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The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. So many ideas are infeas

The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. So many ideas are infeasible right now because CC fees are high, and making any payment is extremely high friction.

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
Even if you can send $1. Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk. Because of this insane system of credit cards, where you give the other party a "secret" which enables them to take the money from you. If you could just send the money, the barrier to pay would be 100x lower. Most websites pay the bills via ads. And make less than $0.001 per visitor. If they could sell a monthly membership for a one-time payment of $1, they would have a way better business model.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  There are traditional ways to send money without giving out a secret, like Apple Pay. But there's plenty of fraud in the other direction, people accepting charges with stolen payment info that end up being reversed. It's always a little the merchant's job to decide whose "money is no good here," and that's because of laws.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
    Paying via Apple Pay means you have to pay Apple so that Apple will pay the vendor for you. How do you pay Apple without giving them a secret?
    - lxgr 3y ago
      No, that's not how it works at all. Apple is neither in the authorization nor the transaction clearing/settlement flow. > How do you pay Apple without giving them a secret? Credit cards being effectively unrestricted bearer tokens isn't nearly the only way to do payments. For example you could send a signed message to your bank instructing them to pay Apple (in a world in which you'd be paying them; again, Apple Pay is not that).
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      I think Apple has some special relationship with banks, so it's not this simple. But yeah, one way or another you're trusting Apple Pay, which presumably is more trustworthy than a gas station sale terminal. And if you were signing your own payments, you'd still have to trust your computing device and the bank.
      - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
        With crypto, you would not have to trust your computing device nor your bank. You would send $100 to your computing device every now and then. And use that for day to day spendings. If the device turns out to be malicious, you lost only the $100 and stay away from the brand that made the device. A bank would not be involved at all.
        hot_gril 3y ago
        But you're sending that $100 from another computing device, and if you're not trusting a bank-like entity to hold the cryptocurrency for you, you're responsible for securing all your money on that device without locking yourself out. On the other hand, having some money outside a bank is nice. I've had them freeze my assets before just cuz they felt like it, until I spent a whole day telling them to fix it.
        vernon99 3y ago
        Having a couple hardware wallets in different places + a paper backup split in a couple pieces gives you enough redundancy not to worry about this. Source: my own experience of close to 10 years now.
        hot_gril 3y ago
        So where do you store the paper?
        MadnessASAP 3y ago
        Unfortunately I will never be willing to entrust my financial safety solely to an algorithm. An algorithm cannot be reasoned with, it cannot understand that your house burned down and destroyed your ID. It cannot accept liability for it's actions. If I lose my bank card I go to a branch, verify my ID, and get a replacement. The bank is liable if they allow somebody other then me access to my accounts, regardless of how convincing the fraudster might have been. Source, been using banks for 30 years now.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > If you could just send the money, the barrier to pay would be 100x lower. We can already do that here in Brazil: the web site displays a QR code (plus its contents in text form), the user scans the QR code (or copies the text) into their banking app, and confirms it on the app to send the money. I hasn't AFAIK made any meaningful difference for websites. What people dislike isn't the inconvenience of credit cards, it's the inconvenience of having any paywall at all.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
    What if they had $50 stored in a browser plugin and when a website asks for it, they could pay $1 with a simple click?
    - brazzy 3y ago
      That was possible 30 years ago. There have been probably been a dozen schemes that tried something like that over the decades, starting with DigiCash from before the WWW existed. They all failed not because of fees, not because of security concerns, but because even having to think about whether you want to pay for something and how much incurs a mental cost that people avoid. Free beets cheap by a margin that has nothing to do with how cheap or how easy.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk. I wonder how small independent sites like Amazon and eBay exist then if people dislike paying on the web because of the security risk. The reality is that people have literally no problem paying for stuff on the internet.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Because Amazon and eBay aren't small independent sites. Those stored payment methods and user trust are quite valuable to both.
    - troupo 3y ago
      The joke just wooshed past you :)
      - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
        No, you miss the point. It's a high barrier for users to pay online. That's why they don't pay $1 on a whim on a small site, even if it offers something they like. Paying online is more like a marriage these days. You pray that the other side will not disappoint you and then you jump in. That's why big popular sites with brand names worth billions gobble up unproportional more paying users.
        troupo 3y ago
        Yes, the barrier is high because paying is a high-friction activity whenever cards are involved. That's why the various quick checkouts are all the rage the past 10 years or so. This has very little to do with the original claim of "Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk". Users have no issues paying for stuff online.
        hot_gril 3y ago
        They have no issue paying for stuff on well-established sites like eBay and Amazon. If it's a random site, there's a problem.
dgellow 3y ago
In Europe sending money from one bank account to another is generally free and often almost instant
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  Thats news to me. Can you link to a page of a bank in Europe where they state that they offer free instant money transfers?
  - dgellow 3y ago
    It’s pretty simple to see. First result I found: https://moneytransfers.com/bank-transfers/sepa-transfers https://moneytransfers.com/bank-transfers/sepa-transfers For example from Germany to Austria, sending 1200€, I see multiple providers with no fees for quick transfers.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
      I dont't see instant transfers on that page. It says "within 24 hours" and sometimes even "within a week".
      - dgellow 3y ago
        You can change filters… You can also check https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/videos/sepa-instant-credit-transfer-scheme https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/videos/...
  - IanCal 3y ago
    The UK has "faster payments" which is usually instant (sometimes held up for fraud checks). I'm not aware of any bank that charges for this.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      There's Zelle in the US, but it has limits, and it's pretty easy for your money to get stuck being "verified."
lawn 3y ago
> The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. Why do you set the bar at $0.001? Even sending $1 reliably and with low fees (which has been doable with crypto since its inception) would be revolutionary in my opinion.
lottin 3y ago
Why would the internet change forever when people can reliably send $0.001 with no fees?
- giantrobot 3y ago
  Then it could be way shittier because every GET request will be monetized. Also your whole browsing history will be public if you're ever tied to a wallet address.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
brazzy 3y ago
> The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. It will change absolutely nothing whatsoever. > So many ideas are infeasible right now because CC fees are high, and making any payment is extremely high friction. Making payments will always be, is inherently high friction, and reducing the amount does nothing below a threshold that is much, much higher than $0.001. There have been lots and lots of micropayment schemes, and they have all failed because the very fact that there is a payment already introduces mental friction that's effectively higher than current CC fees. Any idea that is infeasible because there is no way to reliably send $0.001 is in fact easily feasible today by monetizing it some other way, usually via ads. Lower fees are only relevant for high-volume fully automated transactions with a substantial financial incentive behind them, and those can already be done basically for zero marginal cost, see HFT. The only micropayments that people are willing to engage in individually is when they involve addiction, and that as well can and is already done in gambling apps masquerading as games.
shuntress 3y ago
This is something that feels pretty lost in most modern crypto discussion. It's evident in literally the first line of the bitcoin whitepaper: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution" If paying a random person online was as easy as dropping a quarter in a cup the internet could be a very different place.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  I think the part about not going through a financial institution is brought up pretty often, but that line doesn't mention the payment being especially small or quick.

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago

Even if you can send $1. Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk. Because of this insane system of credit cards, where you give the other party a "secret" which enables them to take the money from you. If you could just send the money, the barrier to pay would be 100x lower. Most websites pay the bills via ads. And make less than $0.001 per visitor. If they could sell a monthly membership for a one-time payment of $1, they would have a way better business model.

hot_gril 3y ago
There are traditional ways to send money without giving out a secret, like Apple Pay. But there's plenty of fraud in the other direction, people accepting charges with stolen payment info that end up being reversed. It's always a little the merchant's job to decide whose "money is no good here," and that's because of laws.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  Paying via Apple Pay means you have to pay Apple so that Apple will pay the vendor for you. How do you pay Apple without giving them a secret?
  - lxgr 3y ago
    No, that's not how it works at all. Apple is neither in the authorization nor the transaction clearing/settlement flow. > How do you pay Apple without giving them a secret? Credit cards being effectively unrestricted bearer tokens isn't nearly the only way to do payments. For example you could send a signed message to your bank instructing them to pay Apple (in a world in which you'd be paying them; again, Apple Pay is not that).
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    I think Apple has some special relationship with banks, so it's not this simple. But yeah, one way or another you're trusting Apple Pay, which presumably is more trustworthy than a gas station sale terminal. And if you were signing your own payments, you'd still have to trust your computing device and the bank.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
      With crypto, you would not have to trust your computing device nor your bank. You would send $100 to your computing device every now and then. And use that for day to day spendings. If the device turns out to be malicious, you lost only the $100 and stay away from the brand that made the device. A bank would not be involved at all.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        But you're sending that $100 from another computing device, and if you're not trusting a bank-like entity to hold the cryptocurrency for you, you're responsible for securing all your money on that device without locking yourself out. On the other hand, having some money outside a bank is nice. I've had them freeze my assets before just cuz they felt like it, until I spent a whole day telling them to fix it.
        vernon99 3y ago
        Having a couple hardware wallets in different places + a paper backup split in a couple pieces gives you enough redundancy not to worry about this. Source: my own experience of close to 10 years now.
        hot_gril 3y ago
        So where do you store the paper?
        MadnessASAP 3y ago
        Unfortunately I will never be willing to entrust my financial safety solely to an algorithm. An algorithm cannot be reasoned with, it cannot understand that your house burned down and destroyed your ID. It cannot accept liability for it's actions. If I lose my bank card I go to a branch, verify my ID, and get a replacement. The bank is liable if they allow somebody other then me access to my accounts, regardless of how convincing the fraudster might have been. Source, been using banks for 30 years now.
cesarb 3y ago
> If you could just send the money, the barrier to pay would be 100x lower. We can already do that here in Brazil: the web site displays a QR code (plus its contents in text form), the user scans the QR code (or copies the text) into their banking app, and confirms it on the app to send the money. I hasn't AFAIK made any meaningful difference for websites. What people dislike isn't the inconvenience of credit cards, it's the inconvenience of having any paywall at all.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  What if they had $50 stored in a browser plugin and when a website asks for it, they could pay $1 with a simple click?
  - brazzy 3y ago
    That was possible 30 years ago. There have been probably been a dozen schemes that tried something like that over the decades, starting with DigiCash from before the WWW existed. They all failed not because of fees, not because of security concerns, but because even having to think about whether you want to pay for something and how much incurs a mental cost that people avoid. Free beets cheap by a margin that has nothing to do with how cheap or how easy.
troupo 3y ago
> Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk. I wonder how small independent sites like Amazon and eBay exist then if people dislike paying on the web because of the security risk. The reality is that people have literally no problem paying for stuff on the internet.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Because Amazon and eBay aren't small independent sites. Those stored payment methods and user trust are quite valuable to both.
  - troupo 3y ago
    The joke just wooshed past you :)
    - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
      No, you miss the point. It's a high barrier for users to pay online. That's why they don't pay $1 on a whim on a small site, even if it offers something they like. Paying online is more like a marriage these days. You pray that the other side will not disappoint you and then you jump in. That's why big popular sites with brand names worth billions gobble up unproportional more paying users.
      - troupo 3y ago
        Yes, the barrier is high because paying is a high-friction activity whenever cards are involved. That's why the various quick checkouts are all the rage the past 10 years or so. This has very little to do with the original claim of "Users dislike paying on the web because it is a security risk". Users have no issues paying for stuff online.
        hot_gril 3y ago
        They have no issue paying for stuff on well-established sites like eBay and Amazon. If it's a random site, there's a problem.

dgellow 3y ago

In Europe sending money from one bank account to another is generally free and often almost instant

ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
Thats news to me. Can you link to a page of a bank in Europe where they state that they offer free instant money transfers?
- dgellow 3y ago
  It’s pretty simple to see. First result I found: https://moneytransfers.com/bank-transfers/sepa-transfers https://moneytransfers.com/bank-transfers/sepa-transfers For example from Germany to Austria, sending 1200€, I see multiple providers with no fees for quick transfers.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
    I dont't see instant transfers on that page. It says "within 24 hours" and sometimes even "within a week".
    - dgellow 3y ago
      You can change filters… You can also check https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/videos/sepa-instant-credit-transfer-scheme https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/videos/...
- IanCal 3y ago
  The UK has "faster payments" which is usually instant (sometimes held up for fraud checks). I'm not aware of any bank that charges for this.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    There's Zelle in the US, but it has limits, and it's pretty easy for your money to get stuck being "verified."

lawn 3y ago

> The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. Why do you set the bar at $0.001? Even sending $1 reliably and with low fees (which has been doable with crypto since its inception) would be revolutionary in my opinion.

lottin 3y ago

Why would the internet change forever when people can reliably send $0.001 with no fees?

giantrobot 3y ago
Then it could be way shittier because every GET request will be monetized. Also your whole browsing history will be public if you're ever tied to a wallet address.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

brazzy 3y ago

> The day a network exists where you can reliably send like $0.001 of value with little/no fees is the day the internet changes forever. It will change absolutely nothing whatsoever. > So many ideas are infeasible right now because CC fees are high, and making any payment is extremely high friction. Making payments will always be, is inherently high friction, and reducing the amount does nothing below a threshold that is much, much higher than $0.001. There have been lots and lots of micropayment schemes, and they have all failed because the very fact that there is a payment already introduces mental friction that's effectively higher than current CC fees. Any idea that is infeasible because there is no way to reliably send $0.001 is in fact easily feasible today by monetizing it some other way, usually via ads. Lower fees are only relevant for high-volume fully automated transactions with a substantial financial incentive behind them, and those can already be done basically for zero marginal cost, see HFT. The only micropayments that people are willing to engage in individually is when they involve addiction, and that as well can and is already done in gambling apps masquerading as games.

shuntress 3y ago

This is something that feels pretty lost in most modern crypto discussion. It's evident in literally the first line of the bitcoin whitepaper: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution" If paying a random person online was as easy as dropping a quarter in a cup the internet could be a very different place.

hot_gril 3y ago
I think the part about not going through a financial institution is brought up pretty often, but that line doesn't mention the payment being especially small or quick.