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> Thinking aloud here, it does seem like (as we've always known), anyone doing eCommerce online is effectively beholden to their payment provider. The very sad

by znpy 5y ago

> Thinking aloud here, it does seem like (as we've always known), anyone doing eCommerce online is effectively beholden to their payment provider. The very sad thing is that bitcoin was designed as a proposal to circumvent this specific problem. Be your own bank and stuff like that. Then bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies became what they became... Basically speculative bubbles.

nisegami 5y ago
This is a constant source of disappointment for me. I recently came across a twitter thread where an artist living in South East Asia was banned by PayPal (they were doing NSFW commissions IIRC) and felt had no real alternative ways to get paid for their work. Someone replied and mentioned that cryptocurrencies were meant to be a solution to being beholden to payment providers and their whims. And that person was then vilified for "pushing their pyramid scheme". It's true that modern cryptocurrency is largely a pyramid scheme, but it could have been so much more.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Well, I do pay for things with Bitcoin regularly, and these payments have become much faster and cheaper recently. This month's payments: a VPN, a sim card refill in a country where I was visiting, an anti-corruption org banned in my country.
salawat 5y ago
Be that as it may, there is a reason finance is regulated the way it is. Like it or not, if you implement a technology intended to create an ecosystem where that type of regulating activity is impossible, you will find every character excluded by design from the regulated system amongst your userbase. You will very quickly, come to re-invent many control schemes in an attempt to get your unregulated space "mostly safe" for normal people, but in the process of so doing, be back to square one. This is why we (note the royal we) can't have nice things. It is also why becoming a financial services provider is a late-stage growth milestone of a business. Once you get past compliance, monitoring, and risk management boss, offering a line of credit or other finance products is an exercise in bookkeeping, and scales relatively trivially given sane accounting practices and managing your liabilities/issuing demographic. If as a business, you achieve that and are still even remotely true to your original roots, congratulations, you're The Man(TM) now.

by znpy 5y ago

nisegami 5y ago

This is a constant source of disappointment for me. I recently came across a twitter thread where an artist living in South East Asia was banned by PayPal (they were doing NSFW commissions IIRC) and felt had no real alternative ways to get paid for their work. Someone replied and mentioned that cryptocurrencies were meant to be a solution to being beholden to payment providers and their whims. And that person was then vilified for "pushing their pyramid scheme". It's true that modern cryptocurrency is largely a pyramid scheme, but it could have been so much more.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Well, I do pay for things with Bitcoin regularly, and these payments have become much faster and cheaper recently. This month's payments: a VPN, a sim card refill in a country where I was visiting, an anti-corruption org banned in my country.

salawat 5y ago

Be that as it may, there is a reason finance is regulated the way it is. Like it or not, if you implement a technology intended to create an ecosystem where that type of regulating activity is impossible, you will find every character excluded by design from the regulated system amongst your userbase. You will very quickly, come to re-invent many control schemes in an attempt to get your unregulated space "mostly safe" for normal people, but in the process of so doing, be back to square one. This is why we (note the royal we) can't have nice things. It is also why becoming a financial services provider is a late-stage growth milestone of a business. Once you get past compliance, monitoring, and risk management boss, offering a line of credit or other finance products is an exercise in bookkeeping, and scales relatively trivially given sane accounting practices and managing your liabilities/issuing demographic. If as a business, you achieve that and are still even remotely true to your original roots, congratulations, you're The Man(TM) now.