Some things you can no longer do with cash: Buy a well-loaded hot dog at any of the five Devil Dawgs eateries in and around Chicago. Order a Vermont Pale Lager from Hill Farmstead Brewery’s taproom in Greensboro Bend, Vermont.

Attend the annual BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach, California, or buy food, drinks or merchandise there. Purchase admission to the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York, or to many other sites maintained by the National Park Service.

The park service’s expanding no-cash policy exasperated several would-be visitors enough for them to sue in federal court earlier this year.

Anne Ronan, 70, a retired attorney, walks around Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, a few times a week. After the 3-mile-plus trek, she sometimes stops at one of two local cafes. Neither accepts payment in cash.

Nor do a restaurant and a cocktail lounge nearby on Grand Avenue. “I don’t find it unusual anymore,” Ronan said.

To buy coffee and a croissant, she routinely carries a credit card in her pocket. She doesn’t find that bothersome, but “as a public policy, it’s not a good thing.”

Jay Zagorsky, an economist at the Boston University Questrom School of Business and author of a forthcoming book called “The Power of Cash,” agrees.

Though the United States is not yet a cashless society, “this is picking up speed all over the world,” he said.

Some no-cash practices date to contagion fears after the outbreak of COVID-19; others are intended to discourage robberies.

“It has deterred a lot of crime,” said Devil Dawgs CEO Dena Bachenheimer. The chain went cashless in 2021.

But such policies disadvantage a number of groups, including low-income people who don’t have bank accounts, people who have accounts but don’t qualify for credit or debit cards, the homeless, immigrants in the country without legal status and older adults.

Consumers of any age can encounter problems with electronic payments, despite their convenience and ubiquity. (Although every bill declares it is “legal tender for all debts, public and private,” there is no federal law mandating that private businesses accept cash.)

One example: “We’re seeing an increase in major natural weather disasters, and they take down the cashless society,” Zagorsky said. “It depends on electricity, telecommunication networks and secure computer networks,” all threatened by floods, hurricanes and fires.

Moreover, “the idea that we have trustworthy computer networks is farcical,” he added. “In a cashless society, mobsters from Thailand or Kenya can attack you.” At least with cash, “a thief has to be within striking distance.”

Researchers have reported for years that consumers spend more when they’re using credit and debit cards, which obscure what economists call the “pain of paying.”

Tapping or swiping, gratifying consumers immediately while delaying the eventual pang, feels less real than handing over cash.

“It’s too easy to make a purchase with your phone or credit card — you just touch it,” said Ruth Susswein, the director of consumer protection at Consumer Action, the national educational and advocacy organization. “It’s like magic, until the bill arrives.”

Privacy concerns, too, cut across age differences.

“If I give you a $5 bill and you give me a sandwich, no one is the wiser,” said Jay Stanley, the senior policy analyst at the ACLU.

By contrast, the middlemen facilitating digital transactions — credit card companies, banks, the tech giants behind mobile apps — “surveil the hell out of everything we do,” then sell consumers’ data, he said.