5 ms·

This is how cash and gold worked for thousands of years.

by chrisco255 5y ago

Macha 5y ago
But not for the last couple thousand, thanks to legal systems, or before that "running fraudsters out of town"
- chrisco255 5y ago
  That is how cash still works to this day. It's not about fraud or not fraud: it's about settlement finality. If you hand over cash to someone for a transaction, you have no guarantees you'll ever get that cash back in the event of a dispute. This is how crypto works.
  - loulouxiv 5y ago
    Well with cash you know at least the face of the person you hand it to, and can run after him if you realize the traded bought is not as expected.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Which is why consumers enthusiastically abandoned them for credit the moment they could. Purposefully going backwards is both silly, and something you’ll never convince the average consumer to do.
- justupvoting 5y ago
  Folks didn't 'enthusiastically abandon' sound money for credit (or even the early IOUs which were a sort of primitive cash) the moment they could. You're retconning a bit there. Folks were extremely reluctant for a long time on account of all the schemes and fraud. Sound familiar? That's just what humans do to each other. New tech is always like this when there are gains to be made. Some folks look at the trend that central banks have been on and the creep of financial surveillance and think purposefully going backward in some areas isn't silly at all. In the end, it's software you don't have to use. Nobody is forcing anyone to opt in, right (you know, like the credit bureaus who in America force you to opt in if you intend to... I dunno, participate in the economy in a meaningful way)?
  - md_ 5y ago
    Citation needed? Humans have been using credit systems for millennia. The implication that in the olden days people only walked around with bits of gold in their pockets is a bit of “retconning.”
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      Credit cards didn't exist 1000 years ago. We aren't debating about credit systems. And yes, people walked around with shiny pieces of metal in their pocket that they used for transactions for thousands of years. At some point after the printing press was invented, the move to paper currency occurred.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > At some point after the printing press was invented, the move to paper currency occurred. Paper currency is a couple millenia older than the printing press, using woodlblock printing.
      - md_ 5y ago
        Well, the parent post was saying that people were initially hesitant to move to credit systems, so I'm confused. :) If we're talking specifically about credit cards, the credit card went from new invention to ubiquity in a couple of decades. But I think that's too narrow a scope to look at, to be honest. Early credit systems did not depend upon the printing press; think of the widespread use of tally sticks in medieval Europe to enable illiterate low-technology credit systems. It's really hard to approach this anthropologically, IMO, because so many other variables change. Less complex economies do fine with "local communism" and person-to-person debt, but it's hard to imagine using such a thing to order from Amazon. Conversely, coinage historically was useful if you had to exchange with someone with whom you didn't have a personal relationship (say, you're traveling to a faraway land and you can't just provide an IOU), but that's somewhat obsolete now. I guess my conclusion would be that these historical analogies don't shed a lot of light.
    - justupvoting 5y ago
- ryanlol 5y ago
  s/consumers/americans/ In Europe credit cards are not very common, and debit card transactions are often not reversible.
  - colinb 5y ago
    I don't know where you're sitting right now. I'm sitting in Europe, and credit card transactions are quite common where I live. Europe is a big place. Even within the EU there is plenty of room for difference. A generalisation like this is no better than the frequent occurrence of HNers posting articles headlined with "the nation" which mean "the USA".
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      It is not unreasonable to speak of Europe as a whole. Credit card transactions are common where I live, but not in most of Europe.
  - Johnwbh 5y ago
    That's just false. You can do chargeback on debit card transactions fairly easily https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/ https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-ch...
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      UK specific article. Anyone who has worked with payment processing can tell you how rare debit card chargebacks are, this is because they’re usually vastly more difficult.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Consumers didn't enthusiastically abandon cash. Credit cards were introduced in the 60s, it took several decades for credit cards to overtake cash and it only happened because of the convenience factor for credit vs carrying cash as well as alternative debit cards that work just like credit cards. Credit was regularly rejected by stores and businesses as recently as one decade ago. I don't use dispute resolution unless someone actually stole my credit card number like when my card info was jacked at a gas pump one time. Credit cards are quite insecure and we still have to type in all our personal info online every single transaction which is dangerous and dumb and makes the whole system vulnerable to credit card fraud in a way that crypto isn't. When you use crypto you simply sign a transaction message, you don't have to give away your private keys to make the transaction occur.

This is how cash and gold worked for thousands of years.

Macha 5y ago

But not for the last couple thousand, thanks to legal systems, or before that "running fraudsters out of town"

chrisco255 5y ago
That is how cash still works to this day. It's not about fraud or not fraud: it's about settlement finality. If you hand over cash to someone for a transaction, you have no guarantees you'll ever get that cash back in the event of a dispute. This is how crypto works.
- loulouxiv 5y ago
  Well with cash you know at least the face of the person you hand it to, and can run after him if you realize the traded bought is not as expected.

ashtonkem 5y ago

Which is why consumers enthusiastically abandoned them for credit the moment they could. Purposefully going backwards is both silly, and something you’ll never convince the average consumer to do.

justupvoting 5y ago
Folks didn't 'enthusiastically abandon' sound money for credit (or even the early IOUs which were a sort of primitive cash) the moment they could. You're retconning a bit there. Folks were extremely reluctant for a long time on account of all the schemes and fraud. Sound familiar? That's just what humans do to each other. New tech is always like this when there are gains to be made. Some folks look at the trend that central banks have been on and the creep of financial surveillance and think purposefully going backward in some areas isn't silly at all. In the end, it's software you don't have to use. Nobody is forcing anyone to opt in, right (you know, like the credit bureaus who in America force you to opt in if you intend to... I dunno, participate in the economy in a meaningful way)?
- md_ 5y ago
  Citation needed? Humans have been using credit systems for millennia. The implication that in the olden days people only walked around with bits of gold in their pockets is a bit of “retconning.”
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Credit cards didn't exist 1000 years ago. We aren't debating about credit systems. And yes, people walked around with shiny pieces of metal in their pocket that they used for transactions for thousands of years. At some point after the printing press was invented, the move to paper currency occurred.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > At some point after the printing press was invented, the move to paper currency occurred. Paper currency is a couple millenia older than the printing press, using woodlblock printing.
    - md_ 5y ago
      Well, the parent post was saying that people were initially hesitant to move to credit systems, so I'm confused. :) If we're talking specifically about credit cards, the credit card went from new invention to ubiquity in a couple of decades. But I think that's too narrow a scope to look at, to be honest. Early credit systems did not depend upon the printing press; think of the widespread use of tally sticks in medieval Europe to enable illiterate low-technology credit systems. It's really hard to approach this anthropologically, IMO, because so many other variables change. Less complex economies do fine with "local communism" and person-to-person debt, but it's hard to imagine using such a thing to order from Amazon. Conversely, coinage historically was useful if you had to exchange with someone with whom you didn't have a personal relationship (say, you're traveling to a faraway land and you can't just provide an IOU), but that's somewhat obsolete now. I guess my conclusion would be that these historical analogies don't shed a lot of light.
  - justupvoting 5y ago
ryanlol 5y ago
s/consumers/americans/ In Europe credit cards are not very common, and debit card transactions are often not reversible.
- colinb 5y ago
  I don't know where you're sitting right now. I'm sitting in Europe, and credit card transactions are quite common where I live. Europe is a big place. Even within the EU there is plenty of room for difference. A generalisation like this is no better than the frequent occurrence of HNers posting articles headlined with "the nation" which mean "the USA".
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    It is not unreasonable to speak of Europe as a whole. Credit card transactions are common where I live, but not in most of Europe.
- Johnwbh 5y ago
  That's just false. You can do chargeback on debit card transactions fairly easily https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/ https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-ch...
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    UK specific article. Anyone who has worked with payment processing can tell you how rare debit card chargebacks are, this is because they’re usually vastly more difficult.
chrisco255 5y ago
Consumers didn't enthusiastically abandon cash. Credit cards were introduced in the 60s, it took several decades for credit cards to overtake cash and it only happened because of the convenience factor for credit vs carrying cash as well as alternative debit cards that work just like credit cards. Credit was regularly rejected by stores and businesses as recently as one decade ago. I don't use dispute resolution unless someone actually stole my credit card number like when my card info was jacked at a gas pump one time. Credit cards are quite insecure and we still have to type in all our personal info online every single transaction which is dangerous and dumb and makes the whole system vulnerable to credit card fraud in a way that crypto isn't. When you use crypto you simply sign a transaction message, you don't have to give away your private keys to make the transaction occur.