Natalia Paruz, who is an extrahangers serenade with her musical saw, is not receiving the advice she used to.
That was clear on a recent Thursday at the Herald Square station in downtown Manhattan, its golden tip cube only showed a couple of dollar bills and some coins in the middle of a three -hour performance during the afternoon fever.
“I have so many people who come to me and tell me: ‘I love your music, I want to give, but I’m sorry, I’ve been effective,” said Paruz, who calls herself the lady of the Sierra.
That led her to show QR codes for Venmo and Paypal digital payment applications so that travelers send their digital advice.
The decrease in cash payments is changing business for street artists. With cash in their jars or guitar boxes decreasing, magicians and musicians are resorting to digital payments to earn money by acting.
Almost half of us adults never use effective in a typical week, according to Capital One. Almost 70% of Americans used cash for “few or no” purchases in the last year. A large majority, 87%, of all US transactions.
The cash still reigns among major and low -income Americans, said Yale David Argente economist. Americans 55 years old or more use effective almost twice as much as the rate of young people aged 18 to 24, according to Federal Reserve data.
There is no large -scale data on how people in the United States pay the street artists, although the Federal Reserve indicates that they are more likely to use cash for payments below $ 25. Paruz and other artists say that Busking still attracts hard money. Paruz said that 70% of his advice still come from cash. New York Blues keyboardist Gabriel Aldort, who plays in the city’s underground and Ferry terminals, said only 5% of his tips are digital.
ALDORT lays “huge” QR codes for applications such as Cashappp and Venmo, but says that his subway audience is not used much of them.
“I think that the vast majority of New Yorkers, even telling transitory, tourists, have effective,” he said.
But artists have noticed that an increasing amount of their advice comes from payment applications. Chadd “Wacky Chad” Deitz, an acrobatics comedian based in Boston who makes Pogo Sticks squeaks in the cities of Northeast, has been experiencing with digital payments for 12 years. Now think 30% to 40% of your advice in that way.
“If you don’t accept digital payments, then you won’t survive,” said Deitz.
Digital payment applications aim to be more “reliable, family and easy to use” forms for concert workers to win money, said the general manager of Venmo, Alexis Sowa, in a statement. An cash application spokesman did not respond to a comment request.
But although the artists that artists say that digital tips are convenient, have also affected the public’s tip amount, and not necessarily for the better, Danny Tangello said, an itinerant magician that occurs in the western states. He has found that the cash tips are often higher than the digital tips.
Digital payments also lack visibility: Deitz believes that people are encouraged to fall into cash or change when they see others do.
“I think there is a little psychology of people walking forward and say: ‘Thank you’, because they could see the QR code from far away, they could have inclined mid -program and then get away,” said Deitz. “But then the people who did not pay to see those people get away, and leave, ‘well, I guess it’s acceptable to get away.'”
For Paruz, digital payments make the busking less personal: the public maintains its distance instead of reaching it and falling into a tip. Cash “Fomentted Communication,” he said. “People would stop and talk to us.”
Applications such as Venmo and Cash also take a small money cut received for goods and services, which adds when artists process large amounts of digital payments.
An alternative is Busk.co, a non -profit and specific payment site of Busker that allows artists to receive advice through Apple Pay, Google Pay and Credit Card. The filmmaker based in Berlin, Nick Broad, began building the site in 2012 while working in a documentary about street artists. He says that digital payments help ensure that buses receive what they are worth.
“It’s as easy to give a million dollars as $ 1 on a payment platform without cash,” Broad said. “You might think that it is worth $ 89, $ 10, $ 15, whatever, which is not the same when you get effective from your wallet and you are looking for change.”
But Broad says that fewer artists have taken Busk.co in the United States compared to countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. He says that applications such as Venmo or Cash Apply are more conventional here.
Although digital payments have helped buses compensate for a decrease in cash tips, artists are still fighting. Paruz says that he earns less in cash and digital advice than when he began acting in the 1990s, while Deitz has reached the minimum of all time for payment in multiple actions this year.
In general terms, Americans are tired of tips. A survey this spring found that more than 40% of Americans think that “the inflection culture is out of control.” That has meant that many tip workers in other industries have seen that their advice is immersed.
In addition, with the growing housing and food costs, if the public wants to save money, “they will see it to a street artist,” said Deitz.
That means that artists like him do not care how they pay them, whenever they pay. A advice of $ 2, said Deitz, will not “hold a white picket fence and two children.”
However, for the Magician Tangelo, the cash has an additional benefit.
“I have a trick where money appears inside the fruit,” he said. “You can’t do that with the application in cash or venmo.”
