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> If either party falls out of favour with the bank, they can't do business with each other. For an immediately ready example, I present Paypal Seller/Buyer di

> If either party falls out of favour with the bank, they can't do business with each other. For an immediately ready example, I present Paypal Seller/Buyer disputes on eBay. I'm always a little tickled by tech people hyping the idea of a cashless society. Don't we all hate Paypal?

ericd 10y ago
Pretty much. I tried using my account from France, and now my account is locked, and there are a bunch of hoops to jump through to restore access. No thanks.
- kolinko 10y ago
  It's a matter of better governance though. Ideally, anti-trust government entities should monitor how companies like PayPal operate.
  - petre 10y ago
    I don't trust the governments and nanny states. Does that qualify as anti-trust? Better governance is lack of it, lack of corrupt government officials that work hand in hand with the financial institutions that sponsor them to take our freedoms away for their mutual benefit.
  - __jal 10y ago
    So, "ideally", we'd 1) ban cash, so that humans need permission to interact when an exchange of value is involved; 2) improve the oversight of the permission-givers, so that the permission-giver-watchers are less arbitrary and annoying, in order to fix the problem that never existed before point 1. Other than lining the pockets of poor, underfed bankers and giving busy-bodies veto power over our interactions with others, what problem are we solving again?
    - jnunoferreira 10y ago
      I believe that the main reasonable concern with large transactions of money is mostly buyer/seller protection, for large sums of money. When buying, say, a house/car and spending well over €/£/$ 3k (typical over-3k transaction), it is customary to have a series of formalities/assurances so that both parties are protected against fraud. These formalities require the kind of proof (that money exchanged hands) that generally only banks can provide. I fully agree that this places a big amount of power in the banks' hands, but what alternatives are there? (I'm honestly asking, are banks the lesser/only evil here?) I'm not seeing cryptocurrency fixing this, but maybe it is possible. From my limited understanding, if transactions were mapped to some contract, it would void some anonymity of the system, and it probably wouldn't be possible to get money back in case of fraud anyway, so there's that.
    - ksec 10y ago
      Do we have anything that provide the best of both world?
wolfgke 10y ago
> Don't we all hate Paypal? Also don't forget that Peter Thiel got really rich by selling Paypal to eBay in 2002. After that in 2003 he founded Palantir Technologies - a company that produces surveillance software for the three letter agencies. I often like to say that getting lots of money does not make you a bad person, but brings your true character traits to light.
- gpawl 10y ago
  Palantir is a data analysis system, not a data collection system.
  - nfbush 10y ago
    Doesn't mean it cannot be surveillance software
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    A data analysis system primarily used by cops and spies that's also integrated with the spies' collection system.
azernik 10y ago
Or, for an even scarier example, the way that payment processors have forced FetLife to restrict the kinds of (legal!) fetishes people are allowed to discuss on the site.

ericd 10y ago

Pretty much. I tried using my account from France, and now my account is locked, and there are a bunch of hoops to jump through to restore access. No thanks.

kolinko 10y ago
It's a matter of better governance though. Ideally, anti-trust government entities should monitor how companies like PayPal operate.
- petre 10y ago
  I don't trust the governments and nanny states. Does that qualify as anti-trust? Better governance is lack of it, lack of corrupt government officials that work hand in hand with the financial institutions that sponsor them to take our freedoms away for their mutual benefit.
- __jal 10y ago
  So, "ideally", we'd 1) ban cash, so that humans need permission to interact when an exchange of value is involved; 2) improve the oversight of the permission-givers, so that the permission-giver-watchers are less arbitrary and annoying, in order to fix the problem that never existed before point 1. Other than lining the pockets of poor, underfed bankers and giving busy-bodies veto power over our interactions with others, what problem are we solving again?
  - jnunoferreira 10y ago
    I believe that the main reasonable concern with large transactions of money is mostly buyer/seller protection, for large sums of money. When buying, say, a house/car and spending well over €/£/$ 3k (typical over-3k transaction), it is customary to have a series of formalities/assurances so that both parties are protected against fraud. These formalities require the kind of proof (that money exchanged hands) that generally only banks can provide. I fully agree that this places a big amount of power in the banks' hands, but what alternatives are there? (I'm honestly asking, are banks the lesser/only evil here?) I'm not seeing cryptocurrency fixing this, but maybe it is possible. From my limited understanding, if transactions were mapped to some contract, it would void some anonymity of the system, and it probably wouldn't be possible to get money back in case of fraud anyway, so there's that.
  - ksec 10y ago
    Do we have anything that provide the best of both world?

wolfgke 10y ago

> Don't we all hate Paypal? Also don't forget that Peter Thiel got really rich by selling Paypal to eBay in 2002. After that in 2003 he founded Palantir Technologies - a company that produces surveillance software for the three letter agencies. I often like to say that getting lots of money does not make you a bad person, but brings your true character traits to light.

gpawl 10y ago
Palantir is a data analysis system, not a data collection system.
- nfbush 10y ago
  Doesn't mean it cannot be surveillance software
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  A data analysis system primarily used by cops and spies that's also integrated with the spies' collection system.

azernik 10y ago

Or, for an even scarier example, the way that payment processors have forced FetLife to restrict the kinds of (legal!) fetishes people are allowed to discuss on the site.