5 ms·

Ignoring the periods in the past with very high transaction fees and network congestion, for the most part it's been as practical as a card and often faster sin

by Jach 7y ago

Ignoring the periods in the past with very high transaction fees and network congestion, for the most part it's been as practical as a card and often faster since I can just use my phone to scan a QR code and click a verify button. We can also ignore the lightning network in the calculation of practicality. Normally if I send you a payment you'll see the notification of a pending transaction with the amount on your side pretty much immediately. There is a risk that I could after walking off with the goods create a new transaction with a higher fee (especially if the replace-by-fee flag was part of the original send, and one might want to be more cautious if that was the case) to send them to myself instead, though even if I try it's not guaranteed to succeed. If you wait around for on average ten minutes (could in actuality be a few seconds, could be more than ten minutes) for the transaction to get one confirmation in a block you can be a lot more certain no shenanigans will occur. Most merchants will use a third party system that will take on this risk for you. I don't know if third party systems like Stripe do the same for credit cards, but credit cards have the same risk profile. (I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods. They'll then in turn not honor the charge. It takes something like 180 days before a CC charge becomes much harder for the payer to dispute, vs. bitcoin's 10 minutes for very hard and 60 minutes for basically impossible. Seems like an ok tradeoff to me.)

navigatesol 7y ago
>for the most part it's been as practical as a card and often faster Have you ever used a card? If you think that opening your phone, scanning a QR and then hitting "verify" is faster than a tap or swipe of your credit card, I'm not sure what to tell you. Best case scenario, they're about the same. >I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods And they'll investigate and determine you committed fraud, and you'll be fined or go to prison. What's the equivalent with Bitcoin?
- Jach 7y ago
  I of course use a card frequently, though have yet to have the "pleasure" of dealing with a tap-to-pay card. I don't really want to. I'd say average case (not best case) is they're about the same, but yes, getting out my phone and unlocking it, opening the bitcoin app, scanning the QR code and hitting confirm, then putting my phone away, is indeed often faster than getting out my wallet, picking out my card from the other crap in there, inserting it into the chip reader (or swiping it), and hitting confirm (after maybe having to enter a pin or zip code or tell it "this is a credit card" or dismiss a "do you want to donate to grocery store's cause-of-the-month?" dialog) and then sometimes having to sign a printout or a touch screen, then putting my card back into the wallet and putting my wallet away. CCs are a usability nightmare that I'm amazed we put up with. > And they'll investigate Have you never reported fraudulent charges before? There's basically no investigation unless it was an ACH thing.
  - sjy 7y ago
    Using a tap-to-pay card would probably change your perspective. They were specifically designed to eliminate that usability nightmare. I find them easier to use than Apple Pay (because Touch ID only works about 90% of the time for me), and certainly easier than scanning a QR code (look at the queue of people struggling to enter any concert with electronic ticketing). The only downside is that you still have to carry a card.
- aianus 7y ago
  > And they'll investigate and determine you committed fraud, and you'll be fined or go to prison. Trust me, nothing happens to these people. From first-hand experience I know that the merchant eats the cost 99% of the time when it's a card-not-present transaction.
yyyk 7y ago
"I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods... It takes something like 180 days before a CC charge becomes much harder for the payer to dispute, vs. bitcoin's 10 minutes for very hard and 60 minutes for basically impossible." Yes, because obviously what we need is less power to the consumer. So what if it takes you 60 minutes to get home just to test the product you just bought? Or that you can't dispute frauds that target seniors (i.e. grandma), because she won't tell you what she bought within 60 minutes but only the next time you call her? The digital nature + relative untracability + no chargebacks makes Bitcoin scammer heaven.
- Jach 7y ago
  I don't mind less power in exchange for not having to give up so much of my information to merchants. As someone who's sold things before I also like that bitcoin presents a tradeoff on prevalence of buyer fraud vs. seller fraud, and that if I want more power as a consumer I can opt-in to various escrow or risk-absorbing systems rather than rely on buyer-side-bias in charge disputes as a poor man's escrow. It's not optimal to use the base network for every time of transaction, sure, but that's not true of any payment system. I don't understand your grandma rhetoric. Not that scammers aren't already in heaven (especially targeting seniors) but I guess I'd be interested if you have any peer reviewed papers studying the means scammers use and how much cryptocurrency is part of the modern scammer's toolkit. (My understand was that wire transfers through western digital were the most common means of extracting payment.)
  - yyyk 7y ago
    * There's no need for a tradeoff. We could just have a method of payment that gives less of your information to merchants. * You can't 'opt-in' to 'various escrow or risk-absorbing systems'. That's because these services simply do not exist at this moment at Bitcoin-land. They may well never exist or be supported by merchants. You're comparing a non-existing theoretical model against real-world working stuff. * Unfortunately, elder fraud is too rife where I live. The scammers call the elderly person, convince him/her to buy various utterly useless stuff like a rock to scare away tigers. This is almost never done in person, but by phone, and they use credit card details. At least there, there's some hope of chargebacks and a record of the transaction. Removing even those limited restraints... that's not what we need.

by Jach 7y ago

navigatesol 7y ago

>for the most part it's been as practical as a card and often faster Have you ever used a card? If you think that opening your phone, scanning a QR and then hitting "verify" is faster than a tap or swipe of your credit card, I'm not sure what to tell you. Best case scenario, they're about the same. >I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods And they'll investigate and determine you committed fraud, and you'll be fined or go to prison. What's the equivalent with Bitcoin?

Jach 7y ago
I of course use a card frequently, though have yet to have the "pleasure" of dealing with a tap-to-pay card. I don't really want to. I'd say average case (not best case) is they're about the same, but yes, getting out my phone and unlocking it, opening the bitcoin app, scanning the QR code and hitting confirm, then putting my phone away, is indeed often faster than getting out my wallet, picking out my card from the other crap in there, inserting it into the chip reader (or swiping it), and hitting confirm (after maybe having to enter a pin or zip code or tell it "this is a credit card" or dismiss a "do you want to donate to grocery store's cause-of-the-month?" dialog) and then sometimes having to sign a printout or a touch screen, then putting my card back into the wallet and putting my wallet away. CCs are a usability nightmare that I'm amazed we put up with. > And they'll investigate Have you never reported fraudulent charges before? There's basically no investigation unless it was an ACH thing.
- sjy 7y ago
  Using a tap-to-pay card would probably change your perspective. They were specifically designed to eliminate that usability nightmare. I find them easier to use than Apple Pay (because Touch ID only works about 90% of the time for me), and certainly easier than scanning a QR code (look at the queue of people struggling to enter any concert with electronic ticketing). The only downside is that you still have to carry a card.
aianus 7y ago
> And they'll investigate and determine you committed fraud, and you'll be fined or go to prison. Trust me, nothing happens to these people. From first-hand experience I know that the merchant eats the cost 99% of the time when it's a card-not-present transaction.

yyyk 7y ago

"I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods... It takes something like 180 days before a CC charge becomes much harder for the payer to dispute, vs. bitcoin's 10 minutes for very hard and 60 minutes for basically impossible." Yes, because obviously what we need is less power to the consumer. So what if it takes you 60 minutes to get home just to test the product you just bought? Or that you can't dispute frauds that target seniors (i.e. grandma), because she won't tell you what she bought within 60 minutes but only the next time you call her? The digital nature + relative untracability + no chargebacks makes Bitcoin scammer heaven.

Jach 7y ago
I don't mind less power in exchange for not having to give up so much of my information to merchants. As someone who's sold things before I also like that bitcoin presents a tradeoff on prevalence of buyer fraud vs. seller fraud, and that if I want more power as a consumer I can opt-in to various escrow or risk-absorbing systems rather than rely on buyer-side-bias in charge disputes as a poor man's escrow. It's not optimal to use the base network for every time of transaction, sure, but that's not true of any payment system. I don't understand your grandma rhetoric. Not that scammers aren't already in heaven (especially targeting seniors) but I guess I'd be interested if you have any peer reviewed papers studying the means scammers use and how much cryptocurrency is part of the modern scammer's toolkit. (My understand was that wire transfers through western digital were the most common means of extracting payment.)
- yyyk 7y ago
  * There's no need for a tradeoff. We could just have a method of payment that gives less of your information to merchants. * You can't 'opt-in' to 'various escrow or risk-absorbing systems'. That's because these services simply do not exist at this moment at Bitcoin-land. They may well never exist or be supported by merchants. You're comparing a non-existing theoretical model against real-world working stuff. * Unfortunately, elder fraud is too rife where I live. The scammers call the elderly person, convince him/her to buy various utterly useless stuff like a rock to scare away tigers. This is almost never done in person, but by phone, and they use credit card details. At least there, there's some hope of chargebacks and a record of the transaction. Removing even those limited restraints... that's not what we need.