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> determining where intellectual property ends and fair use begins is where the complexity is at recording ownership of digital goods at scale has historically

by nailer 3y ago

> determining where intellectual property ends and fair use begins is where the complexity is at recording ownership of digital goods at scale has historically been very difficult. fair use is important but does not help artists get paid. Please don’t read that is being anti fair use. It is rather that fair use is orthogonal to this problem. > Yes, card payments are quite inefficient, but not anywhere near 3% go to the card networks. Glad we agree on at least one of these. Visa is 2.9 percent plus some other minor fee I can’t remember right now. > What's the connection to cryptocurrency here? Usability. I guarantee you more people have crypto wallets now that have ever installed PGP, GPG, or any other similar app in the entire history of computing.

lxgr 3y ago
> Visa is 2.9 percent plus some other minor fee I can’t remember right now. No, that's the total that the merchant pays. The biggest chunk of that goes to the issuing bank and pays for credit card rewards which you get back as the cardholder in some form. Credit cards (at least in the US) are a fairly efficient payment system, but as long as there will be card rewards, they effectively create a cash surcharge at all merchants that accept them: If you pay by card, the biggest chunk of these ~3% is kicked back to you, so the merchant usually just bakes that 3% into their prices, but you get the biggest part of it back. But since merchants usually don't have two sets of prices (although there are exceptions), cash payers end up net-paying more, i.e. indirectly pay for your card rewards. This isn't the case in all countries globally; for example, in the EU, card interchange is capped to about 10% of what merchants pay in the US. As a result, merchant fees are much lower, but there are practically no more rewards.
- nailer 3y ago
  Thanks for the info. I’m writing this from the UK where rewards are indeed close to zero. There are cryptocurrency based reward programs, I haven’t played with them myself though.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    In the UK, the (domestic) interchange seems to be still capped to EU levels [1]. Accordingly, merchants pay much less than 3% on domestic card payments. [1] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PDF/fees-and-interchange/2022-november/uk-interchange-fees-nov-22.pdf https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...

by nailer 3y ago

lxgr 3y ago

> Visa is 2.9 percent plus some other minor fee I can’t remember right now. No, that's the total that the merchant pays. The biggest chunk of that goes to the issuing bank and pays for credit card rewards which you get back as the cardholder in some form. Credit cards (at least in the US) are a fairly efficient payment system, but as long as there will be card rewards, they effectively create a cash surcharge at all merchants that accept them: If you pay by card, the biggest chunk of these ~3% is kicked back to you, so the merchant usually just bakes that 3% into their prices, but you get the biggest part of it back. But since merchants usually don't have two sets of prices (although there are exceptions), cash payers end up net-paying more, i.e. indirectly pay for your card rewards. This isn't the case in all countries globally; for example, in the EU, card interchange is capped to about 10% of what merchants pay in the US. As a result, merchant fees are much lower, but there are practically no more rewards.

nailer 3y ago
Thanks for the info. I’m writing this from the UK where rewards are indeed close to zero. There are cryptocurrency based reward programs, I haven’t played with them myself though.
- lxgr 3y ago
  In the UK, the (domestic) interchange seems to be still capped to EU levels [1]. Accordingly, merchants pay much less than 3% on domestic card payments. [1] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PDF/fees-and-interchange/2022-november/uk-interchange-fees-nov-22.pdf https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...