4 ms·

This comment right here can be shown to snobs who still denounce crypto btw

mschild 4y ago
This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules.
- gear54rus 4y ago
  Well you can wait a lifetime or you can take control away from them with a couple clicks. The choice is obvious.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    As a rule of thumb, whenever anyone says "the choice is obvious", the choice they're talking about is usually far from obvious.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules. Better (which I assume is your euphemism for "more") regulation isn't neceesarily the answer, or even particularly the answer. Do you want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do? Isn't there a word for that?
  - mschild 4y ago
    Not necessarily more. Better in this context means clearer and enforced. PayPal is the prime example where it's operating very similar to a bank. You have an account with a balance and can send and receive money, but it doesn't see itself as a bank and in many countries doesn't have a bank license. At least in part this is done to avoid the regulatory work that comes with it. I absolutely want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do. For example, banks in Germany are forced to provide you with a basic bank account regardless whether they want to or not. That's because a bank account is simply a must have to take part in modern life. If PayPal decides it doesn't want to do business with you, for whatever arbitrary reason, you are effectively locked out of a lot of online stores that only accept PayPal as a payment method. There is plenty of examples of PayPals really sketchy behaviour online. Every few months you can even see complaints on HN about it.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > it's operating very similar to a bank We might be talking at cross purposes; I'm not sure! How is it like a bank?
      - mschild 4y ago
        PayPal offers you a virtual account that you can pay money into. You can use that money to make purchases online, send and receive money from friends or other businesses. In effect, it acts like a bank account. However, it's not an actual bank account. In Europe, any money you put into that account is also not ensured by the government, like a normal account would. If I pay with a credit card, there are processes in place to deal with fraud and charge backs. PayPal is well known to automatically close accounts with little recourse to access the money on those accounts. They should absolutely be regulated.
        worik 4y ago
        I agree they should be regulated But they are nothing like a bank The feature of a bank is credit creation. Lending more money than they hold. Unless I missed some news PayPal does not do that
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        This is what I was wondering - to my understanding the main reason banks need to be regulated is to stop them over-lending.
  - psychlops 4y ago
    Authoritarian solutions are very attractive today.
    - mschild 4y ago
      Reasonably regulating payment processors is far from authoritarian. If you are on a scale like Visa and MasterCard you're not just any private company anymore. Just those 2 companies control well over 75% of the US market alone. Not having access to a debit/credit card today will effectively block you from taking part in many aspects of modern life. It's absolutely reasonable to place stipulations on what they can and cannot do.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        In what sense do they control the market?
      - psychlops 4y ago
        I don't disagree with your objective, it's the path you are taking to get there. Legislating obedience is authoritarian and is solution that many people love due to its simplicity. Regulators love working with large businesses like your card duopoly, I don't think you will see much improvement.
  - layer8 4y ago
    > Do you want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do? Isn't there a word for that? Public utility. That’s what payment processors are at this point, and they should be regulated as such.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      If we think there's no more innovation to be had then this could happen, but I'm not sure that's the case.
sharemywin 4y ago
crypto + NSFW generative AI = ???? that's not going to lead to a whole lot of black market images.
- xp84 4y ago
  It certainly stretches the bounds of reason for me that you could put a person in an isolation chamber with a powerful computer with no network connection, and after they type a few words into it, if the output of the computer has certain qualities, they are now a felon and the output is illegal to possess. But this seems like the world the “AI-regulators” seem to want.
  - sharemywin 4y ago
    you don't think it would be problematic for someone to create deep fake images of some ones kids in explicit sexual positions? I certainly think if the parents found out about it and the law wouldn't do anything about it the parents would take the law into their own hands. I'm sorry if this wasn't phrased very well. I just didn't know how else to make my point with out be very specific.
    - xp84 4y ago
      A skilled artist can already easily do that and there's no law against it that I know of. (Granted, I haven't researched it because I'm neither an artist nor a pervert...) Now, if they were drawn to resemble specific people and the producer of the "artwork" used them to harass those people, that's harassment. If they used them to groom other kids, that's an existing crime too. But my point was that the production of gross art in isolation, or the possession of it, didn't need to be criminalized. (Actual photographs of the same were criminalized because of the pretty decent assumption that minors were coerced, harmed, exploited. Probably all of the above.)
    - alexb_ 4y ago
      That's already illegal - you're using someone's image and likeness in a way they did not approve of.
xena 4y ago
Taking all payment in Ethereum doesn't matter when you have to pay for servers and domain names in fiat.
- gear54rus 4y ago
  Lots of work on that front no doubt, and not only wrt domains
- Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
  Servers and domains are one of the easiest things to buy with crypto. I actually just migrated away from Hetzner last week (for unrelated reasons) to two new providers to whom I'm paying crypto (no KYC required) based on this list: https://bitcoin-vps.com/ https://bitcoin-vps.com/
  - sharemywin 4y ago
    would be nice if you could pay in your own token.
    - Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
      I'm not sure to what you're referring by "your own token", but most do offer a range of popular tokens by using one of the 3rd party payment providers like Coingate. I had paid for my servers with some Litecoin I have that I usually use for small purchases because of the low fees.
      - sharemywin 4y ago
        kind of like a free tier for token projects. if it gets traction you would need more servers but the token would have value so there you go.

This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules.

gear54rus 4y ago
Well you can wait a lifetime or you can take control away from them with a couple clicks. The choice is obvious.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  As a rule of thumb, whenever anyone says "the choice is obvious", the choice they're talking about is usually far from obvious.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> This is not an argument for crypto, it's an argument for better regulations so that processors don't make up their own rules. Better (which I assume is your euphemism for "more") regulation isn't neceesarily the answer, or even particularly the answer. Do you want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do? Isn't there a word for that?
- mschild 4y ago
  Not necessarily more. Better in this context means clearer and enforced. PayPal is the prime example where it's operating very similar to a bank. You have an account with a balance and can send and receive money, but it doesn't see itself as a bank and in many countries doesn't have a bank license. At least in part this is done to avoid the regulatory work that comes with it. I absolutely want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do. For example, banks in Germany are forced to provide you with a basic bank account regardless whether they want to or not. That's because a bank account is simply a must have to take part in modern life. If PayPal decides it doesn't want to do business with you, for whatever arbitrary reason, you are effectively locked out of a lot of online stores that only accept PayPal as a payment method. There is plenty of examples of PayPals really sketchy behaviour online. Every few months you can even see complaints on HN about it.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > it's operating very similar to a bank We might be talking at cross purposes; I'm not sure! How is it like a bank?
    - mschild 4y ago
      PayPal offers you a virtual account that you can pay money into. You can use that money to make purchases online, send and receive money from friends or other businesses. In effect, it acts like a bank account. However, it's not an actual bank account. In Europe, any money you put into that account is also not ensured by the government, like a normal account would. If I pay with a credit card, there are processes in place to deal with fraud and charge backs. PayPal is well known to automatically close accounts with little recourse to access the money on those accounts. They should absolutely be regulated.
      - worik 4y ago
        I agree they should be regulated But they are nothing like a bank The feature of a bank is credit creation. Lending more money than they hold. Unless I missed some news PayPal does not do that
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        This is what I was wondering - to my understanding the main reason banks need to be regulated is to stop them over-lending.
- psychlops 4y ago
  Authoritarian solutions are very attractive today.
  - mschild 4y ago
    Reasonably regulating payment processors is far from authoritarian. If you are on a scale like Visa and MasterCard you're not just any private company anymore. Just those 2 companies control well over 75% of the US market alone. Not having access to a debit/credit card today will effectively block you from taking part in many aspects of modern life. It's absolutely reasonable to place stipulations on what they can and cannot do.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      In what sense do they control the market?
    - psychlops 4y ago
      I don't disagree with your objective, it's the path you are taking to get there. Legislating obedience is authoritarian and is solution that many people love due to its simplicity. Regulators love working with large businesses like your card duopoly, I don't think you will see much improvement.
- layer8 4y ago
  > Do you want to force payment processors to do work they don't want to do? Isn't there a word for that? Public utility. That’s what payment processors are at this point, and they should be regulated as such.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    If we think there's no more innovation to be had then this could happen, but I'm not sure that's the case.

sharemywin 4y ago

crypto + NSFW generative AI = ???? that's not going to lead to a whole lot of black market images.

xp84 4y ago
It certainly stretches the bounds of reason for me that you could put a person in an isolation chamber with a powerful computer with no network connection, and after they type a few words into it, if the output of the computer has certain qualities, they are now a felon and the output is illegal to possess. But this seems like the world the “AI-regulators” seem to want.
- sharemywin 4y ago
  you don't think it would be problematic for someone to create deep fake images of some ones kids in explicit sexual positions? I certainly think if the parents found out about it and the law wouldn't do anything about it the parents would take the law into their own hands. I'm sorry if this wasn't phrased very well. I just didn't know how else to make my point with out be very specific.
  - xp84 4y ago
    A skilled artist can already easily do that and there's no law against it that I know of. (Granted, I haven't researched it because I'm neither an artist nor a pervert...) Now, if they were drawn to resemble specific people and the producer of the "artwork" used them to harass those people, that's harassment. If they used them to groom other kids, that's an existing crime too. But my point was that the production of gross art in isolation, or the possession of it, didn't need to be criminalized. (Actual photographs of the same were criminalized because of the pretty decent assumption that minors were coerced, harmed, exploited. Probably all of the above.)
  - alexb_ 4y ago
    That's already illegal - you're using someone's image and likeness in a way they did not approve of.

xena 4y ago

Taking all payment in Ethereum doesn't matter when you have to pay for servers and domain names in fiat.

gear54rus 4y ago
Lots of work on that front no doubt, and not only wrt domains
Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
Servers and domains are one of the easiest things to buy with crypto. I actually just migrated away from Hetzner last week (for unrelated reasons) to two new providers to whom I'm paying crypto (no KYC required) based on this list: https://bitcoin-vps.com/ https://bitcoin-vps.com/
- sharemywin 4y ago
  would be nice if you could pay in your own token.
  - Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
    I'm not sure to what you're referring by "your own token", but most do offer a range of popular tokens by using one of the 3rd party payment providers like Coingate. I had paid for my servers with some Litecoin I have that I usually use for small purchases because of the low fees.
    - sharemywin 4y ago
      kind of like a free tier for token projects. if it gets traction you would need more servers but the token would have value so there you go.