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Gotta love how he begins saying he was bashing the tech in December(when the market was on the rise) just so that no one can tell him "everyone bashes bitcoin w

Gotta love how he begins saying he was bashing the tech in December(when the market was on the rise) just so that no one can tell him "everyone bashes bitcoin when it's going down". Venmo is centralized. I cannot use it as I live in a third world county with no access to it. Paypal sucks. It takes 5% from the seller and it has power over your money, they can(AND HAVE IN THE PAST) seize it whenever they want. I had my salary confiscated once over a mistake in the bank. I telecomute, working for a company overseas, and the fees are stupidly high. I find your lack of vision disturbing.

fhood 9y ago
You know, paypal may well suck. I have never used it as a developer or a seller, but I really, really, like to have it as an option when I am purchasing something from some rinky dink website that doesn't look like it has been updated int 10 years.
- phasnox 9y ago
  Yeahp it sucks for the seller mostly.
- aianus 9y ago
  Sucks for the buyer too. Ever tried to use PayPal (or credit cards for that matter) to buy something from the US with a Canadian shipping address while you're living in Vietnam with a Vietnamese IP address? I did; I got fraud blocked.
  - fhood 9y ago
    Haha, no, I am one of those annoyingly generic users. But honestly I kind of expect them to block that. That seems pretty suspicious at first glance.
    - webmaven 9y ago
      Why suspicious? Simply because it is out of the ordinary? Fraud detection systems basically have most of their feedback mechanisms geared toward reducing - even eliminating - false negatives, and very little attention comparatively given to false positives as long as no individual merchant notices a measurable drop in sales. Meanwhile, a hapless individual might have many of their purchase attempts foiled as false positives, and be left with little to no recourse (well, I suppose their complaint on Twitter may go viral, that does seem to work occasionally with ebay).
- emodendroket 9y ago
  One of my credit cards has a thing where you can create a throwaway card number with a limit of your choosing. Which is a great idea I wish more cards gave you.
nickpsecurity 9y ago
His point was these technologies solve people's problems very well. People doing blockchains could just work on improved versions of proven tech that have fewer problems. For Venmo, you might make changes to facilitate more access. He mentioned credit unions to point out different types of institutions can be more fair. A non-profit version of Paypal with chartered protections against high rates or unfair seizures might solve that problem. Another precaution at individual level is spread your assets a bit so you're not overreliant on a bank. I do that with a reserve of cash, a checking account, and several credit cards I pay off quick. I've never had a problem with a bank that couldn't be fixed with a better policy or implementation of the existing model. Same with a payment service. What remains are the tricks hackers and scammers come up with that we'll always be facing. Traditional methods already have a lot of risk reduction for those with well-understood problems and solutions. The cryptocurrencies will have to go through a lot of loss before they get to where traditional system is now. So, fixing problems of traditional system will also lead to fewer losses.
- phasnox 9y ago
  Yes I agree. All those problems to the existing system can theoretically be fixed by this and many other approaches. For how long has the current system existed again? Exactly.
- mr_spothawk 9y ago
  > For Venmo, you might make changes to facilitate more access. yeah, and you might commit those changes to Venmo's own repos. and if Venmo's leadership sells out, society would be still be without an open alternative to Venmo's "open access" gardens. why deal with the middle-persons?
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    You don't commit them to Venmo's repos. You make a Venmo-like system controlled by one or more cooperating non-profits acting in countries with strong legal systems for dealing with financial fraud. The protocol and code are open. The charter of the non-profits addresses common concerns about fees, disputes, and so on. In other words, you use established forms of law and incentives to make organizations that protect their members' interests. You can further decentralize the scheme by having diverse sets of such organizations that have to agree on changes for participation to continue. Each problem is solved in the simplest, most-legally/technically-proven way possible. One can also make the individual customers voting members on things like charter changes that can add more protections later. "why deal with the middle-persons?" The author of the original article addressed that. Even the crypocurrencies have middle persons don't most of the stuff that middle-persons do in traditional systems. They're just getting worse results so far in the new model.
emodendroket 9y ago
I don't really get the appeal of Venmo either. Anyone I'd consider using Venmo with I can simply hand cash.

fhood 9y ago

You know, paypal may well suck. I have never used it as a developer or a seller, but I really, really, like to have it as an option when I am purchasing something from some rinky dink website that doesn't look like it has been updated int 10 years.

phasnox 9y ago
Yeahp it sucks for the seller mostly.
aianus 9y ago
Sucks for the buyer too. Ever tried to use PayPal (or credit cards for that matter) to buy something from the US with a Canadian shipping address while you're living in Vietnam with a Vietnamese IP address? I did; I got fraud blocked.
- fhood 9y ago
  Haha, no, I am one of those annoyingly generic users. But honestly I kind of expect them to block that. That seems pretty suspicious at first glance.
  - webmaven 9y ago
    Why suspicious? Simply because it is out of the ordinary? Fraud detection systems basically have most of their feedback mechanisms geared toward reducing - even eliminating - false negatives, and very little attention comparatively given to false positives as long as no individual merchant notices a measurable drop in sales. Meanwhile, a hapless individual might have many of their purchase attempts foiled as false positives, and be left with little to no recourse (well, I suppose their complaint on Twitter may go viral, that does seem to work occasionally with ebay).
emodendroket 9y ago
One of my credit cards has a thing where you can create a throwaway card number with a limit of your choosing. Which is a great idea I wish more cards gave you.

nickpsecurity 9y ago

His point was these technologies solve people's problems very well. People doing blockchains could just work on improved versions of proven tech that have fewer problems. For Venmo, you might make changes to facilitate more access. He mentioned credit unions to point out different types of institutions can be more fair. A non-profit version of Paypal with chartered protections against high rates or unfair seizures might solve that problem. Another precaution at individual level is spread your assets a bit so you're not overreliant on a bank. I do that with a reserve of cash, a checking account, and several credit cards I pay off quick. I've never had a problem with a bank that couldn't be fixed with a better policy or implementation of the existing model. Same with a payment service. What remains are the tricks hackers and scammers come up with that we'll always be facing. Traditional methods already have a lot of risk reduction for those with well-understood problems and solutions. The cryptocurrencies will have to go through a lot of loss before they get to where traditional system is now. So, fixing problems of traditional system will also lead to fewer losses.

phasnox 9y ago
Yes I agree. All those problems to the existing system can theoretically be fixed by this and many other approaches. For how long has the current system existed again? Exactly.
mr_spothawk 9y ago
> For Venmo, you might make changes to facilitate more access. yeah, and you might commit those changes to Venmo's own repos. and if Venmo's leadership sells out, society would be still be without an open alternative to Venmo's "open access" gardens. why deal with the middle-persons?
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  You don't commit them to Venmo's repos. You make a Venmo-like system controlled by one or more cooperating non-profits acting in countries with strong legal systems for dealing with financial fraud. The protocol and code are open. The charter of the non-profits addresses common concerns about fees, disputes, and so on. In other words, you use established forms of law and incentives to make organizations that protect their members' interests. You can further decentralize the scheme by having diverse sets of such organizations that have to agree on changes for participation to continue. Each problem is solved in the simplest, most-legally/technically-proven way possible. One can also make the individual customers voting members on things like charter changes that can add more protections later. "why deal with the middle-persons?" The author of the original article addressed that. Even the crypocurrencies have middle persons don't most of the stuff that middle-persons do in traditional systems. They're just getting worse results so far in the new model.

emodendroket 9y ago

I don't really get the appeal of Venmo either. Anyone I'd consider using Venmo with I can simply hand cash.