Editor’s Corner:
SOON WE’LL ALL BE ROYALTY

The way e-cash is evolving it won’t be long before we can walk around without any cash in our pockets, not even a cash card. Just imagine going to a jewelry store to buy a gold watch. When you want to pay, the shopkeeper hands you a device you hold before your eye to have your iris identified. Your bank now knows who you are, you authorize funds to be applied to the jeweler’s account, put on the watch and continue on your way. Isn’t that how Prince Charles goes about town? Without a coin in his pocket?

This morning I tried out a demo of the Wildfire (1-800-Wildfire) and heard this friendly robot make calls, read messages, and set up conference calls. Now there’s a regal touch to being on the road, commanding your never-tiring "electronic assistant" to handle all these details.

Recently the New York City Transit Authority introduced New Yorkers to a new e-cash option: the Metro Gold Card which gives free transfers between subway and bus rides never available before. There have been big budget ad campaigns to entice people to use these cards. And to my amazement I have noticed in less than three weeks after the launch date, that everyone who boarded several buses I have taken used a Metro card. That is an outstanding success rate. (Of course I can’t put riding buses in New York in the royalty category — yet dispensing with coins is very gentrifying!)

But there’s a dark side to e-cash, as a woman wrote in a letter to the New York Times — the ease with which the MTA can now impose a fare hike. Once the subway token is phased out, she noted, the price of a ride could change overnight.

I guess technology can take us in either direction. It can free us of drudgery and provide new freedoms, or, sadly, it can enslave or victimize us. But I’d have to admit, the regal rushes we might experience as e-cash users are momentary and not as permanent as the royal blood that determined who was or is king.