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What is the alternative to these large corporations? I will try to say it again… Web3. Easy to integrate as an option, start accepting payments worldwid, and yo

by EGreg 3y ago

What is the alternative to these large corporations? I will try to say it again… Web3. Easy to integrate as an option, start accepting payments worldwid, and you can never get deplatformed and your funds won’t be frozen. Why not? Over and over I see HN complain about enshittification of the latest large platform, but also somehow many people knee-jerk downvote anything about the decentralized alternatives because they don’t want them to catch on. So then… enjoy the enshittification I guess? “Something something we have to vote for our government to do something”. I think we can just build open source decentralized alternatives to all this stuff.

anon373839 3y ago
I think the issue would be that you need to offer payment methods that your customers trust and will use. Does Web3 satisfy that need?
- EGreg 3y ago
  USDT, USDC, Ethereum, Bitcoin are trusted round the world. It’s not like the latest memecoin garbage
  - tempestn 3y ago
    Most people outside of circles like this one have never heard of Ethereum, let alone USDT or USDC, and when they hear Bitcoin, they think "risky" or "scam". If your product or service is specifically aimed at tech enthusiasts and you take pains to make it easy, maybe you could get away with accepting payments only in crypto (though I doubt it), but otherwise there's no way.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      So your answer is that they aren’t well-knowj enough, and the ecosystem isn’t consumer-friendly enough, kind of like decades of personal computers and tech enthusiasts like the Homebrew Club, which preceded the Personal Computer going mainstream, and then the corporate-produced Mobile Phone explosion based on software that was developed originally for personal computers? Yeah sure, these things take time.
  - ahtihn 3y ago
    None of these are actually trusted by the general population. The average person has never even heard of USDT and USDC and barely knows what the other 2 are.
    - adenner 3y ago
      So excluding crypto/web3 for the above reasons, does anyone have recommendations for non stripe mostly us friendly solutions?
      - EGreg 3y ago
        There will be Crickets
  - kykeonaut 3y ago
    Another downside of these alternatives is that they are not decentralized either. USDT and USDC are controlled by a single entity each. The top 0.01% of Bitcoin holders own 27% of all the Bitcoin [0], and even worse, the top 0.1% of Bitcoin miners control half of the miner capacity [1]. I am not sure about Ethereum, but as in any pure capitalistic system, the accumulation of wealth by a few is inevitable [2]. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wealth-one-percent/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-weal... [1] https://fortune.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-mining-capacity-ownership-concentration-top-investors-nber-study/amp/ https://fortune.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-mining-capacity-owner... [2] "capital has the tendency for concentration and centralization in the hands of richest capitalists. Marx explains" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation#:~:text=capital%20has%20the%20tendency%20for%20concentration%20and%20centralization%20in%20the%20hands%20of%20richest%20capitalists.%20Marx%20explains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation#:~:text=c...
    - EGreg 3y ago
      “Controlled” is a strong word considering that there is no master key that can just misuse all the tokens secretly the way that FTX or Celsius did. Everyone gets their own key, to move their tokens. Even if Ethereum comes to be controlled by a few people, their incentives are not to kill the value of their own ecosystem (unless they are a state actor, or if all Ethereum tokens are somehow bought out completely by Elon Musk lol). And the only way the blockchain can get screwed is by miners ALL agreeing to refuse to mint new blocks. Or miners could re-order transactions within a block, which they already do. That’s it. Now you could say that the dollar reserves of USDC are controlled by one company, and I agree. Even though USDC is run by Circle which is a regulated company that can pay out with no slippage to your bank account, and receive dollars the same way. They are one step away from banks and may even get insurance and reinsurance similar to FDIC. But you may still not want to see one company be the gateway. That’s why we started the Intercoin project, to make a truly decentralized ecosystem including decentralizing the gateways too (just like the Internet is). But for today, it’s already no different than any bank in the Free Banking Era, which is how the United States did almost all of its money all the way before the greenback. As long as the music is on and the musical chairs are moving, your $500 in tokens that you use for your consumer purchases is safe.
  - datadeft 3y ago
    Not really. I cannot use bitcoin with any stretch of imagination the same way I can use EUR.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It's pretty obvious that the average customer doesn't have any cryptocurrency to pay with, so the onboarding system they would use to begin with would be some company that charges their credit card or debits their bank account and then converts it to cryptocurrency to transfer to you. Which they wouldn't have any reason to trust any less than they do PayPal or Stripe, in the sense of not debiting their account when they didn't authorize it. So what you need is a federated system in which the customer can choose whichever of those providers they want to use and that doesn't matter to the seller who can receives transfers from any company that customer paid for some cryptocurrency. The customer can use whoever they trust. Now, maybe that doesn't have a good UX yet, but it could.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    They have to trust it once and then their money is under their control thereafter, whereas with these companies, they hold everyone’s money. Like FTX. Or Banks. They can freeze customer funds, too, btw, or rehypothecate them as we’ve seen. Crypto doesn’t. When it comes to trust, crypto wins. And as time goes on, the ecosystem of fiat on-ramps and off-ramps would only get better and more recognizable. There’s no reason the gateways can’t be regulated as money transmitters or broker-dealers. But what would you rather do, keep ALL your money with third party black boxes who may misuse it or cut you off from spending (if you live in China, Canada, Sweden etc) or put SOME of your money into wallets under your direct control?
Moldoteck 3y ago
My parents, which represent an average person nowadays, do know how to put card data into a site to pay something. What they don't know is how to pay with crypto, even more- for them cryptocoins= automatic scam. Web3 can be a nieche solution for some nieche ppl, but I don't see how it can become mainstream now, as a business you anyway need a classic payment processor bc too few ppl know what is crypto and how to use it
- tommek4077 3y ago
  My parents, which represent an average person nowadays, do know how to ride a horse to get somewhere. What they don't know is how to drive a automobile, even more- for them gasoline=danger. Cars can be a nieche solution for some nieche ppl, but I don't see how it can become mainstream now, as a business you anyway need a classic horse barn bc too few ppl know what is a automobile and how to use it
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    lmao, cars now are ubiquitous, maybe care to provide a better example, or just ignore me, since you have your own beliefs
    - EGreg 3y ago
      That was the point He was implying someone could ahve said this in the past
  - me_again 3y ago
    Feel free to provide examples of companies which a) are not 'in the crypto business' (ie they sell widgets, or software, not NFTs) b) obtain the majority of their revenue via crypto. Crypto is closer to autogyro than automobile in adoption, and there is no guarantee that will ever change.
- EGreg 3y ago
  You don’t have to get the whole world, just people who have crypto — which is millions of people!
troupo 3y ago
> Why not? - Transaction fees - Transaction times - KYC - refunds Just off the top of my head

by EGreg 3y ago

anon373839 3y ago

I think the issue would be that you need to offer payment methods that your customers trust and will use. Does Web3 satisfy that need?

EGreg 3y ago
USDT, USDC, Ethereum, Bitcoin are trusted round the world. It’s not like the latest memecoin garbage
- tempestn 3y ago
  Most people outside of circles like this one have never heard of Ethereum, let alone USDT or USDC, and when they hear Bitcoin, they think "risky" or "scam". If your product or service is specifically aimed at tech enthusiasts and you take pains to make it easy, maybe you could get away with accepting payments only in crypto (though I doubt it), but otherwise there's no way.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    So your answer is that they aren’t well-knowj enough, and the ecosystem isn’t consumer-friendly enough, kind of like decades of personal computers and tech enthusiasts like the Homebrew Club, which preceded the Personal Computer going mainstream, and then the corporate-produced Mobile Phone explosion based on software that was developed originally for personal computers? Yeah sure, these things take time.
- ahtihn 3y ago
  None of these are actually trusted by the general population. The average person has never even heard of USDT and USDC and barely knows what the other 2 are.
  - adenner 3y ago
    So excluding crypto/web3 for the above reasons, does anyone have recommendations for non stripe mostly us friendly solutions?
    - EGreg 3y ago
      There will be Crickets
- kykeonaut 3y ago
  Another downside of these alternatives is that they are not decentralized either. USDT and USDC are controlled by a single entity each. The top 0.01% of Bitcoin holders own 27% of all the Bitcoin [0], and even worse, the top 0.1% of Bitcoin miners control half of the miner capacity [1]. I am not sure about Ethereum, but as in any pure capitalistic system, the accumulation of wealth by a few is inevitable [2]. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-wealth-one-percent/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-weal... [1] https://fortune.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-mining-capacity-ownership-concentration-top-investors-nber-study/amp/ https://fortune.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-mining-capacity-owner... [2] "capital has the tendency for concentration and centralization in the hands of richest capitalists. Marx explains" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation#:~:text=capital%20has%20the%20tendency%20for%20concentration%20and%20centralization%20in%20the%20hands%20of%20richest%20capitalists.%20Marx%20explains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation#:~:text=c...
  - EGreg 3y ago
    “Controlled” is a strong word considering that there is no master key that can just misuse all the tokens secretly the way that FTX or Celsius did. Everyone gets their own key, to move their tokens. Even if Ethereum comes to be controlled by a few people, their incentives are not to kill the value of their own ecosystem (unless they are a state actor, or if all Ethereum tokens are somehow bought out completely by Elon Musk lol). And the only way the blockchain can get screwed is by miners ALL agreeing to refuse to mint new blocks. Or miners could re-order transactions within a block, which they already do. That’s it. Now you could say that the dollar reserves of USDC are controlled by one company, and I agree. Even though USDC is run by Circle which is a regulated company that can pay out with no slippage to your bank account, and receive dollars the same way. They are one step away from banks and may even get insurance and reinsurance similar to FDIC. But you may still not want to see one company be the gateway. That’s why we started the Intercoin project, to make a truly decentralized ecosystem including decentralizing the gateways too (just like the Internet is). But for today, it’s already no different than any bank in the Free Banking Era, which is how the United States did almost all of its money all the way before the greenback. As long as the music is on and the musical chairs are moving, your $500 in tokens that you use for your consumer purchases is safe.
- datadeft 3y ago
  Not really. I cannot use bitcoin with any stretch of imagination the same way I can use EUR.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
It's pretty obvious that the average customer doesn't have any cryptocurrency to pay with, so the onboarding system they would use to begin with would be some company that charges their credit card or debits their bank account and then converts it to cryptocurrency to transfer to you. Which they wouldn't have any reason to trust any less than they do PayPal or Stripe, in the sense of not debiting their account when they didn't authorize it. So what you need is a federated system in which the customer can choose whichever of those providers they want to use and that doesn't matter to the seller who can receives transfers from any company that customer paid for some cryptocurrency. The customer can use whoever they trust. Now, maybe that doesn't have a good UX yet, but it could.
- EGreg 3y ago
  They have to trust it once and then their money is under their control thereafter, whereas with these companies, they hold everyone’s money. Like FTX. Or Banks. They can freeze customer funds, too, btw, or rehypothecate them as we’ve seen. Crypto doesn’t. When it comes to trust, crypto wins. And as time goes on, the ecosystem of fiat on-ramps and off-ramps would only get better and more recognizable. There’s no reason the gateways can’t be regulated as money transmitters or broker-dealers. But what would you rather do, keep ALL your money with third party black boxes who may misuse it or cut you off from spending (if you live in China, Canada, Sweden etc) or put SOME of your money into wallets under your direct control?

Moldoteck 3y ago

My parents, which represent an average person nowadays, do know how to put card data into a site to pay something. What they don't know is how to pay with crypto, even more- for them cryptocoins= automatic scam. Web3 can be a nieche solution for some nieche ppl, but I don't see how it can become mainstream now, as a business you anyway need a classic payment processor bc too few ppl know what is crypto and how to use it

tommek4077 3y ago
My parents, which represent an average person nowadays, do know how to ride a horse to get somewhere. What they don't know is how to drive a automobile, even more- for them gasoline=danger. Cars can be a nieche solution for some nieche ppl, but I don't see how it can become mainstream now, as a business you anyway need a classic horse barn bc too few ppl know what is a automobile and how to use it
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  lmao, cars now are ubiquitous, maybe care to provide a better example, or just ignore me, since you have your own beliefs
  - EGreg 3y ago
    That was the point He was implying someone could ahve said this in the past
- me_again 3y ago
  Feel free to provide examples of companies which a) are not 'in the crypto business' (ie they sell widgets, or software, not NFTs) b) obtain the majority of their revenue via crypto. Crypto is closer to autogyro than automobile in adoption, and there is no guarantee that will ever change.
EGreg 3y ago
You don’t have to get the whole world, just people who have crypto — which is millions of people!

troupo 3y ago

> Why not? - Transaction fees - Transaction times - KYC - refunds Just off the top of my head