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>Or when I talk to people who run online businesses and the plethora of problems they have with credit card payments. Because a credit car payment is not a paym

by brazzy 3y ago

>Or when I talk to people who run online businesses and the plethora of problems they have with credit card payments. Because a credit car payment is not a payment. It's a something where the receiver of the money is held responsible when the one who pays plays dirty tricks on them. In the future, an electronic payment will be simply a payment. That last sentence indicates you have failed to understand the problems. A payment that is "simply a payment" is a huge step backwards from those credit card systems. If fraud prevention and legal recourse to undo fraudulent payments is not baked directly into your system, that system is worthless.

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
You mean worthless like those trillions of dollars worth of cash out there? Worthless like anything people used to trade for thousands of years before credit cards arrived? Oh, and there is no fraud prevention baked into credit cards. That's what I said. Sellers hate credit cards because they have to deal with all that fraud: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=credit+card+fraud https://hn.algolia.com/?q=credit+card+fraud
- brazzy 3y ago
  > You mean worthless like those trillions of dollars worth of cash out there? ...which is getting used less and less in the developed world. In an increasing number of countries, carrying cash is a thing of the past, or done as a rarely-used backup. > Worthless like anything people used to trade for thousands of years before credit cards arrived? And which have fallen or are falling out of use when competing with systems that better serve the needs of the users. And safety from fraud and theft is a pretty big need. > Oh, and there is no fraud prevention baked into credit cards. Admittedly it's more bolted on than baked into (since the system is so old), but it most certainly is there. > Sellers hate credit cards because they have to deal with all that fraud Which doesn't mean there's not fraud prevention, just that it often fails. As it always will in every system, because it's a really hard problem. And a human problem, not a technical problem.
- legendofbrando 3y ago
  Crypto thinking is always basically some version of how modern finance is broken, yet the solution is basically “hey consumers, whenever you buy something you’re at risk that you could have no recourse.” Of course individual merchants dislike cards, they create a wedge between consumer and merchant -/ but that wedge also enables people to freely spend more than they’ll ever extract from falsifying things, thereby benefiting all merchants. Crypto logic ignores that the modern banking system is actually far more logical than it sounds at first blush when you just take the perspective that not everyone should be trusted all the time.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
    Modern finance is broken in multiple ways. As an example, let's start with the very first step of a transaction. The payer puts some "secret" numbers into the website of the payee. With those "secret" numbers, the payee contacts some middleman and says "Heyho, your customer agreed to pay $12345 to me. Here is proof of this: The secret numbers". This is already absurd, as the payer gives those "secret" numbers our all the time. So they are not secret. And the $12345 could be completely made up. The way this is handled is that the middle man tries to cope with the clusterfuck that is the result of this. And everybody suffers along the way. The payer has a bad user experience. What is the latest UX ploy to get fraud under control? Was it 3D-Secure-Name-Your-First-Dog-Name-Plus-Another-Secret-Number-Or-Hey-We-Have-An-App-For-You-That-Creates-Random-Card-Numbers-Each-Time-You-Pay-Oh-And-Hello-Do-You-Support-Apple-Pay? I lost track. The payee has to constantly tinker with fraud detection and fraud handling. Just like the middleman, although the middle man likes it this way because they get paid for it.
    - kalleboo 3y ago
      Credit card usability is bad but crypto usability is 100 times worse
- Tor3 3y ago
  "Sellers hate credit cards ..." That's news to me. The truth is that sellers hate cash. So much so that around here several establishments display "card only" at the entrance, even though cash is legal tender - i.e. they can't by law refuse cash. And still: They do. (And "card", in this context, includes debit as well as credit cards, but as credit cards are so extremely common.. I, for one, haven't dealt in my native country's cash in some twenty years, and that's pretty common.).
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    At least where I live, legal tender means that you cannot refuse cash for settlement of an already existing debt, but you can definitely say you don't want to accept cash for transactions that haven't yet occured. So a "card only" announcement at a shop is perfectly legal.
    - Tor3 3y ago
      Well, not here it isn't. These establishments have been fined several times. They still don't buckle. As for the reason they do it - it's because it's more expensive handling cash than handling cards, and much more hassle (i.e. the opposite of what the comment I originally replied to was alluding to). So, by accepting cards only they cut costs, and by that they also gain an unfair advantage to competing establishments, which is why they want to continue despite being fined, though this is of course not liked much by said competitors. This is straining away from the original thread, but the essence is that cards are considered a pretty efficient and safe payment method. Crypto I wouldn't touch. It's got everything wrong.

by brazzy 3y ago

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago

You mean worthless like those trillions of dollars worth of cash out there? Worthless like anything people used to trade for thousands of years before credit cards arrived? Oh, and there is no fraud prevention baked into credit cards. That's what I said. Sellers hate credit cards because they have to deal with all that fraud: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=credit+card+fraud https://hn.algolia.com/?q=credit+card+fraud

brazzy 3y ago
> You mean worthless like those trillions of dollars worth of cash out there? ...which is getting used less and less in the developed world. In an increasing number of countries, carrying cash is a thing of the past, or done as a rarely-used backup. > Worthless like anything people used to trade for thousands of years before credit cards arrived? And which have fallen or are falling out of use when competing with systems that better serve the needs of the users. And safety from fraud and theft is a pretty big need. > Oh, and there is no fraud prevention baked into credit cards. Admittedly it's more bolted on than baked into (since the system is so old), but it most certainly is there. > Sellers hate credit cards because they have to deal with all that fraud Which doesn't mean there's not fraud prevention, just that it often fails. As it always will in every system, because it's a really hard problem. And a human problem, not a technical problem.
legendofbrando 3y ago
Crypto thinking is always basically some version of how modern finance is broken, yet the solution is basically “hey consumers, whenever you buy something you’re at risk that you could have no recourse.” Of course individual merchants dislike cards, they create a wedge between consumer and merchant -/ but that wedge also enables people to freely spend more than they’ll ever extract from falsifying things, thereby benefiting all merchants. Crypto logic ignores that the modern banking system is actually far more logical than it sounds at first blush when you just take the perspective that not everyone should be trusted all the time.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  Modern finance is broken in multiple ways. As an example, let's start with the very first step of a transaction. The payer puts some "secret" numbers into the website of the payee. With those "secret" numbers, the payee contacts some middleman and says "Heyho, your customer agreed to pay $12345 to me. Here is proof of this: The secret numbers". This is already absurd, as the payer gives those "secret" numbers our all the time. So they are not secret. And the $12345 could be completely made up. The way this is handled is that the middle man tries to cope with the clusterfuck that is the result of this. And everybody suffers along the way. The payer has a bad user experience. What is the latest UX ploy to get fraud under control? Was it 3D-Secure-Name-Your-First-Dog-Name-Plus-Another-Secret-Number-Or-Hey-We-Have-An-App-For-You-That-Creates-Random-Card-Numbers-Each-Time-You-Pay-Oh-And-Hello-Do-You-Support-Apple-Pay? I lost track. The payee has to constantly tinker with fraud detection and fraud handling. Just like the middleman, although the middle man likes it this way because they get paid for it.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    Credit card usability is bad but crypto usability is 100 times worse
Tor3 3y ago
"Sellers hate credit cards ..." That's news to me. The truth is that sellers hate cash. So much so that around here several establishments display "card only" at the entrance, even though cash is legal tender - i.e. they can't by law refuse cash. And still: They do. (And "card", in this context, includes debit as well as credit cards, but as credit cards are so extremely common.. I, for one, haven't dealt in my native country's cash in some twenty years, and that's pretty common.).
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  At least where I live, legal tender means that you cannot refuse cash for settlement of an already existing debt, but you can definitely say you don't want to accept cash for transactions that haven't yet occured. So a "card only" announcement at a shop is perfectly legal.
  - Tor3 3y ago
    Well, not here it isn't. These establishments have been fined several times. They still don't buckle. As for the reason they do it - it's because it's more expensive handling cash than handling cards, and much more hassle (i.e. the opposite of what the comment I originally replied to was alluding to). So, by accepting cards only they cut costs, and by that they also gain an unfair advantage to competing establishments, which is why they want to continue despite being fined, though this is of course not liked much by said competitors. This is straining away from the original thread, but the essence is that cards are considered a pretty efficient and safe payment method. Crypto I wouldn't touch. It's got everything wrong.