4 ms·

Have you heard of PayPal? Because i buy things internationally and pay with PayPal all the time. If I don't receive the order, I can contest and cancel the char

Have you heard of PayPal? Because i buy things internationally and pay with PayPal all the time. If I don't receive the order, I can contest and cancel the charge (sometimes). And there's no transaction fee that I'm aware of. Do you buy $5 items internationally? Because the bulk of my international orders are low value items. If I have to spend more on a transaction fee than the item costs, I'm not gonna buy the item. Oh, lightning you say? You really think I should trust that more than pay pal?

Baeocystin 5y ago
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card... There are significant international transaction fees. There are also merchant fees involved for sellers. Much like the ubiquitous credit card fees, you may not see it line-itemized on your bill, but the costs are absolutely part of the price you see at checkout. Literally everything I buy with crypto, the crypto network fees are less than what I would have paid otherwise.
- joshuahaglund 5y ago
  I guess my point is that with PayPal, as a buyer, the transaction fees are seamlessly included in the price. With crypto, it depends. Which coin? Which wallet? Which seller or marketplace? I'm curious if you care to share more about your transactions, that cost less using crypto. Now, if you're saying that you bought at $100 and it's at $1000, and you "paid less" that way, that's just this stage of the ponzi scheme's doing, not an inherent feature of the network that lowers costs.
  - Baeocystin 5y ago
    Oh, for sure, there's plenty of work to still be done on the crypto side of things. Regarding which coins I use, it's mostly Bitcoin Cash or Doge. No funny accounting or anything. The network transaction fees are readily available: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/dogecoin-transactionfees.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/dogecoin-transactionfee... https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transactionfees.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transact...
- kbenson 5y ago
  What about how much money it cost to get whatever currency you had into a cryptocurrency? That may be vanishingly small for people that had BTC cheap and now have a bunch that cost some low initial amount to get into the system, but most people would necessarily have to convert whatever currency they normally have to a crypto currency first and then spend it. A true comparison would compare a few things, including same currency transactions using paypal, differing currency transactions using paypal, cost to use crypto to buy assuming you have none to start with, and cost to use crypto assuming you already have it as crypto at essentially zero cost. And for all those, probably run the number for buying something at $5, $10, $50, $100 and $1000. Or don't do all that and intuit from it that the likely result is that in some cases crypto wins (when the purchase is large, when the crypto was acquired at closet to zero cost), and in others it doesn't (when the cost is small, or possibly even moderate and when you have to convert to crypto first).
3np 5y ago
Have you heard of all the people arbitrarily blocked/banned/censored by PayPal? Just for one, I had my Paypal account permanently closed because I (many years prior to the block) registered it when I was still under—age. Separately, I am resident in a new country where for arbitrary reasons I don’t have all the necessary validation to open a Transferwise account registered here. Relying on a small handful of centralized private service providers for critical infrastructure is a bad idea. My situation is not unique or strange. I could most likely illegally submit false information or register new accounts, with the risk of having payments frozen or even held at any point. Some online vendors only use PayPal, which has lifetime banned me as a person, so by extension I can not purchase from these vendors. I do trust Lightning more than any of these. I actually regularly use for payments for stuff like you mentioned. Last time a $11 purchase yesterday, which even including amortized channel opening cost was most certainly less fees than PayPal would have been. —— You’re happy with PayPal now, because it works fine for you, but the increasing power they have over individuals and the economy is real, concerning and dangerous.
- joshuahaglund 5y ago
  I'll agree with you that the monopolies (or too big to fail whatever) in finance and technology should be broken up. And I hope everyone who is into crypto banks their fiat at a local credit union. But I think for most people using lightning means getting an account with a wallet provider. Couldn't they suspend your account for violating ToS? I guess some people could setup their own channel but I don't think that's what most people do. Proof of Stake just means the biggest entities will have control. That doesn't sound stable to me but good luck.
  - dwild 5y ago
    > Couldn't they suspend your account for violating ToS? I guess some people could setup their own channel but I don't think that's what most people do. I someone can, someone else will for you.... that's the thing. I can't make a Paypal alternative for myself, so I can't do it for anything, but if I can build an alternative on the lightning network... well... someone else can do it and take care of people that can't. The buy guys only care about the big numbers... but open the door to the smaller guys, and you'll see, they'll take care of the smaller numbers too.
ipaddr 5y ago
You sound new to the paypal ban me for no reason game. We all play we just never know when we lose.

Baeocystin 5y ago

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/ https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card... There are significant international transaction fees. There are also merchant fees involved for sellers. Much like the ubiquitous credit card fees, you may not see it line-itemized on your bill, but the costs are absolutely part of the price you see at checkout. Literally everything I buy with crypto, the crypto network fees are less than what I would have paid otherwise.

joshuahaglund 5y ago
I guess my point is that with PayPal, as a buyer, the transaction fees are seamlessly included in the price. With crypto, it depends. Which coin? Which wallet? Which seller or marketplace? I'm curious if you care to share more about your transactions, that cost less using crypto. Now, if you're saying that you bought at $100 and it's at $1000, and you "paid less" that way, that's just this stage of the ponzi scheme's doing, not an inherent feature of the network that lowers costs.
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  Oh, for sure, there's plenty of work to still be done on the crypto side of things. Regarding which coins I use, it's mostly Bitcoin Cash or Doge. No funny accounting or anything. The network transaction fees are readily available: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/dogecoin-transactionfees.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/dogecoin-transactionfee... https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transactionfees.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transact...
kbenson 5y ago
What about how much money it cost to get whatever currency you had into a cryptocurrency? That may be vanishingly small for people that had BTC cheap and now have a bunch that cost some low initial amount to get into the system, but most people would necessarily have to convert whatever currency they normally have to a crypto currency first and then spend it. A true comparison would compare a few things, including same currency transactions using paypal, differing currency transactions using paypal, cost to use crypto to buy assuming you have none to start with, and cost to use crypto assuming you already have it as crypto at essentially zero cost. And for all those, probably run the number for buying something at $5, $10, $50, $100 and $1000. Or don't do all that and intuit from it that the likely result is that in some cases crypto wins (when the purchase is large, when the crypto was acquired at closet to zero cost), and in others it doesn't (when the cost is small, or possibly even moderate and when you have to convert to crypto first).

3np 5y ago

Have you heard of all the people arbitrarily blocked/banned/censored by PayPal? Just for one, I had my Paypal account permanently closed because I (many years prior to the block) registered it when I was still under—age. Separately, I am resident in a new country where for arbitrary reasons I don’t have all the necessary validation to open a Transferwise account registered here. Relying on a small handful of centralized private service providers for critical infrastructure is a bad idea. My situation is not unique or strange. I could most likely illegally submit false information or register new accounts, with the risk of having payments frozen or even held at any point. Some online vendors only use PayPal, which has lifetime banned me as a person, so by extension I can not purchase from these vendors. I do trust Lightning more than any of these. I actually regularly use for payments for stuff like you mentioned. Last time a $11 purchase yesterday, which even including amortized channel opening cost was most certainly less fees than PayPal would have been. —— You’re happy with PayPal now, because it works fine for you, but the increasing power they have over individuals and the economy is real, concerning and dangerous.

joshuahaglund 5y ago
I'll agree with you that the monopolies (or too big to fail whatever) in finance and technology should be broken up. And I hope everyone who is into crypto banks their fiat at a local credit union. But I think for most people using lightning means getting an account with a wallet provider. Couldn't they suspend your account for violating ToS? I guess some people could setup their own channel but I don't think that's what most people do. Proof of Stake just means the biggest entities will have control. That doesn't sound stable to me but good luck.
- dwild 5y ago
  > Couldn't they suspend your account for violating ToS? I guess some people could setup their own channel but I don't think that's what most people do. I someone can, someone else will for you.... that's the thing. I can't make a Paypal alternative for myself, so I can't do it for anything, but if I can build an alternative on the lightning network... well... someone else can do it and take care of people that can't. The buy guys only care about the big numbers... but open the door to the smaller guys, and you'll see, they'll take care of the smaller numbers too.

ipaddr 5y ago

You sound new to the paypal ban me for no reason game. We all play we just never know when we lose.