3 ms·

Indeed, that's my point. If you do business in one of these controversial areas, then you will quickly find that you are being charged extremely high costs and

by stale2002 8y ago

Indeed, that's my point. If you do business in one of these controversial areas, then you will quickly find that you are being charged extremely high costs and/or kicked off of their network.

arcticbull 8y ago
They're not extremely high, they're the cost of doing business.
- stale2002 8y ago
  And the world would be a much better place if it was harder to impose higher costs of doing business on controversial, but legal businesses. Which is why I support solutions that undermine attempts by a couple monopolies to impose larger costs on legal, but controversial businesses.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    Fair, though this isn't the technology that'll solve that. You've just centralized the decision making to the PRC which controls more than 51% of hash power. All it takes is a strongly-worded memo from Beijing and they can censor payments and rewrite the blockchain. That said, with $1.26 transaction fees + 1-2% to buy BTC vs. even 20% for a credit card in this high-risk MCC, the breakeven is ~$7, and while I'm not sure what adult content costs on a monthly basis, I'd imagine the fee difference isn't a whole lot. It's also not an imposition, nobody is required to use credit cards. Adult content is largely and lucratively ad-supported. Some businesses choose to offer content on a subscription model like the NYT paywall, and some choose not to. I don't see anything inherently wrong with the status quo. The cost of doing business is being passed down. They accept credit cards because even at a 20% fee, it's in their interests to do so. If it wasn't they'd stop. Either way, they're recovering their fees from customers.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      I mean, buying a bunch of miners in order to 51% attack a network is significantly more difficult than making a phone call to a Visa or MasterCard executive. It is also not enough to censor a singular Blockchain. You'd have to get the hardware to attack all the chains, because then people would just move to the other ones. This is still not impossible. That's why I used the words "censorship resistant". But it is certainly much more difficult than a phone call to 2 or 3 executives who control the major financial companies. This is proven by the fact that censorship just isn't happening on most Blockchains. The actual state of the network proves that it is difficult, because it isn't happening. You can talk all you want about theoretical attacks, but those attacks aren't happening, so it works. Whereas there are many examples of the "phone call to Visa" that are happening right now.
      - arcticbull 8y ago
        My understanding is 2 or 3 miners in the PRC have all that 51%, and in China, when Beijing says jump you say how high or you may end up escorted from your penthouse at the four seasons in Hong Kong to seek medical treatment on the mainland and never be heard from again (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua-china-hong-kong-billionaire.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/worl...)
        arcticbull 8y ago
        To circle back 80% of all hashpower is concentrated in 6 pools, 5 of which (>70%) are in the PRC. (https://news.bitcoin.com/chinese-mining-threatens-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/chinese-mining-threatens-bitcoin/)
        stale2002 8y ago
        And yet, those pools aren't censoring anything. They aren't stopping any transactions, and have never done so, in the 10 years that crypto has been around. This is in comparison to visa and mastercard which censor people all of the time. So for whatever reason that those pools aren't censoring anything, and have never done so, but the major finance companies are censoring transactions, is the reason why crypto is valuable.

Indeed, that's my point. If you do business in one of these controversial areas, then you will quickly find that you are being charged extremely high costs and/or kicked off of their network.

arcticbull 8y ago

They're not extremely high, they're the cost of doing business.

stale2002 8y ago
And the world would be a much better place if it was harder to impose higher costs of doing business on controversial, but legal businesses. Which is why I support solutions that undermine attempts by a couple monopolies to impose larger costs on legal, but controversial businesses.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Fair, though this isn't the technology that'll solve that. You've just centralized the decision making to the PRC which controls more than 51% of hash power. All it takes is a strongly-worded memo from Beijing and they can censor payments and rewrite the blockchain. That said, with $1.26 transaction fees + 1-2% to buy BTC vs. even 20% for a credit card in this high-risk MCC, the breakeven is ~$7, and while I'm not sure what adult content costs on a monthly basis, I'd imagine the fee difference isn't a whole lot. It's also not an imposition, nobody is required to use credit cards. Adult content is largely and lucratively ad-supported. Some businesses choose to offer content on a subscription model like the NYT paywall, and some choose not to. I don't see anything inherently wrong with the status quo. The cost of doing business is being passed down. They accept credit cards because even at a 20% fee, it's in their interests to do so. If it wasn't they'd stop. Either way, they're recovering their fees from customers.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    I mean, buying a bunch of miners in order to 51% attack a network is significantly more difficult than making a phone call to a Visa or MasterCard executive. It is also not enough to censor a singular Blockchain. You'd have to get the hardware to attack all the chains, because then people would just move to the other ones. This is still not impossible. That's why I used the words "censorship resistant". But it is certainly much more difficult than a phone call to 2 or 3 executives who control the major financial companies. This is proven by the fact that censorship just isn't happening on most Blockchains. The actual state of the network proves that it is difficult, because it isn't happening. You can talk all you want about theoretical attacks, but those attacks aren't happening, so it works. Whereas there are many examples of the "phone call to Visa" that are happening right now.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      My understanding is 2 or 3 miners in the PRC have all that 51%, and in China, when Beijing says jump you say how high or you may end up escorted from your penthouse at the four seasons in Hong Kong to seek medical treatment on the mainland and never be heard from again (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua-china-hong-kong-billionaire.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/worl...)
      - arcticbull 8y ago
        To circle back 80% of all hashpower is concentrated in 6 pools, 5 of which (>70%) are in the PRC. (https://news.bitcoin.com/chinese-mining-threatens-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/chinese-mining-threatens-bitcoin/)
        stale2002 8y ago
        And yet, those pools aren't censoring anything. They aren't stopping any transactions, and have never done so, in the 10 years that crypto has been around. This is in comparison to visa and mastercard which censor people all of the time. So for whatever reason that those pools aren't censoring anything, and have never done so, but the major finance companies are censoring transactions, is the reason why crypto is valuable.