I do not support cash based UBI.
I want to lay out my case in three points and I want to discuss why I may be wrong.
Argument 1: Cash-based UBI is less effective than Service-based UBI
I firmly believe that if a person receives cash they can make decisions which do not necessarily support their best outcomes. When I say this most individuals assume I am referring to gambling, drug use, or other forms of “degeneracy”, but I am not. I am referring to the misappropriation of funds through social interactions (i.e. filial loans) which may not prove to be wise; if you get a check to cover your daycare bill but see that your sibling needs some money you may make the decision to take the funds given to you for an express purpose and spend them on their troubles. This sounds good because it sounds helpful but if, in theory, everyone is getting the same cash value this would indicate a possible problem either with spending or with lifestyle management.
I therefore believe that people are firmly better off being given the resources through direct payments for the resources themselves since not only are they indifferent to the outcomes of those payments (the daycare is free but they never see the money so there is no guilt about choosing to give or not give the money) but they are also guaranteed the necessary service without fear of their own behaviors. Many people I know who are not wealthy but do make a healthy salary essentially give away money they don't have because they feel that the less fortunate should have more; this is not a bad thing but it doesn't help anyone in the long run economically because it's a tiny bandage over a gaping wound.
Guaranteeing the goods or services solves that problem as well and allows for wealth to grow for those who would be silent cash martyrs.
Argument 2: Pareto Principles Create Eventual Problems
There is no doubt that some of us are better at handling money through investments and general decision making than others. This means that there is always a wealthiest person in the room and so even if you were to take average people there would be a distribution that shows that about 5% of them know how to handle money better, on average, with a real return, than 95% of the room. Giving cash only makes this disparity grow, rather than shrink, because again the premise of the individual who figures out something and rises above their situation with the money in tow is what generated the sharp income gap to begin with.
The reason why I think that the pareto distribution is so important to acknowledge is because it's natural; billionaires were an eventuality rather than a mere consequence of a corrupt system because no matter what economic system you attempt to create there will be a centralized or concentrated place of wealth and that wealth, even if properly distributed, will, over time, concentrate again. This problem must be addressed directly which is why I believe that services and goods that are basic being provided cash-free are significantly more useful than the distribution of real cash. While one may pose (correctly) that this greatly limits choice I believe that given what we know about human psychology and behavioral finance the overload of choice itself is not particular healthy anyway.
Argument 3: Cash Limits Freedom More Than Realized
No matter how a currency is backed the very nature of it naturally reduces the valuation of one's work to credits and social points. You absolutely lose scope of the importance of your job based on this system which in turn is naturally demoralizing; giving cash-based UBI generates a series of considerations that make people genuinely feel bad about the work they do either because they make too little money or too much which doesn't align with what they think is a fair value. Consider the idea that if you were to grow one plant in your house, common to your region to the point where you could go pick it, and take it to market and someone offer you the entirety of their wealth you'd feel that was an unfair deal.
Fairness matters a lot to humans. I've personally done experiments where I've given people free money and they felt uncomfortable for it; this aligns with the research that refers directly to fairness including infamous experiments where a person can offer an amount to another person and if they accept everyone gets whatever was offered and if they decline no one gets anything and so forth. Money itself as a concept is toxic therefore to human fairness; not only does it create a broken desire to find equilibrium in a system that has none but it strongly distorts sociological and economic value by making individuals who are effectively leading public services less valued, for no rational reason, than those who are handling public finances for instance.
If you agree that the teachers are worth more than the hedge fund managers then it is hard to propose that their pay doesn't impact their performance; what I mean by this is that being low paid in society equates being worthless which obviously is untrue. Cash therefore limits human society by being a shackle on the mind and undermining the core values of one's undertakings. This is not to be mistaken for an argument about stealing labor; I've no means by which to express how that ideal doesn't really work for me but wealth as a means of leverage is a constant state (hence pareto) so the same person who is an employee at a large institution can be just as oppressive by nature if they were a small business owner and so forth and so on.
That's it. Now tell me why you would prefer cash rather than services.