The things do not fallback but rather propagate causing an avalanche. The only alternative to electronic payments which always boil down to some form of VISA or Mastercard card, is cash.
Cash has to be dispensed first, and ATM's run on Windows, and so do banking terminals at bank branches.
I do not have the information about what happened to the ATM's during the meltdown on Friday, but the bank branches where CrowdStrike had been deployed were rendered inoperable.
You withdraw cash every single time you need it?! The point of cash is that you don't ping the systems on every transaction and you decide how frequently it's withdrawn.
Answering the question with a question: do you withdraw hundreds or thousands in your local currency and keep it all under the mattress for that random black day?
Cash has a habit of running out from time to time, most annoyingly when it is needed and the amount of cash on hand is $0.50 – $1 short, hence the universal uptake of electronic payments. There is no going back.
