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A fully anonymous system as you describe would have the side effect of removing responsibility from the consumer. How do you request payment from an overdue cus

by sp4rki 16y ago

A fully anonymous system as you describe would have the side effect of removing responsibility from the consumer. How do you request payment from an overdue customer when you can't even tell who he/she is? In real life, when you shop with your credit/debit/atm(clave) card you're willingly giving out some of your information. In the net, it works the same way, if you want to buy X item from X online retailer or you want to sign up for X web based service, you need to give them some identifying information. If you really want to stay anonymous, your only option in real life is to use cash only and go dressed in a hoodie and sunglasses to every place you shop. In the net if you want to stay completely anonymous, you have the option to not use the services or purchase the items. It's not Netflix's job to make sure you stay anonymous. Their job is to collect your information to be able to charge you X amount of money for a service they provide (even when their service includes something you don't want - recommendations). It's your job not to use said service if you don't want your data in their systems.

gnosis 16y ago
"It's not Netflix's job to make sure you stay anonymous." Never said it was. The tracking of consumers is rarely seen as a problem by most businesses. Most businesses want to know as much as possible about their customers. But this is very much a problem for consumers who care about their privacy. "How do you request payment from an overdue customer when you can't even tell who he/she is?" Just insist that they pay up front for any service you provide. A month's payment upfront isn't too unreasonable, is it? In fact, it's a rather tried and true business model. And it's not at all incompatible with anonymous payments from anonymous customers. So that's not really a problem at all for such an anonymous system. But there are some HUGE problems with it, which seem (at this point) completely insurmountable. One problem is that anonymous money transfers aren't really looked at kindly by the IRS, the DEA, and various other organizations who have a vested interest in keeping track of who's paying whom and for what. Then there are concerns that anonymous communication (nevermind payments) would facilitate terrorism, organized crime, and the like. Then there are problems with getting the general public to care enough to use and even demand such systems. And even if that somehow miraculously came about, they need to properly use such systems without inadvertently leaking information about themselves all over the place. The system and software involved would also have to be made to be brain-dead easy to use, and relatively foolproof (which, if you are familiar with the pain and security subtleties of digital key management and proper encryption use is no short order). I could probably list half a dozen more major problems with a attempting to create a fully anonymous system.. but I think you probably get the idea by now. It's just not going to happen any time soon.

by sp4rki 16y ago

gnosis 16y ago

"It's not Netflix's job to make sure you stay anonymous." Never said it was. The tracking of consumers is rarely seen as a problem by most businesses. Most businesses want to know as much as possible about their customers. But this is very much a problem for consumers who care about their privacy. "How do you request payment from an overdue customer when you can't even tell who he/she is?" Just insist that they pay up front for any service you provide. A month's payment upfront isn't too unreasonable, is it? In fact, it's a rather tried and true business model. And it's not at all incompatible with anonymous payments from anonymous customers. So that's not really a problem at all for such an anonymous system. But there are some HUGE problems with it, which seem (at this point) completely insurmountable. One problem is that anonymous money transfers aren't really looked at kindly by the IRS, the DEA, and various other organizations who have a vested interest in keeping track of who's paying whom and for what. Then there are concerns that anonymous communication (nevermind payments) would facilitate terrorism, organized crime, and the like. Then there are problems with getting the general public to care enough to use and even demand such systems. And even if that somehow miraculously came about, they need to properly use such systems without inadvertently leaking information about themselves all over the place. The system and software involved would also have to be made to be brain-dead easy to use, and relatively foolproof (which, if you are familiar with the pain and security subtleties of digital key management and proper encryption use is no short order). I could probably list half a dozen more major problems with a attempting to create a fully anonymous system.. but I think you probably get the idea by now. It's just not going to happen any time soon.