Nickeled and Dimed

But even accounting for those billions in interchange fees, study after study shows that cash is more burdensome than debit. If cash is so costly, why hasn’t there been an uprising against the greenback? Because the costs of cash, along with being difficult to quantify, are also practically invisible. The only time people are confronted with the price of paper money is when they pay ATM fees. Everything else—transportation, crime, opportunity costs—is hidden, baked into the prices we pay for goods and services.