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> There's a tremendous amount of waste in the economy related to reconciling different companies' records of who owes what to whom and then getting that info to

by feoren 2y ago

> There's a tremendous amount of waste in the economy related to reconciling different companies' records of who owes what to whom and then getting that info to the bank and then hearing back from the bank about whether the debt was fully or partially paid and then relating that to whether the service continues to be rendered. Is all that really a tremendous waste, in the days of databases and instant communication? How much waste are we talking about here? I'd wager a lot of money it's at least one order of magnitude less than the literal heat waste produced by validating bitcoin transactions. Crypto is much more wasteful. > Moving from an accounts-receivable/accounts-payable model to a insert-coin-receive-service model The monetary system isn't what's preventing this. You can't provide a service and also charge for it in the exact same instant. If I hire a contractor to renovate my bathroom, there's a ton of negotiation, possible disagreements about whether the work is "done" or not, payment deadlines, etc., and crypto vs. fiat currency changes none of that.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
> You can't provide a service and also charge for it in the exact same instant. Sometimes you can, and it's those cases that I'm thinking of. But even when you can't, why not create the transaction up front and include the conditions under which it should or should not proceed at a later date? If you want a third party as a mediator, just in case, why not make that part of the transaction too? Why not ensure now, that the money you'll be paid later, actually exists and can't be spent on something else in the meantime? So much becomes possible if both parties are on the same page yet neither had to build that page from scratch. > How much waste are we talking about here? Well there's all the business that doesn't happen because while I'm a bit curious about your service, I'm not curious enough to give you my credit card and trust your pinky-promise that you'll charge me like you said you would. And then there's the business that doesn't happen because micropayments are required for the business model (many tiny credit card transactions being prohibitively expensive). And then there's all the money that gets wasted when resolving disputes in court when mediators could've been bound to the transaction up front--mediators who are more familiar with the parties and the situations and who have access to a single source of truth about the nature of the disagreement rather than having to reconcile both versions of some "handshake agreement". And then there's maintenance for all that billing pipeline code which is implemented over and over again--slightly differently by each company but rarely meaningfully so--which has to account for two worlds: one which creates debts, another which eliminates them, just to align the conjunction of those worlds to an arbitrary cadence (typically monthly) which has no correspondence with the product's usage. If you offload the accounting to public infra immediately, then you don't have to build and maintain infra which keeps both worlds in sync. All told, I think it's quite a lot. As for the waste heat from bitcoin--yes, bitcoin is stone-age crypto. What we need for this probably doesn't exist yet.
- feoren 2y ago
  I just don't see most of what you're talking about as either actual problems, or as caused by fiat currency / solved by crypto. > why not create the transaction up front and include the conditions under which it should or should not proceed at a later date Forcing people to commit money to some Etherium contract before work can begin is not going to grease the wheels of commerce. You hire an engineering firm to design a new regional airport for tens of millions of dollars over three years, and you're supposed to stick all that money in some crypto account where nobody can touch it until an oracle says the work is complete? Where any bugs or security flaws or front-runners might just steal or lock away all the money with no recourse? In the real world, no party ever holds the entire pot of money all at once -- that's a cashflow nightmare! You seem to be lamenting the cashflow problems caused by our current system (which companies would indeed pay a lot to improve), and your solution is to lock up the entire contract value ahead of time? The current way that people are paying each other is not a problem that needs to be fixed. > the business that doesn't happen because micropayments are required for the business model The world is lousy with microtransactions. I heard about this being a problem a decade ago, but not anymore. Besides, what are the current gas fees on major crypto platforms? Isn't crypto terrible for microtransactions? > money that gets wasted when resolving disputes in court If people are still signing contracts with each other, this is still happening. Crypto does not solve this. This will still happen, plus all the money that gets wasted when their bitcoin wallet is stolen or their contract is front-run or there's a bug in the exchange. > maintenance for all that billing pipeline code which is implemented over and over again--slightly differently by each company but rarely meaningfully so--which has to account for two worlds: one which creates debts, another which eliminates them There are somewhere around 20,000 cryptocurrencies in existence. Twenty thousand. You're lamenting the fact that different companies have to handle dual-entry accounting, a relatively simple practice that has remained basically the same for hundreds of years, to the complexity of implementing cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchains correctly? Why can't companies just rely on third parties for fiat transactions? You're comparing crypto and fiat on completely different playing fields here. A bug in your fiat accounting code requires a manual correction, maybe an audit, and possibly a court case. A bug in your crypto code can permanently cost you all your money with no possible recourse. > What we need for this probably doesn't exist yet. So you're comparing the problems with our current fiat system with some hypothetical perfect future crypto system and saying the crypto system is better. Yes, I could compare anything that is happening now with a hypothetical future perfect alternative that might not be possible, and the latter will always look better. That is utterly meaningless. When you compare our current fiat system with any crypto systems that currently exist, the crypto systems are significantly worse in almost every way, except for buying drugs and scamming people. If you have a thousand "innovation points" that you can spend making a cryptocurrency system that doesn't have these problems (doubtful), why not spend that innovation on specific improvements to specific problems with the fiat system instead?

by feoren 2y ago

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

> You can't provide a service and also charge for it in the exact same instant. Sometimes you can, and it's those cases that I'm thinking of. But even when you can't, why not create the transaction up front and include the conditions under which it should or should not proceed at a later date? If you want a third party as a mediator, just in case, why not make that part of the transaction too? Why not ensure now, that the money you'll be paid later, actually exists and can't be spent on something else in the meantime? So much becomes possible if both parties are on the same page yet neither had to build that page from scratch. > How much waste are we talking about here? Well there's all the business that doesn't happen because while I'm a bit curious about your service, I'm not curious enough to give you my credit card and trust your pinky-promise that you'll charge me like you said you would. And then there's the business that doesn't happen because micropayments are required for the business model (many tiny credit card transactions being prohibitively expensive). And then there's all the money that gets wasted when resolving disputes in court when mediators could've been bound to the transaction up front--mediators who are more familiar with the parties and the situations and who have access to a single source of truth about the nature of the disagreement rather than having to reconcile both versions of some "handshake agreement". And then there's maintenance for all that billing pipeline code which is implemented over and over again--slightly differently by each company but rarely meaningfully so--which has to account for two worlds: one which creates debts, another which eliminates them, just to align the conjunction of those worlds to an arbitrary cadence (typically monthly) which has no correspondence with the product's usage. If you offload the accounting to public infra immediately, then you don't have to build and maintain infra which keeps both worlds in sync. All told, I think it's quite a lot. As for the waste heat from bitcoin--yes, bitcoin is stone-age crypto. What we need for this probably doesn't exist yet.

feoren 2y ago
I just don't see most of what you're talking about as either actual problems, or as caused by fiat currency / solved by crypto. > why not create the transaction up front and include the conditions under which it should or should not proceed at a later date Forcing people to commit money to some Etherium contract before work can begin is not going to grease the wheels of commerce. You hire an engineering firm to design a new regional airport for tens of millions of dollars over three years, and you're supposed to stick all that money in some crypto account where nobody can touch it until an oracle says the work is complete? Where any bugs or security flaws or front-runners might just steal or lock away all the money with no recourse? In the real world, no party ever holds the entire pot of money all at once -- that's a cashflow nightmare! You seem to be lamenting the cashflow problems caused by our current system (which companies would indeed pay a lot to improve), and your solution is to lock up the entire contract value ahead of time? The current way that people are paying each other is not a problem that needs to be fixed. > the business that doesn't happen because micropayments are required for the business model The world is lousy with microtransactions. I heard about this being a problem a decade ago, but not anymore. Besides, what are the current gas fees on major crypto platforms? Isn't crypto terrible for microtransactions? > money that gets wasted when resolving disputes in court If people are still signing contracts with each other, this is still happening. Crypto does not solve this. This will still happen, plus all the money that gets wasted when their bitcoin wallet is stolen or their contract is front-run or there's a bug in the exchange. > maintenance for all that billing pipeline code which is implemented over and over again--slightly differently by each company but rarely meaningfully so--which has to account for two worlds: one which creates debts, another which eliminates them There are somewhere around 20,000 cryptocurrencies in existence. Twenty thousand. You're lamenting the fact that different companies have to handle dual-entry accounting, a relatively simple practice that has remained basically the same for hundreds of years, to the complexity of implementing cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchains correctly? Why can't companies just rely on third parties for fiat transactions? You're comparing crypto and fiat on completely different playing fields here. A bug in your fiat accounting code requires a manual correction, maybe an audit, and possibly a court case. A bug in your crypto code can permanently cost you all your money with no possible recourse. > What we need for this probably doesn't exist yet. So you're comparing the problems with our current fiat system with some hypothetical perfect future crypto system and saying the crypto system is better. Yes, I could compare anything that is happening now with a hypothetical future perfect alternative that might not be possible, and the latter will always look better. That is utterly meaningless. When you compare our current fiat system with any crypto systems that currently exist, the crypto systems are significantly worse in almost every way, except for buying drugs and scamming people. If you have a thousand "innovation points" that you can spend making a cryptocurrency system that doesn't have these problems (doubtful), why not spend that innovation on specific improvements to specific problems with the fiat system instead?