GUWonder

Corner delis in NYC haven't recently had a cash access/shortage problem hitting tourists and locals alike. [And when I use cash in the city at the corner delis, it's almost mostly the $100 USD notes for sub-$20 purchases.] If they do, people can count on the nearest ATMs having small denomination bills and probably no long lines when they need smaller notes. That kind of thing still doesn't hold as consistently true in Delhi or in Bombay. So foregoing purchases in India due to cash scarcity is a more frequent issue than in the US at this point, even as it's not as bad this week in India as it was a month ago.

Also, the financial hit for foreign visitors to make small denomination cash withdrawals from ATMs may be relatively much higher in India than outside India. It's such for many that they may be better off converting say $10 into rupees at a staffed bank/forex counter than to use an ATM to withdraw the equivalent in rupees -- that is if assuming any difference in time to get the desired denomination rupees is valued at close to zero (a risky assumption).

Small denomination note shortages causing consumers to forego purchases was more or less very unusual in major Indian cities until this fall with the demonetization. Indian retailers/vendors with smaller denomination note shortages used to be able to more reliably count on nearby vendors to give them small denomination notes (on informal credit) to help facilitate the clearing of market transactions; however, with demonetization, retailer/vendor cooperation with one another in this way has dropped and consumers have been the worse off for it too as have the neighborhood market sellers. Hopefully that good faith credit which marketplace neighbors had for each other hasn't been given a death knell by this governmental move; if it has, consumers and others in India will be the worse off for it for years to come when tryin to use large denomination notes.