Hey remember when to put money on your phone you walked to the corner shop or petrol station and gave them cash and got a number to put in your phone
Hey remember when you were an early-20's fuckup so untrustworthy that even the electric company wouldn't trust you with a month's worth of leccy without cash in hand up front?
Remember how that worked out after the clockwork pound-coin-operated electric meters?
Aye you'd walk down to the corner shop and give them a ten pound note and you got a number to put into the electric meter
I don't know if the shops were even getting a cut or if they just figured folk would buy a bag of Monster Munch when they went in to pay their bill
It's 2026 and I'm walking to the corner shop with a tenner in my pocket to get a receipt with a number on it that I can put into Itch.io to buy a janky action RPG about pissing on credit card CEOs
A system exists where amounts of money as low as one penny can be transferred from someone present to someone not present with zero fees and zero surveillance, and the payment terminals don't even require electricity
I know because I've seen barns full of the damn things
Granted they're usually on quarter mechs and will require a damn good scrub to remove the last lonely gumballs
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Dan are you seriously suggesting that we replace credit cards with old gumball machines full of numbers or QR codes in those little plastic eggs
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Do you have a BETTER IDEA
A finger on the monkey's paw curls over, and in 2027 you put a quarter in an old gumball machine and receive a QR code that you can scan with the gm.bls app to receive a gumball in the post with optional 2 day delivery available for $2.99
Take a video of yourself inserting a quarter and turning the handle, and within 45 minutes a gig worker will throw a gumball at your head as he drives past
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops