[jryio]

Electricity, water, roads, bridges are all public infrastructure. Why should payments be any different.

Without summoning the decentralized block-based "currency" crowd, I would like to point out that in the entire lifespan of such technologies they never have received widespread institutional or legislative buy-in like this EU initiative to build a digital Euro.

While USDC and BTC have been used as defacto currencies in some countries there is truly no equivalent adoption in any meaningfully mature economic zone such as EU/NA/CN.

I welcome sovereign digital payments initiatives.

[ChocolateGod]

I would argue that physical currency transfer is already public infrastructure, in the terms of coins and notes that are physically given.

So it only makes sense that digital currency is too.

[samrus]

Absolutely agree. The idea that private corporation manage our digital payments is crazy if you ever imagine that happening to physical payments. Imagine if bank of america got to decide if the dollar bill your trying to use is too damaged. That should be between me, the recipient, and a public body

[qeternity]

> Electricity, water, roads, bridges are all public infrastructure. Why should payments be any different.

I think you fail to understand why these are public infrastructure.

Why should water be public infra but food is not?

[moooo99]

> Why should water be public infra but food is not?

The main reason why infrastructure of any kind (water, sewage, etc) is a public infrastructure - even in largely privatized economies - is that infrastructure is essentially a natural monopoly. Food on the other hand isn't and it can largely be traded as a commodity (which is, at least in my opinion, a major reason why our food system is so broken).

[apexalpha]

>Why should water be public infra but food is not?

The water pipes are public infra. They pump it into your house.

The more people that use the same system, the cheaper it can get. Drawing competing systems of water pipes to houses to let companies compete would simply drive up the cost for everyone.

Same with electricity, gas lines, sewage...

Water itself is not publicly owned. You can buy water in the store like food.

[hshdhdhj4444]

You should share your answer instead of posing a rhetorical question because the answer isn’t obvious at all and ranges across a large variety of options including food should be infrastructure.

[michaelt]

I think most governments do recognise food as both "strategic infrastructure" and absolutely vital to their re-election chances.

European governments govern food supply with cash subsidies to farmers, land use rules helping farmers, special immigration rules for agricultural labourers, special extra-low inheritance taxes for farmers, special subsidies for things like having hedges between fields, special low-tax fuel for farm equipment, different tax rates for different foodstuffs (bread vs cake vs wine vs beer), provision of super cheap water for irrigation, minimum price guarantees with governments buying up over-produced products, special border controls for fresh goods that can't be held up, special border controls for live animals, entire government departments for things like monitoring and controlling the spread of animal disease, rules on precisely what chemicals can be used, rules about things like chemical run-off into waterways, rules about animal welfare, rules about slaughterhouse conditions, rules about package materials, package sizes, package labels, rules about how much pork must be in a sausage for it to be called a pork sausage, rules about who can call their product 'champagne' or 'parmesan'.

If the payments industry was regulated like the food industry, it would be more regulated, not less.

[Ekaros]

Food from multiple suppliers is easy to put on trucks going to multiple shops using same roads. Road are workable shared access medium. Water really is not. Unless you deliver it in tanker trucks using roads.

Electricity itself is fungible in moment, so electricity can used shared access medium of grid. But similarly it makes little sense to have multiple roads in densely build areas. So both roads and water pipes end up as natural monopolies in build up areas.

[afiori]

Food should be public infrastructure, and the subsidies every country gives to farmers are a good indication of that.

Not all food but produce, bread, milk, infant foods, flour, rice and other cereals being sorta price controlled the way water/electricity is on most places would benefit mostly everyone

[samus]

Medicine should count too. And a lot of other things that we often realize to be essential only in a crisis situation. But I'm sure GP didn't intend their list to be exclusive.

[goodpoint]

...because food is not infrastructure.

[Saline9515]

Electricity, water, roads and bridges are natural monopolies.

Payments aren't and there is no reason for the State to monopolize it. Especially given the EU poor track record on fostering innovation. The EU bureaucrats will "regulate" it to the bone, increasing compliance costs for processors and mass surveillance. We'll be back to the start.

[samus]

In an age where card payments are ubiquitous, being suddenly cut off from VISA/MasterCard networks can severely disrupt a country's economy. Especially if it heavily relies on tourism.

[isodev]

Some corrections:

- The EU is not a state, it's a governance body composed of representatives from individual member states. Every state is responsible for implementing their take on the directive.

- "EU poor track record on fostering innovation" - many things you use online have been researched and conceptualised in the EU. Even if they go elsewhere for funding, don't mistake where "innovation" happens and where it gets packaged by VC money for sale and enschitification.

- compliance costs: I think that's only expensive for companies who intend to to sell or otherwise do something shady with user data. Remember, not collecting data makes you instantly compliant with zero cost.

[anhner]

> there is no reason for the State to monopolize it

except relying on a foreign actor for the economy is a security risk?

[_DeadFred_]

How many non-government physical currencies are there in your country? I'm guessing if there is a legitimate government electronic currency most alternatives will fade away which will be the best rebuttal to your argument.

The public can hold government rules for surveillance in check, whereas they don't have that option for private payment systems.

[zihotki]

Payments aren't but issuing currency is. State doesn't monopolize the payments. State creates a regulation and common standard across the EU. It's the banks who would do the payments, not the state, and for that banks would receive a standard fee so you as a consumer always know how much you pay for the service.

[jryio]

There is already. Almost every country on earth has single state controlled currency.

Fiat currency is already a natural monopoly on payments.

Imagine if every time you wanted to pay for a train ride you had to put your money into an envelope, mail it to the United States, and wait for it to come back. That's VISA.

[eviks]

X, Y, Z are not public infrastructure, why should payments be any different?

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Internet should be too, and yet here we are