Comment by potamic
10 hours ago
> someone has to pay to maintain the infrastructure
Do you know what it costs to run the cash infrastructure? Maintaining physical branches, employees to handle cash, counting machines, counterfeit detectors, security personnel, armoured transport, theft risk etc. The costs of maintaining a centralised digital infrastructure pales in comparison to this. If anything you should get a discount for using digital.
There are other hidden benefits as well. Tax evasion and money laundering become a lot harder in a system that tracks transactions. That can be massive benefit or a dystopian nightmare depending on the people in charge, but for many governments that's something worth throwing money at.
> That can be massive benefit or a dystopian nightmare depending on the people in charge,
That just resolves to "dystopian nightmare", then. Any system whose proper functioning is dependent on always having the right people in charge is one that will inevitably function improperly.
At no point in human history did the government not try to control currencies.
But only since the digital age did the government actually _succeed_ in controlling currency on a massive scale, right up until the point cryptocurrency took off (and even that can be tracked, most cryptocurrencies are based on a public ledger after all).