In reply to Rampikino:
> It's kind of why I said that it was not quite the same thing.
> But ultimately what is being "imposed"?
> At the moment you have a variety of ways to pay, but they are limited in their own way. You can't go to your local supermarket and pay with gold can you?
That's true as far as it goes, but I wonder if you're missing the point a little? There is a civil liberties aspect to the cashless revolution as Ridge indicates. To take part in the cashless economy means handing over control to a set of intermediaries who broker your payment - your bank, the Visa system and the like. That gives them power over your ability to spend and survive, not to mention providing them with a huge amount of personal data. The former isn't a problem for many people but will be for anyone on the margins, or who wishes to subsist outside of the mainstream. The latter should concern us all.
Have a look at this for an in-depth examination of the implications of going cashless:
http://tech.newstatesman.com/feature/war-on-cash
(If you can't be bothered, here's a small flavour:
"The shadow economy is not just ‘poor’ people. It’s potentially anybody who hasn’t internalised the correct state-corporate narrative of normality, and anyone seeking a lifestyle outside of the mainstream. The future presented by self-styled innovation gurus has no scope for flexible, unpredictable or invisible people. They represent analogue backwardness. The future is a world of endless consumer choice built upon an inescapable digital uniformity of automated rules, a matrix outside which you can neither exist nor think.")