Will you stand up for analogue?

A few questions, if I may.

Do you care that soon – if not already – you will not be able to submit your tax return without a mobile phone app verifying your identity?

Does it bother you that not owning a mobile phone will thus very possibly get you in trouble with the law?

Do you consent to being turned into a cyborg? Because a being defined by an essential technological extension is exactly that.

Do you want to live in a world where the elderly, the vulnerable, the illiterate, the uneducated, the disinclined and anybody who cannot afford a mobile phone can no longer viably or legally exist?

Are you okay with your bank closing branches, forcing you online, potentially exposing you to every cybercriminal on earth – and then putting the onus on you to spot scams and concoct passwords?

Are you fine with being totally, utterly and entirely dependent on working cybersecurity, a stable power supply and a seamless internet?

Are you ready for what will happen if the electricity blacks out long-term, your bank suffers the mother of all cyberattacks or the internet goes down for more than a day or two?

Do you accept the ongoing abolition of personal service, human contact and analogue alternatives?

Do you think it right that legally required (for now) analogue options such as postal applications and helplines staffed by humans are deliberately buried fifteen clicks into a website?

Do you support the move towards eliminating cash?

Do you agree with effectively stopping payments to those dependent on small cash donations – waitresses, buskers, beggars, tour guides, caddies, drivers – thus squeezing their livelihoods and making the struggling struggle harder?

Do you support stores that refuse cash, which deprive anybody not integrated in the formal banking system (including proof of address) of the opportunity to eat?

Are you going to stand by and let Artificial Intelligence run rampant without any opportunity to opt out?

What will you do when you mislay your phone, with all its handy payment and identification apps, in a foreign country, and there is no more cash to borrow, paper to show or human to speak to?

     *       *       *

I am affluent enough to always have a smartphone; educated and dextrous enough to be able to work it. In most parts of the world, I could start waving it at vendors and never use cash again. I could download the requisite identification and login apps in a matter of minutes. Really, none of this should bother me. I could just embrace all of it. My life would, on the whole, probably be easier.

I could also use the new self-service checkout at my local store on the basis that it’s easier and faster. But I care about massive retailers firing people and letting us, the customers, do the work instead. I care about another moment of social contact being torn out of our lives, fake as that “have a nice day” may be. There are principles at stake.

And that’s the thing. We keep on tacitly agreeing to the next small nail in the coffin of the analogue and the human. Tiny nails, they are: we don’t see the slippery slope we’re on.

So what’s at the bottom of that slope?

I have an inkling. I’ve mislaid my device in a foreign country and played the traumatising, Kafka-esque game that results - and that was seven years ago. If your entire existence is bundled in that device, this is an almost impossible place to be. We should not set ourselves up to be in that place.

Even at home, we run in circles because banks and other institutions are determined to eliminate us walking into a building and talking to somebody. The remaining forms of ‘service’ then put the onus on you and me to prove who we are. To do so, we are pretty much compelled to buy a smartphone, a cheek we let them get away with because we all shrug and say, "I have one anyway". Even when we've spent our hundreds on that, it can go wrong. And when it does… well, part of the inspiration for this piece is having two of my three bank accounts blocked in the last few days. That was not a small, incidental thing only a grumpy old fart would notice. That was me on the brink of having no money.

You don’t need to be Nostradamus to see the trend. I know a man in Austria who turned his back on the banking industry entirely after his bosses explicitly told him not to help people struggling to switch to digital technology. These are not nice people we’re trusting with our money.

Another thought I can’t shake: If we let cash go, what’s next? Surely it’s physical bank cards? Sooner or later, we’ll be told that paying by mobile phone app is the only way. To have money, then, you must buy the device. Which requires money. Which requires the device… ad infinitum. Anybody else see the rich getting richer here?  

Is it acceptable that a grandmother in Dubrovnik, whose life savings in Croatian Kuna were stashed up at home, has to travel 600 kilometres to the National Bank in Zagreb in order to turn these into Euros following her nation’s currency change? Just because cash is already an afterthought to the wealthy and smartphone-literate?

And what comes next after the decree that tax cannot be submitted without a certain identification app? Fast forward to an election day in the near future, where you won’t get to vote without some QR code or other. Don’t want or can’t afford a smartphone? Well, goodbye democracy.

As for Artificial Intelligence, you really don’t need me to paint you a picture of the worst-case scenario. Refer to your favourite dystopian novel.

You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see where we’re allowing ourselves to slide if we don’t start caring about this stuff. You don’t have to believe in lizard overlords to consider the possibility of a blackout or a breach in cyber security. You don’t need to be convinced of a global cabal to want to stand up for human interaction, contact and intelligence.

My wish to stop the digital-only steamroller is grounded in nothing more than the practical realities of end-user experience. In what exclusively digital banking, payment, official business and so forth might mean for you, me and other innocent folk who didn’t get a say.

‘Yes, but it’s coming whether we like it or not…’

I think this statement is where most of us who think these thoughts land. We shrug, telling ourselves we cannot turn this tide. And sooth ourselves with the short-term positives: speed, convenience, ease.

But history teaches us a lot about those who sit back and let the easy option wash over them, doesn’t it?

It also tells us that we have more power than we think.

Let’s take another Austrian example. Compulsory COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic. Big hoo-hah, much flag-waving and plenty of eye-rolling. I’m not bringing this up to open a debate about the merits of vaccination, merely to point out that many thousands demonstrated, refused and… were never issued with the proposed fines and punishments. Saying ‘no’ en masse can still work.

There are such things as demonstrations and petitions. In most democracies there are systems in place to fight for issues that matter to us. It is not inconceivable for, say, the European Union to ban AI or stipulate cash acceptance – in many ways it’s just the sort of thing they’d do.

And if you believe that the only message that really gets through to decision-makers must be coded in the language of money, that works too.

What if everyone who chooses to spend lunch money elsewhere rather than patronise Albert Heijn at Amsterdam Centraal, with its self-service, no-cash approach, were to unite around a hashtag and social media the hell out of their purchasing decisions?

What if we stopped shaking our heads ruefully around bar tables and actually told banks and governments that we aren’t going to be forced into downloading apps to do our tax? What if we tell them how much they’re wasting on the publicity campaign? What if we tell businesses they’ve just lost a dozen sales?

Because we care. Because it bothers us. Because we do not consent. Because we do not want to live in such a world. Because being a cyborg should involve active consent at the very least.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot shrug and go with the flow just because that’s what our lazy, convenience-addicted brains are wired to do. ‘I’ll always have a smartphone’ isn’t a reason. It’s not just about what works for me or you.

So then, are you ready to do more than grumble?

I don’t necessarily mean chaining yourself to mobile phone towers or marching to parliament (go ahead and organise that if you want!). I mean putting your signature on a petition. I mean nagging your local political representatives about analogue rights. I mean boycotting banking bots, card-only businesses and digital government services – and posting about it on social media, and writing to them directly, so they know that whatever thing they’re doing is not OK with you. I mean not upgrading your phone and not downloading that ID app – on principle.*

Because the only way anything becomes compulsory is if we all do it like a bunch of dim-witted sheep.

I mean sharing and liking all of these actions, so that a critical mass can be achieved.

If you would be willing to do all or any of these things to turn the tide sweeping us along - or work with me on this in some way - please sign up for the mailing list I have built.

I have no plan of what to do with the list. At this stage, consider it merely an expression of interest and support. But if I see big numbers – surprisingly, encouragingly big numbers – I’ll have the motivation to do something. So please, help me to help you.

*One thing to underline: I’m not trying to shut down technology here. Digital technology has many superb applications and I gratefully employ many of these myself. If a campaign comes of this, in fact, it will be digital-driven.

So do not fear for your mobile banking app. I merely want to safeguard analogue alternatives. I don’t want your kids to have to be cyborgs without opting in. That is all. And to send the message that this is important, it may help to opt out of those apps for a time.