One of the reasons why the cashless society caught on is because there are no transaction fees when people use a bank card. I can go months without using cash.
There are absolutely transaction fees (also called processing fees) involved, but they're usually paid by the merchant. That's why many shopowners usually post required minimum purchase amounts for credit cards (i.e. you must buy $10 or more in order to pay with credit card).
Cash also has handling costs for the merchant, like hiring a money transporter or needing an employee or two to take the money to the bank (presumably during bookable hours)
But those costs are much less than the network fees since they're done in bulk instead of per transaction. Credit card processing fees are ~3%, so for every $1k in sales, you pay ~$30, whereas going to the bank is a fixed cost and merely takes time and can be scheduled when it's cheapest to do. So dealing with cash scales well since it has a fixed cost, whereas credit/debit gets more expensive (compared to cash) as revenue increases.
But is it really bad? Generally countries don't go to war over spying.
If the US or China or anyone really can listen in to mobile networks I'm fine with that. State secrets shouldn't be discussed over an open phone line anyway.
