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Your digital wallet gives up consumer protections such as chargebacks which is a regression in consumer benefits. It is also accepted approximately nowhere, wit

Your digital wallet gives up consumer protections such as chargebacks which is a regression in consumer benefits. It is also accepted approximately nowhere, with very little incentive for merchants to add support. Apple Pay and related solutions offer "tamper proof isolation of private keys" while still offering all of the consumer protections of cards, plus broad and growing acceptance via compatibility with standard contactless card terminals and POS systems.

mrb 9y ago
«gives up consumer protections such as chargebacks» True. On the flip side, most merchants are honest so chargebacks are rarely needed. It's a different tradeoff: credit cards open you to ID theft, which is a lot more prevalent than the need for a chargeback, so personally I prefer Bitcoin. «accepted approximately nowhere» Any new technology, such as Bitcoin or Apple Pay, has to start from zero. So it is an irrelevant argument anyway. Today Bitcoin is in fact accepted at about 160,000 merchants. «very little incentive for merchants to add support» Not true. The biggest, and arguably most important, incentive for merchants to accept Bitcoin is that it allows them to avoid chargeback fraud (payments are irreversible.) Apple Pay & similar technologies are a huge step up from plain credit/debit cards. Really, it's important to recognize this. But they still have multiple drawbacks. For example, (1) it has transaction limits, (2) it isn't usable for person-to-person payments (eg. paying back lunch money to a coworker), (3) purchases are still subject to authorization so in a way you don't have 100% control of your own money (eg. the system could accidentally flag the transaction as fraudulent and prevent you from buying something.)
- stordoff 9y ago
  > On the flip side, most merchants are honest so chargebacks are rarely needed. You also lose the convenience factor of that I don't need to care if a merchant is honest. If it's a merchant I haven't heard of it, I can just make the order without worrying too much (providing there are no obvious red flags) as there's very little risk. On the other hand, Bitcoin's irreversibly would mean I'd have to look into the company before ordering, and I'd probably avoid smaller merchants as a result. > it allows them to avoid chargeback fraud (payments are irreversible.) How big of an issue is this in practice? My gut reaction is most customers are honest so it's not big enough incentive to add another payment flow, but I've got no idea if that is accurate or not.
  - mrb 9y ago
    «If it's a merchant I haven't heard of it...» You are right. However, examine your pattern of purchases: if you are like the typical consumer, most of your purchases are made at the same merchants that you have been shopping at for years and already trust. «How big of an issue is this in practice» It's a huge issue in some markets (eg. online shopping.) I can't remember the stats but CC fraud actually has bankrupted some merchants because it is so prevalent. Dishonest clients are a lot more common than dishonest merchants. It's easy to understand why: by being dishonest, a merchant damages its reputation instantly, however if someone attempts to use a stolen CC and gets flagged, he would simply try another CC number or try another merchant.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- abalone 9y ago
  This is just poor reasoning. There would be more dishonest merchants if the possibility of chargebacks ceased to exist. Your reasoning is like saying look how safe this town is, guess we don’t need police anymore. And to say that virtually no merchant acceptance[1] is an “irrelevant argument” is laughable. Merchants have little incentive to spend money and effort to add support for an obscure payment method that virtually no one uses and likely never will, due to its reduction in consumer benefits. Apple Pay piggybacked the rollout of contactless terminals which gave it support at millions of locations out of the gate, and fully supports standard consumer protections and reward programs. Finally, “person-to-person payments” is completely irrelevant to person-to-business transactions. But even in that corner Apple Pay will very soon be superior to any other method for “paying back lunch money to a coworker”. They are rolling out P2P this fall which supports all debit cards, is free, instantaneous, and you can spend the money right away at any Apple Pay merchant or send it to your bank account. That cuts your argument down to just avoiding transaction limits and authorization at merchants you trust. Extremely narrow use case, so no way there’s going to be enough consumer interest to drive merchant adoption. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/bitcoin-acceptance-among-retailers-is-low-and-getting-lower https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/bitcoin-a...
  - mrb 9y ago
    «There would be more dishonest merchants if the possibility of chargebacks ceased to exist» Yes there will probably be a minor uptick in merchants being dishonest. But I doubt it will be as bad as you make it to be. Many other factors push merchants to stay honest: legal repercussions, damaged reputation, etc. «And to say that virtually no merchant acceptance[1] is an “irrelevant argument” is laughable» Irrelevant was the wrong word. I meant illogical. Your argument is like saying in the early days of Blu-ray that "no one will buy Blu-ray discs because no one has Blu-ray players". «Merchants have little incentive» Second time you say it, second time you are wrong. I already pointed out their main (largest!) incentive to accept BTC is to avoid chargeback fraud. This fraud is a major problem for merchants. They can go bankrupt (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk&t=45m0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk&t=45m0s) or be drawn into costly suits with no way to recover the money (https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5r9nqi/credit_card_chargebacks_for_100000_dollars/ https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5r9nqi/credit_...). Apple Pay P2P will be riddled with roadblocks. For starters most people will not be able to use it as it requires a $500 device (iPhone). I guarantee you there will be transaction limits, delays in access to funds, etc. All things that Bitcoin solves.

mrb 9y ago

«gives up consumer protections such as chargebacks» True. On the flip side, most merchants are honest so chargebacks are rarely needed. It's a different tradeoff: credit cards open you to ID theft, which is a lot more prevalent than the need for a chargeback, so personally I prefer Bitcoin. «accepted approximately nowhere» Any new technology, such as Bitcoin or Apple Pay, has to start from zero. So it is an irrelevant argument anyway. Today Bitcoin is in fact accepted at about 160,000 merchants. «very little incentive for merchants to add support» Not true. The biggest, and arguably most important, incentive for merchants to accept Bitcoin is that it allows them to avoid chargeback fraud (payments are irreversible.) Apple Pay & similar technologies are a huge step up from plain credit/debit cards. Really, it's important to recognize this. But they still have multiple drawbacks. For example, (1) it has transaction limits, (2) it isn't usable for person-to-person payments (eg. paying back lunch money to a coworker), (3) purchases are still subject to authorization so in a way you don't have 100% control of your own money (eg. the system could accidentally flag the transaction as fraudulent and prevent you from buying something.)

stordoff 9y ago
> On the flip side, most merchants are honest so chargebacks are rarely needed. You also lose the convenience factor of that I don't need to care if a merchant is honest. If it's a merchant I haven't heard of it, I can just make the order without worrying too much (providing there are no obvious red flags) as there's very little risk. On the other hand, Bitcoin's irreversibly would mean I'd have to look into the company before ordering, and I'd probably avoid smaller merchants as a result. > it allows them to avoid chargeback fraud (payments are irreversible.) How big of an issue is this in practice? My gut reaction is most customers are honest so it's not big enough incentive to add another payment flow, but I've got no idea if that is accurate or not.
- mrb 9y ago
  «If it's a merchant I haven't heard of it...» You are right. However, examine your pattern of purchases: if you are like the typical consumer, most of your purchases are made at the same merchants that you have been shopping at for years and already trust. «How big of an issue is this in practice» It's a huge issue in some markets (eg. online shopping.) I can't remember the stats but CC fraud actually has bankrupted some merchants because it is so prevalent. Dishonest clients are a lot more common than dishonest merchants. It's easy to understand why: by being dishonest, a merchant damages its reputation instantly, however if someone attempts to use a stolen CC and gets flagged, he would simply try another CC number or try another merchant.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
abalone 9y ago
This is just poor reasoning. There would be more dishonest merchants if the possibility of chargebacks ceased to exist. Your reasoning is like saying look how safe this town is, guess we don’t need police anymore. And to say that virtually no merchant acceptance[1] is an “irrelevant argument” is laughable. Merchants have little incentive to spend money and effort to add support for an obscure payment method that virtually no one uses and likely never will, due to its reduction in consumer benefits. Apple Pay piggybacked the rollout of contactless terminals which gave it support at millions of locations out of the gate, and fully supports standard consumer protections and reward programs. Finally, “person-to-person payments” is completely irrelevant to person-to-business transactions. But even in that corner Apple Pay will very soon be superior to any other method for “paying back lunch money to a coworker”. They are rolling out P2P this fall which supports all debit cards, is free, instantaneous, and you can spend the money right away at any Apple Pay merchant or send it to your bank account. That cuts your argument down to just avoiding transaction limits and authorization at merchants you trust. Extremely narrow use case, so no way there’s going to be enough consumer interest to drive merchant adoption. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/bitcoin-acceptance-among-retailers-is-low-and-getting-lower https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/bitcoin-a...
- mrb 9y ago
  «There would be more dishonest merchants if the possibility of chargebacks ceased to exist» Yes there will probably be a minor uptick in merchants being dishonest. But I doubt it will be as bad as you make it to be. Many other factors push merchants to stay honest: legal repercussions, damaged reputation, etc. «And to say that virtually no merchant acceptance[1] is an “irrelevant argument” is laughable» Irrelevant was the wrong word. I meant illogical. Your argument is like saying in the early days of Blu-ray that "no one will buy Blu-ray discs because no one has Blu-ray players". «Merchants have little incentive» Second time you say it, second time you are wrong. I already pointed out their main (largest!) incentive to accept BTC is to avoid chargeback fraud. This fraud is a major problem for merchants. They can go bankrupt (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk&t=45m0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk&t=45m0s) or be drawn into costly suits with no way to recover the money (https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5r9nqi/credit_card_chargebacks_for_100000_dollars/ https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5r9nqi/credit_...). Apple Pay P2P will be riddled with roadblocks. For starters most people will not be able to use it as it requires a $500 device (iPhone). I guarantee you there will be transaction limits, delays in access to funds, etc. All things that Bitcoin solves.