10 ms·

What's wrong with that?

colesantiago 3y ago
Crypto is only used for non legitimate and speculative purposes and mostly scams. [1] Instead Patreon or Librapay is a better way to support them. https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html
- lloydatkinson 3y ago
  I despise crypto and nft and all of that but to say crypto is only used for scams is ridiculously reductive and absurd.
  - another2another 3y ago
    And in this case it's actually being used as a direct payment method for a good/service - so actually one of the rare cases where crypto is being used as a means of exchange - which is kinda what it was invented for.
    - toolz 3y ago
      Using it as a means of exchange is not rare. It's far from the majority use-case, but something that happens to the order of many billions of USD worth of exchange a year isn't rare.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    Many people do not care about cryptocurrencies and they are not confident in its safety and reliability, that even North Korea drove most of the hacking activity in 2022. This is something that only criminals would be happy that exists. I don't think creators would want to use any form of crypto or have their wallet becoming blacklisted at any time because they 'bought' or received bitcoin/monero from someone else that is associated with north korean hackers and criminals. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-... https://civicscience.com/paypal-now-sells-cryptocurrency-but-are-people-buying/ https://civicscience.com/paypal-now-sells-cryptocurrency-but... https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-biggest-year-ever-for-crypto-hacking/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-biggest-year-ever-for-...
    - sph 3y ago
      Wanna move the goalposts some more? Don't you think the authors should be able to choose what is the best funding method for their project? Earlier you cried about crypto being ALL a scam, now you are the concerned citizen fearing from wallets being blacklisted. While crypto has many downsides worth discussing, there is no reasoning to be had with anti-crypto zealots like you..
      - colesantiago 3y ago
        > Earlier you cried about crypto being ALL a scam, now you are the concerned citizen fearing from wallets being blacklisted. It's both. It is yet another reason why nobody should use crypto. Why should anyone use a wallet that is associated with a blacklisted address? It is simply not worth the hassle, especially when the stats shows that people are not confident in the reliability or safety crypto even if they have heard about it, here is a direct link to this so that you can print this at home: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/sr_2023-04-10_crypto_1/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-... > Don't you think the authors should be able to choose what is the best funding method for their project? I hope you're not suggesting that crypto is the best method because we both know it isn't. It would be like busking for donations in Chernobyl. You can technically do it except nobody is or will be there to give it to you. The same can be said for crypto. You might as well use the payment systems that everyone is using rather than a volatile Rube-Goldberg machine appeals mainly to criminals. > While crypto has many downsides worth discussing, there is no reasoning to be had with anti-crypto zealots like you. Yes. There are only many downsides, no upsides. It's far quicker not to bother with crypto than to try and use it. Only criminals are bothered with it because it fits their use case better, illegitimate and criminal activity.
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    Yeah, it's also used for drugs, cybercrime, and gambling/speculating
    - alias_neo 3y ago
      So is real cash-money.
    - m4jor 3y ago
      Wait until you find out fiat is still the top method of currency used for all of the above.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  Crypto trades full transparency of transaction history for making it impossible to debank. It's literally the worst thing you could use to try and do something illegal. But, if a central authority is invested in being able to shut down any commerce it doesn't like but can't make illegal, and it does so by leaning on private parties, and you see that alliance of central government authority and their corporate donors/clients as legitimate, I suppose crypto is indeed used for non legitimate purposes. Patreon has openly debanked people for investigating human trafficking rings tied to the European migrant crisis. At least use subscribestar if you bought the slander against crypto.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    So Librapay would be a better choice here, as state and as the author of FreeTube has already setup. https://liberapay.com/FreeTube https://liberapay.com/FreeTube No need for crypto or Patreon.
  - adra 3y ago
    I don't know why this crypto adage is so commonly beat out. Have illegal funds deposited into wallet. Send wallet funds to a large crypto exchange that doesn't play ball with regulators commingled with a bunch of people's currency. Send currency to new personal wallet. Wash trade complete. You're now using crypto anonymously to perperuate crime. Where did I go wrong?
    - suoduandao3 3y ago
      'Comingle'. The transaction chain is always visible even when the exchanges don't play ball with regulators. The chain records who recieved every subunit from the initial illegal funds, you'd be painting a target on your entire laundry infrastructure. A few project like Monero can do what you're describing but they're a minority.
  - apozem 3y ago
    Crypto is used all the time by criminals. The entire ransomeware industry takes hostage payments in crypto [0]. Just this morning, I read in Number Go Up [1] about Chinese gangs using Tether to steal millions with pig-butchering scams. They don’t care if it’s traceable, they care that it’s irreversible. They can just run the money through a tumbler anyway. “Criminal activity” is one the things crypto is best at, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. [0]: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/06/08/state-of-crypto-ransomware-is-a-crypto-problem/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/06/08/state-of-crypto-r... [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/pig-butchering-scammers-make-billions-convincing-victims-of-love.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/pig-butchering-scammers-make...
- sph 3y ago
  Crypto is only used for non legitimate and speculative purposes and mostly scams, except projects like this one which are using crypto to fund an open source project, but we don't count those. Mind your confirmation bias.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    Except it is the worst way to fund an open source project and this use case is dwarfed by the 77 billion lost due to crypto scams and hacks.
- dns_snek 3y ago
  Every time a legitimate project accepts crypto donations, some HN commenter feels compelled to chime in with this tired narrative of "Yes this might be legitimate but everything else is a scam". So rather than advocating for 0% fee, true peer to peer donations, your first alternative is to inject a VC-backed parasite in the middle - why?
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    And your 'alternative' is a volatile token backed by nothing, that nobody is interested in (as cited by Pew Research) has properties that exhibits a pyramid scheme at best and a ponzi scheme at worst, and doesn't even do recurring payments and it is still slow. If you want to talk about 0% fees, this doesn't exist in any widely used crypto token so I don't know where you got that from. What is being suggested (which is any crypto token) is even worse than Patreon, we just had major price manipulation on Bitcoin which tells you everything you need to know about how unstable this token is that creators will not use. ICYMI there is also Liberapay which I stated earlier that you purposefully glossed over if you don't like Patreon. In any case, any payment system is better than crypto or bitcoin, especially for creators.
    - dns_snek 3y ago
      > And your 'alternative' is a volatile token backed by nothing All that matters is that there are enough people willingly using it to make it worthwhile for the project to accept these donations. Furthermore, it's not "my" alternative, I'm not trying persuade anyone to use, or not to use different avenues of accepting donations. I'm just questioning HackerNews' collective tendency to publicly shame projects that accept crypto donations. It's a shining legitimate use case for cryptocurrency, and rather than applauding it or at least ignoring it, you feel compelled to deny its existence and remind everyone that crypto is "only" used for scams and drugs - why? It comes across like the vegan stereotype of vegans reminding everyone they're vegan and trying to convince them that they should become vegan too. > If you want to talk about 0% fees, this doesn't exist in any widely used crypto token so I don't know where you got that from. You're mistaken, high TX fees are an exception, not the norm. Both Monero (which this project accepts) and Litecoin transactions cost less than $0.001.
short_sells_poo 3y ago
Technically, morally or practically? Technically nothing. Morally, you are depriving the content creators and Youtube of revenue (if they rely on Youtube ads). You could argue that they aren't somehow fundamentally entitled to make money, but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content. The content creator had to do work to produce the content and YT has to do work to provide a platform where it can be disseminated. Naturally, they want to be paid for doing this work. We can argue about how much they should be paid, but again nobody is forced to watch YT. It's a voluntary transaction. If you don't like ads, buy a YT subscription. If you don't want to support YT, encourage your content creators to provide their content elsewhere. Practically, some companies have been historically willing to shut one or both eyes over open source/free projects as a gesture of goodwill (or marketing exercise). The moment money is involved, the lawyers tend to be unleashed and the whole "this is just a free hobby project with no monetary incentives for the developers" goes out the window.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  > You could argue that they aren't somehow fundamentally entitled to make money, but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content i don't know. take radio for example. The advertiser has paid real money to the voice actors, scripts, etc, and the radio company for hosting their content and for propagation, this is real cost. so what happens if you turn off your radio and don't hear the radio commercial? are you obligated to listen to adverts on a radio? what happens if you make a manual hardware sponsorblock? can the advertiser sue a manufacturer of this manual hardware sponsorblock machine that is an addon to radio? the original selling point of the hardware machine would be to block explicit songs and adblocking would be an added benefit. could radio companies sue radio makers or this hardware machine maker for selling this addon? knowing full well that this maker is earning money. >but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content here is an alternative answer argument. when you publish on a public website, you give away this "right to prevent consumption". youtube is a public website meaning anyone without login can access content so youtube and content creator and advertisers are forfeiting their right to demand remuneration. the alternative? well look at netflix. It is a paywalled service where only paid users access the content. There isn't much of adblocking on netflix or tracking protection and other stuff. What i am trying to say is, only netflix by their nature of a paywalled gateway can expect this "no payment, no content" rule because they have put technical roadblocks. if tomorrow netflix goes open, they will be treated like youtube.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Crypto is only used for non legitimate and speculative purposes and mostly scams. [1] Instead Patreon or Librapay is a better way to support them. https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html

lloydatkinson 3y ago
I despise crypto and nft and all of that but to say crypto is only used for scams is ridiculously reductive and absurd.
- another2another 3y ago
  And in this case it's actually being used as a direct payment method for a good/service - so actually one of the rare cases where crypto is being used as a means of exchange - which is kinda what it was invented for.
  - toolz 3y ago
    Using it as a means of exchange is not rare. It's far from the majority use-case, but something that happens to the order of many billions of USD worth of exchange a year isn't rare.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  Many people do not care about cryptocurrencies and they are not confident in its safety and reliability, that even North Korea drove most of the hacking activity in 2022. This is something that only criminals would be happy that exists. I don't think creators would want to use any form of crypto or have their wallet becoming blacklisted at any time because they 'bought' or received bitcoin/monero from someone else that is associated with north korean hackers and criminals. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-... https://civicscience.com/paypal-now-sells-cryptocurrency-but-are-people-buying/ https://civicscience.com/paypal-now-sells-cryptocurrency-but... https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-biggest-year-ever-for-crypto-hacking/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-biggest-year-ever-for-...
  - sph 3y ago
    Wanna move the goalposts some more? Don't you think the authors should be able to choose what is the best funding method for their project? Earlier you cried about crypto being ALL a scam, now you are the concerned citizen fearing from wallets being blacklisted. While crypto has many downsides worth discussing, there is no reasoning to be had with anti-crypto zealots like you..
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      > Earlier you cried about crypto being ALL a scam, now you are the concerned citizen fearing from wallets being blacklisted. It's both. It is yet another reason why nobody should use crypto. Why should anyone use a wallet that is associated with a blacklisted address? It is simply not worth the hassle, especially when the stats shows that people are not confident in the reliability or safety crypto even if they have heard about it, here is a direct link to this so that you can print this at home: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/sr_2023-04-10_crypto_1/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-... > Don't you think the authors should be able to choose what is the best funding method for their project? I hope you're not suggesting that crypto is the best method because we both know it isn't. It would be like busking for donations in Chernobyl. You can technically do it except nobody is or will be there to give it to you. The same can be said for crypto. You might as well use the payment systems that everyone is using rather than a volatile Rube-Goldberg machine appeals mainly to criminals. > While crypto has many downsides worth discussing, there is no reasoning to be had with anti-crypto zealots like you. Yes. There are only many downsides, no upsides. It's far quicker not to bother with crypto than to try and use it. Only criminals are bothered with it because it fits their use case better, illegitimate and criminal activity.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Yeah, it's also used for drugs, cybercrime, and gambling/speculating
  - alias_neo 3y ago
    So is real cash-money.
  - m4jor 3y ago
    Wait until you find out fiat is still the top method of currency used for all of the above.
suoduandao3 3y ago
Crypto trades full transparency of transaction history for making it impossible to debank. It's literally the worst thing you could use to try and do something illegal. But, if a central authority is invested in being able to shut down any commerce it doesn't like but can't make illegal, and it does so by leaning on private parties, and you see that alliance of central government authority and their corporate donors/clients as legitimate, I suppose crypto is indeed used for non legitimate purposes. Patreon has openly debanked people for investigating human trafficking rings tied to the European migrant crisis. At least use subscribestar if you bought the slander against crypto.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  So Librapay would be a better choice here, as state and as the author of FreeTube has already setup. https://liberapay.com/FreeTube https://liberapay.com/FreeTube No need for crypto or Patreon.
- adra 3y ago
  I don't know why this crypto adage is so commonly beat out. Have illegal funds deposited into wallet. Send wallet funds to a large crypto exchange that doesn't play ball with regulators commingled with a bunch of people's currency. Send currency to new personal wallet. Wash trade complete. You're now using crypto anonymously to perperuate crime. Where did I go wrong?
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    'Comingle'. The transaction chain is always visible even when the exchanges don't play ball with regulators. The chain records who recieved every subunit from the initial illegal funds, you'd be painting a target on your entire laundry infrastructure. A few project like Monero can do what you're describing but they're a minority.
- apozem 3y ago
  Crypto is used all the time by criminals. The entire ransomeware industry takes hostage payments in crypto [0]. Just this morning, I read in Number Go Up [1] about Chinese gangs using Tether to steal millions with pig-butchering scams. They don’t care if it’s traceable, they care that it’s irreversible. They can just run the money through a tumbler anyway. “Criminal activity” is one the things crypto is best at, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. [0]: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/06/08/state-of-crypto-ransomware-is-a-crypto-problem/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/06/08/state-of-crypto-r... [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/pig-butchering-scammers-make-billions-convincing-victims-of-love.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/pig-butchering-scammers-make...
sph 3y ago
Crypto is only used for non legitimate and speculative purposes and mostly scams, except projects like this one which are using crypto to fund an open source project, but we don't count those. Mind your confirmation bias.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  Except it is the worst way to fund an open source project and this use case is dwarfed by the 77 billion lost due to crypto scams and hacks.
dns_snek 3y ago
Every time a legitimate project accepts crypto donations, some HN commenter feels compelled to chime in with this tired narrative of "Yes this might be legitimate but everything else is a scam". So rather than advocating for 0% fee, true peer to peer donations, your first alternative is to inject a VC-backed parasite in the middle - why?
- colesantiago 3y ago
  And your 'alternative' is a volatile token backed by nothing, that nobody is interested in (as cited by Pew Research) has properties that exhibits a pyramid scheme at best and a ponzi scheme at worst, and doesn't even do recurring payments and it is still slow. If you want to talk about 0% fees, this doesn't exist in any widely used crypto token so I don't know where you got that from. What is being suggested (which is any crypto token) is even worse than Patreon, we just had major price manipulation on Bitcoin which tells you everything you need to know about how unstable this token is that creators will not use. ICYMI there is also Liberapay which I stated earlier that you purposefully glossed over if you don't like Patreon. In any case, any payment system is better than crypto or bitcoin, especially for creators.
  - dns_snek 3y ago
    > And your 'alternative' is a volatile token backed by nothing All that matters is that there are enough people willingly using it to make it worthwhile for the project to accept these donations. Furthermore, it's not "my" alternative, I'm not trying persuade anyone to use, or not to use different avenues of accepting donations. I'm just questioning HackerNews' collective tendency to publicly shame projects that accept crypto donations. It's a shining legitimate use case for cryptocurrency, and rather than applauding it or at least ignoring it, you feel compelled to deny its existence and remind everyone that crypto is "only" used for scams and drugs - why? It comes across like the vegan stereotype of vegans reminding everyone they're vegan and trying to convince them that they should become vegan too. > If you want to talk about 0% fees, this doesn't exist in any widely used crypto token so I don't know where you got that from. You're mistaken, high TX fees are an exception, not the norm. Both Monero (which this project accepts) and Litecoin transactions cost less than $0.001.

short_sells_poo 3y ago

Technically, morally or practically? Technically nothing. Morally, you are depriving the content creators and Youtube of revenue (if they rely on Youtube ads). You could argue that they aren't somehow fundamentally entitled to make money, but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content. The content creator had to do work to produce the content and YT has to do work to provide a platform where it can be disseminated. Naturally, they want to be paid for doing this work. We can argue about how much they should be paid, but again nobody is forced to watch YT. It's a voluntary transaction. If you don't like ads, buy a YT subscription. If you don't want to support YT, encourage your content creators to provide their content elsewhere. Practically, some companies have been historically willing to shut one or both eyes over open source/free projects as a gesture of goodwill (or marketing exercise). The moment money is involved, the lawyers tend to be unleashed and the whole "this is just a free hobby project with no monetary incentives for the developers" goes out the window.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago
> You could argue that they aren't somehow fundamentally entitled to make money, but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content i don't know. take radio for example. The advertiser has paid real money to the voice actors, scripts, etc, and the radio company for hosting their content and for propagation, this is real cost. so what happens if you turn off your radio and don't hear the radio commercial? are you obligated to listen to adverts on a radio? what happens if you make a manual hardware sponsorblock? can the advertiser sue a manufacturer of this manual hardware sponsorblock machine that is an addon to radio? the original selling point of the hardware machine would be to block explicit songs and adblocking would be an added benefit. could radio companies sue radio makers or this hardware machine maker for selling this addon? knowing full well that this maker is earning money. >but you are also not fundamentally entitled to consume their content here is an alternative answer argument. when you publish on a public website, you give away this "right to prevent consumption". youtube is a public website meaning anyone without login can access content so youtube and content creator and advertisers are forfeiting their right to demand remuneration. the alternative? well look at netflix. It is a paywalled service where only paid users access the content. There isn't much of adblocking on netflix or tracking protection and other stuff. What i am trying to say is, only netflix by their nature of a paywalled gateway can expect this "no payment, no content" rule because they have put technical roadblocks. if tomorrow netflix goes open, they will be treated like youtube.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]