4 ms·

This is why we bitcoin

by anders16 3y ago

colesantiago 3y ago
No. Bitcoin will not help you here. At all.
- davidmurdoch 3y ago
  Why not?
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    Because you'll still need to exchange it to real currency.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      That's not the problem. If you had cryptocurrency from a lawful business activity in a non-custodial wallet, there are any number of places you can convert it to US dollars, and if you had a dispute with any of them you could use any of the others. The problem is the easy way to accept cryptocurrency is with a custodial wallet, and then they can be the same kind of jerks as PayPal et al. The premise of cryptocurrency was that it should be decentralized and as yet, it's... not.
      - evandale 3y ago
        It is decentralized in a way, like cash, but it's not as safe as cash. Technically cash isn't decentralized but for all intents and purposes it may as well be. Especially USD because anyone in the world will accept it. It's a little harder to scam/dupe someone with cash (especially in the US with USD because of the centralization) and you have the government to help if you receive counterfeit money. That's the part that makes bitcoin fully decentralized and a pain in the ass to deal with other people and trust - nobody wants to help you if you get scammed with bitcoin. You're completely on your own and wholly responsible for anything that goes wrong. There's nothing stopping you from meeting with someone and sending them bitcoin to their non-custodial wallet to buy their old patio set. There's also nothing stopping you from making a craigslist ad to trade your cash for someone's bitcoin from their non-custodial wallet. Well, except for fear and how sketchy it would be to stand around waiting for a confirmation before handing over the cash. I can admit the fear and sketchiness goes to 11 though and if that never changes bitcoin will never go mainstream because cash will always be better.
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > It's a little harder to scam/dupe someone with cash (especially in the US with USD because of the centralization) and you have the government to help if you receive counterfeit money. How is this any different? If you give someone a stack of hundred dollar bills and they rip you off and disappear where you can't find them, you're out of luck. If someone commits fraud and you do know who they are, that's still illegal even if you paid them in Bitcoin. The primary difference is that you can send someone Bitcoin over the internet. And then if they're on another continent your local law enforcement isn't going to have much to say about it and their local law enforcement may not care. But in many cases that doesn't really matter. How many times do you actually pay anything to disreputable nobodies over the internet? It's mostly established merchants with known reputations that they're not inclined to sully just to rip someone off for a couple bucks, regardless of whether the customer can do a charge back. It's not the irreversibility that's the problem. It's the UX, or the regulatory overhead, or the network effect. It has to get to the point that Netflix says "hey, Mastercard is charging us 3% and we could avoid that with Bitcoin, why are we leaving money on the table"?
  - codegeek 3y ago
    How many people use bitcoin for daily purchases today? How many want to use bitcoin for daily purchases ? How many people CAN use bitcoin for daily purchases ?
    - evandale 3y ago
      The actual questions you should ask in this situation are: How many people who use bitcoin would use this product? How many want to use this product and don't know how to use bitcoin? How many people CAN use bitcoin for THIS purchases? We're never going to switch to bitcoin for daily purchases but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option for people.
      - colesantiago 3y ago
        Because the answer is that nobody uses Bitcoin for anything legitimate other than speculation, paying off ransomware debts to criminals and just down right scams and fraud. I am yet to see any viable usecase of this bitcoin mania that is legitimate and doesn’t need tons of energy waste to accomplish its goal. For almost 15 years of bitcoin it has completely failed and we have no use for it. So yes, we should never switch to bitcoin for daily purchases (because it fails at that) and we should never switch to an ‘alternative’ like bitcoin if that said alternative is even worse than the current system, which it is.
        evandale 3y ago
        That isn't true. I have a PornHub subscription that uses bitcoin. There's nothing speculative about it and it's completely legitimate. I've also used to to purchase indie games instead of giving Steam/Google/Apple/Epic a cut. I'm looking for a Spotify alternative and this seems to fit the bill and I'd give OP some bitcoin to check it out. Just because viable usecases don't exist today isn't proof that they'll never exist and isn't a reason to stop development. If we gave up on hard problems because we didn't solve them in 15 years we wouldn't have the AI we have today.
        JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
- evandale 3y ago
  It will help if you have a way to turn bitcoin into your preferred currency and vice versa. It's an option, not a complete replacement.
  - thecosas 3y ago
    /s Helpfully, Stripe provides a path for exactly this https://stripe.com/docs/crypto/overview https://stripe.com/docs/crypto/overview

This is why we bitcoin

colesantiago 3y ago

No. Bitcoin will not help you here. At all.

davidmurdoch 3y ago
Why not?
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  Because you'll still need to exchange it to real currency.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    That's not the problem. If you had cryptocurrency from a lawful business activity in a non-custodial wallet, there are any number of places you can convert it to US dollars, and if you had a dispute with any of them you could use any of the others. The problem is the easy way to accept cryptocurrency is with a custodial wallet, and then they can be the same kind of jerks as PayPal et al. The premise of cryptocurrency was that it should be decentralized and as yet, it's... not.
    - evandale 3y ago
      It is decentralized in a way, like cash, but it's not as safe as cash. Technically cash isn't decentralized but for all intents and purposes it may as well be. Especially USD because anyone in the world will accept it. It's a little harder to scam/dupe someone with cash (especially in the US with USD because of the centralization) and you have the government to help if you receive counterfeit money. That's the part that makes bitcoin fully decentralized and a pain in the ass to deal with other people and trust - nobody wants to help you if you get scammed with bitcoin. You're completely on your own and wholly responsible for anything that goes wrong. There's nothing stopping you from meeting with someone and sending them bitcoin to their non-custodial wallet to buy their old patio set. There's also nothing stopping you from making a craigslist ad to trade your cash for someone's bitcoin from their non-custodial wallet. Well, except for fear and how sketchy it would be to stand around waiting for a confirmation before handing over the cash. I can admit the fear and sketchiness goes to 11 though and if that never changes bitcoin will never go mainstream because cash will always be better.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > It's a little harder to scam/dupe someone with cash (especially in the US with USD because of the centralization) and you have the government to help if you receive counterfeit money. How is this any different? If you give someone a stack of hundred dollar bills and they rip you off and disappear where you can't find them, you're out of luck. If someone commits fraud and you do know who they are, that's still illegal even if you paid them in Bitcoin. The primary difference is that you can send someone Bitcoin over the internet. And then if they're on another continent your local law enforcement isn't going to have much to say about it and their local law enforcement may not care. But in many cases that doesn't really matter. How many times do you actually pay anything to disreputable nobodies over the internet? It's mostly established merchants with known reputations that they're not inclined to sully just to rip someone off for a couple bucks, regardless of whether the customer can do a charge back. It's not the irreversibility that's the problem. It's the UX, or the regulatory overhead, or the network effect. It has to get to the point that Netflix says "hey, Mastercard is charging us 3% and we could avoid that with Bitcoin, why are we leaving money on the table"?
- codegeek 3y ago
  How many people use bitcoin for daily purchases today? How many want to use bitcoin for daily purchases ? How many people CAN use bitcoin for daily purchases ?
  - evandale 3y ago
    The actual questions you should ask in this situation are: How many people who use bitcoin would use this product? How many want to use this product and don't know how to use bitcoin? How many people CAN use bitcoin for THIS purchases? We're never going to switch to bitcoin for daily purchases but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option for people.
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      Because the answer is that nobody uses Bitcoin for anything legitimate other than speculation, paying off ransomware debts to criminals and just down right scams and fraud. I am yet to see any viable usecase of this bitcoin mania that is legitimate and doesn’t need tons of energy waste to accomplish its goal. For almost 15 years of bitcoin it has completely failed and we have no use for it. So yes, we should never switch to bitcoin for daily purchases (because it fails at that) and we should never switch to an ‘alternative’ like bitcoin if that said alternative is even worse than the current system, which it is.
      - evandale 3y ago
        That isn't true. I have a PornHub subscription that uses bitcoin. There's nothing speculative about it and it's completely legitimate. I've also used to to purchase indie games instead of giving Steam/Google/Apple/Epic a cut. I'm looking for a Spotify alternative and this seems to fit the bill and I'd give OP some bitcoin to check it out. Just because viable usecases don't exist today isn't proof that they'll never exist and isn't a reason to stop development. If we gave up on hard problems because we didn't solve them in 15 years we wouldn't have the AI we have today.
      - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
evandale 3y ago
It will help if you have a way to turn bitcoin into your preferred currency and vice versa. It's an option, not a complete replacement.
- thecosas 3y ago
  /s Helpfully, Stripe provides a path for exactly this https://stripe.com/docs/crypto/overview https://stripe.com/docs/crypto/overview