What Happens When Companies Will No Longer Accept Cash?

Apple, in an apparent bid to deny product shortages and hacking for the holidays, said yesterday that they'd not allow more than 2 iPhone sales per customer. More interesting is that they will not be allowing customers to use greenbacks to make their iPhone purchases, only credit cards. One assumes that a debit card with a credit card logo may be used as well. It brings up an interesting point. Are we on our way to the all cash society that so many have suspected?
There are already many things that you can't buy with actual cash, and I'm sure that Uncle Sam would love to rid themselves of the hassle and expense of printing money. Of course we'd get no kind of tax relief even if they were saving money, they'd just find somewhere else to spend it, I'm sure. Many government officials would love to rid the world of cash for the law enforcement benefits it would provide. It would be much harder to launder money (but the really large Criminal enterprises would still do it), make illegal drug and weapons transactions, not report income for tax purposes, and so on. And you can just forget about that extra $50 your wife doesn't know about...

Many banks would love to only make electronic transactions and take their little electronic cut from each. That would streamline their operations, minimize their labor costs, allow smaller branch offices, and reduce product (money) handling and distribution expenses. The cash machine wouldn't be, a cash machine, that is. When visiting the bank, you'd just bring in your pay check, if you don't have electronic deposit, and they'd fill your debit card, just as they do now. There would be no option for getting cash back.

The reality is that most companies will never want to get rid of cash unless they have no choice. Businesses, Apple and a few other companies (Macy's) notwithstanding, will want to maximize their payment options in order to maximize revenue. The exception to this is when it costs more to make the transaction than the incremental revenue the added transaction generates for the business. In most cases, maximizing payment options will allow the business to appeal to the widest range of customers, and thus generate the maximum amount of total revenue. So, if it's only up to the business community, don't count on cash going away any time soon, unless cash transactions are rendered prohibitively expensive. If that day ever comes, look out, dodos will be using cash to line their nests.