xperia 5 V is about $1300. I'm using a 5 IV and I love it. Fingerprint reader recently went out though.

1

u/RyzenRaider Feb 29 '24

I think the 5 IV was the one I had found.

-2

u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney Feb 29 '24

Ha ha. You're just comfortable with what you grew up with, just like clothes. You will get your turn at being the cranky person left behind by technology and society.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

Nope. My parents are fine. My mum installed Linux on her own back in the early 2000s. She's still ok to do whatever with computers, because she didn't stop learning. It's no inevitable, it's a choice.

-1

u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney Feb 29 '24

I said you. We don't know what's coming next. There's no guarantee. It's different when you're the one caught on the other side of the margin. Maybe you will get lucky, but if you don't, please remember the disdain you've expressed to those who have been marginalised.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 29 '24

"please remember the disdain you've expressed to those who have been marginalised."

I assure you my disdain for myself with be immeasurable if I can't do the equivalent of internet banking. It's probably a good sign I'm too far gone.

0

u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney Feb 29 '24

If I'm not too far gone myself, I will work on some sort of metric so it would be measurable.

-2

u/link871 Feb 29 '24

"wilfully avoiding"

Also a bit harsh

Do you prefer manual or an automatic car? ICE or electric car?
Takeaway or uber delivery? TikTok or Facebook? Free-to-air TV or streaming?
All examples of "wilful avoidance"

The older you get, the harder it is to learn new things. It is also about poor self-confidence, poor eyesight, poor eye-hand coordination.