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> because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to

by rt4mn 4y ago

> because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.

mrtksn 4y ago
Looks like ideological to me, not a choice for practical reasons.
- rt4mn 4y ago
  If it where purely ideological I would not be buying things online at all. I like buying stuff online because its convenient, and Cryptocurrency is the most practical way to buy stuff online while still protecting my privacy to some extent. But cryptocurrency does not protect my privacy completely, if I was a purist I would not buy things online at all. Privacy is a lot like other civil liberties, it feels ideological and airy-fairy until you need it and don't have it. Take for example web hosting. I could have paid for the website that we used to lambast the Minneapolis police department and argue that they should not have access to the toys they want using a credit card, but then the Minneapolis police could send a sternly worded letter to the webhost and learn where I live. Which is a reasonable consern if you know anything at all about the Minneapois police department. So I pay for webshosting with cryptocurrency. That's a real clear cut example of why financial privacy matters, but that same concern extends to pretty much every thing you do online. Cardinal Richelieu has the right of it when he said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him", and recall that The US government kills people based on metadata. Its easy to dismiss me buying a box of candy as not important enough to worry about, but its the entire history of every financial transaction you make that paints a very accurate and very useful picture of who you are what you get up to that is of great interest to people who can do you real harm.

by rt4mn 4y ago

mrtksn 4y ago

Looks like ideological to me, not a choice for practical reasons.

rt4mn 4y ago
If it where purely ideological I would not be buying things online at all. I like buying stuff online because its convenient, and Cryptocurrency is the most practical way to buy stuff online while still protecting my privacy to some extent. But cryptocurrency does not protect my privacy completely, if I was a purist I would not buy things online at all. Privacy is a lot like other civil liberties, it feels ideological and airy-fairy until you need it and don't have it. Take for example web hosting. I could have paid for the website that we used to lambast the Minneapolis police department and argue that they should not have access to the toys they want using a credit card, but then the Minneapolis police could send a sternly worded letter to the webhost and learn where I live. Which is a reasonable consern if you know anything at all about the Minneapois police department. So I pay for webshosting with cryptocurrency. That's a real clear cut example of why financial privacy matters, but that same concern extends to pretty much every thing you do online. Cardinal Richelieu has the right of it when he said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him", and recall that The US government kills people based on metadata. Its easy to dismiss me buying a box of candy as not important enough to worry about, but its the entire history of every financial transaction you make that paints a very accurate and very useful picture of who you are what you get up to that is of great interest to people who can do you real harm.