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I dislike this article: it seems to suffer from 'perfect is the enemy of good'-itis and willful misunderstanding of how complex -- and difficult -- commerce can

by jmduke 13y ago

I dislike this article: it seems to suffer from 'perfect is the enemy of good'-itis and willful misunderstanding of how complex -- and difficult -- commerce can be. The author basically argues that things should be wonderful and easy and the service providers should handle it all (ignoring the difficulties of such a provision): I should use a plastic card, cheap, easily replaceable, low cost (free in most cases), and my card account should buffer my purchase as long as the combined total of credit/cash in my accounts is greater than or equal to my purchase. I should then be able to place either the entirety of my purchase or parts of my purchase in separate accounts that provide different benefits. (Think, business, flight mileage, cash back rewards, etc) The service should often be smart enough to learn where I move my purchase and do so automatically if I so choose. and I believe we should be moving away from cards altogether. I think google wallet, square, and other RFID/NFC technologies are thinking about the future, where our devices are consolidated and integrated with the world around us. Bitcoin, a virtual currency, proves the success of something that exists purely in the aether, and keeping a Bitcoin wallet on your phone is easy. How is going from 'wallet filled with cards' to 'one card' not a step in the right direction to 'no cards'? Maybe the technology or industry isn't moving as fast as the author would like, but it's entirely hyperbolic to say that Coin's trajectory runs opposite from the author's ideal vision. Coin's goal is to abstract the ownership of a credit card away from the plastic itself. If you want RFID/NFC to succeed -- as the author does, as I do, and as I'm sure many other people do, then that's a good thing. (The preorder legality side of things isn't my domain, so I can't really comment on that.)

rickyc091 13y ago
The one plastic card approach seemed to describe https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  I remember looking into that one time. It seemed like a good idea but I don't recall why I never did it. Maybe because I mainly keep a small set of cards in rotation and don't really use different rewards cards at any given time. It is a nice concept though. I might need to look into it again.
socalnate1 13y ago
Agree completely. How did this manage to bubble up to the top of HN?
- bitops 13y ago
  Just to be clear: you are asking how a negative, critical, "this is stupid" article made it to the top of Hacker News?
  - socalnate1 13y ago
    Hah. Fair point.
  - xtracto 13y ago
    I think this is a good sign for the Coin creators. IIRC Dropbox and AirBnB had similar negative buzz when they were announced. The YCombinator forum seems to like to bash implementation of ideas, specially by throwing other ideas which in theory are better (ideas are dime a dozen anyways).
    - andrewaylett 13y ago
      They also bashed Color.
- nulagrithom 13y ago
  I upvoted both the Coin link and the link against Coin. I find it's an interesting discussion either way.
martingordon 13y ago
Agreed. While the ideal solution to this problem might be server side, as the author suggestions, that is in no way a feasible solution. The card networks are in direct competition with each other, so there's no way you could get a single card with Visa and Amex/MC on it, not to mention there's competition between issuers. Heck, I can't even get my Chase credit account and checking account on the same physical card and those two are tied to the same user account at a single bank and go through a single credit card network. I can't wait to get my Coin. I'll probably still carry around the Coin and a backup card, but that takes me down from 4 to 2.
bradgessler 13y ago
Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.
- brettgoldstein3 13y ago
  Isn't the "old crusty infrastructure" in this case the credit card itself? It seems ridiculous to try to kill the credit card with... a credit card. I wouldn't be surprised if Clinkle, LoopPay, Square, or any of the many startups in this space kills the credit card (and thus Coin) before Coin makes its first delivery in Summer 2014.
  - dakrisht 13y ago
    Absolutely not. The old crusty layer is everything you don't see running in the background. The banks, the payment systems, the clearing houses, the entire system as a whole.
  - jammur 13y ago
    I think you're underestimating how entrenched the CC companies are in our society. I agree that they'll eventually be replaced, but I doubt it will be in the next year, let alone the next 5 years. I think Coin is a nice intermediate step between 10 cards in your wallet, and no wallet at all. Intermediate steps are viable businesses. I think Square is an intermediate step, and they seem to be doing just fine. They're obviously going to be at the forefront of eliminating cards all together, but they knew that credit cards aren't going away anytime soon, and so they leveraged that to get their foot in the door with the merchants.
  - qq66 13y ago
    If you wouldn't be surprised by that, you must not be frequently surprised.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    Square, which is a point-of-sale system? Two other things, which the billions of people who use credit cards every day have never heard of? What would constitute "killing" the credit card, anyway? Less than 5% of the population using it? I don't see that happening for a good 15 or 20 years at a bare minimum.
dbecker 13y ago
I used to work at the Federal Trade Commission, so I'm quite familiar with this particular legal issue. What Coin is doing violates neither the spirit nor the letter of the Mail Order Rule. The law states that orders must be shipped within the time stated by the company, and there is a default of 30 days if no other shipping estimate is given. In this case, Coin clearly and conspicuously states that they will ship in the Summer of 2014. If they fail to ship by that time, they are required to offer purchasers a refund. However, the law clearly states that the company can set their shipping timeline, so long as they make the company aware of it.
- dsl 13y ago
  I don't think the authors issue is with the Mail Order Rule, but instead card processing networks. Visa and MasterCard will allow you to authorize cards for a pre-order (actually for any transaction, they don't care if it is a pre-order ot not), and then finalize the purchase when you ship. They do not allow you to use finalized funds as a business loan.

by jmduke 13y ago

rickyc091 13y ago

The one plastic card approach seemed to describe https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card https://walla.by/the-wallaby-card

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I remember looking into that one time. It seemed like a good idea but I don't recall why I never did it. Maybe because I mainly keep a small set of cards in rotation and don't really use different rewards cards at any given time. It is a nice concept though. I might need to look into it again.

socalnate1 13y ago

Agree completely. How did this manage to bubble up to the top of HN?

bitops 13y ago
Just to be clear: you are asking how a negative, critical, "this is stupid" article made it to the top of Hacker News?
- socalnate1 13y ago
  Hah. Fair point.
- xtracto 13y ago
  I think this is a good sign for the Coin creators. IIRC Dropbox and AirBnB had similar negative buzz when they were announced. The YCombinator forum seems to like to bash implementation of ideas, specially by throwing other ideas which in theory are better (ideas are dime a dozen anyways).
  - andrewaylett 13y ago
    They also bashed Color.
nulagrithom 13y ago
I upvoted both the Coin link and the link against Coin. I find it's an interesting discussion either way.

martingordon 13y ago

Agreed. While the ideal solution to this problem might be server side, as the author suggestions, that is in no way a feasible solution. The card networks are in direct competition with each other, so there's no way you could get a single card with Visa and Amex/MC on it, not to mention there's competition between issuers. Heck, I can't even get my Chase credit account and checking account on the same physical card and those two are tied to the same user account at a single bank and go through a single credit card network. I can't wait to get my Coin. I'll probably still carry around the Coin and a backup card, but that takes me down from 4 to 2.

bradgessler 13y ago

Coin is like "Google Voice for Credit Card". Its a layer that sits on top of an old, crusty infrastructure that hopefully crumbles with time, but until then, we have to deal with it somehow.

brettgoldstein3 13y ago
Isn't the "old crusty infrastructure" in this case the credit card itself? It seems ridiculous to try to kill the credit card with... a credit card. I wouldn't be surprised if Clinkle, LoopPay, Square, or any of the many startups in this space kills the credit card (and thus Coin) before Coin makes its first delivery in Summer 2014.
- dakrisht 13y ago
  Absolutely not. The old crusty layer is everything you don't see running in the background. The banks, the payment systems, the clearing houses, the entire system as a whole.
- jammur 13y ago
  I think you're underestimating how entrenched the CC companies are in our society. I agree that they'll eventually be replaced, but I doubt it will be in the next year, let alone the next 5 years. I think Coin is a nice intermediate step between 10 cards in your wallet, and no wallet at all. Intermediate steps are viable businesses. I think Square is an intermediate step, and they seem to be doing just fine. They're obviously going to be at the forefront of eliminating cards all together, but they knew that credit cards aren't going away anytime soon, and so they leveraged that to get their foot in the door with the merchants.
- qq66 13y ago
  If you wouldn't be surprised by that, you must not be frequently surprised.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Square, which is a point-of-sale system? Two other things, which the billions of people who use credit cards every day have never heard of? What would constitute "killing" the credit card, anyway? Less than 5% of the population using it? I don't see that happening for a good 15 or 20 years at a bare minimum.

dbecker 13y ago

I used to work at the Federal Trade Commission, so I'm quite familiar with this particular legal issue. What Coin is doing violates neither the spirit nor the letter of the Mail Order Rule. The law states that orders must be shipped within the time stated by the company, and there is a default of 30 days if no other shipping estimate is given. In this case, Coin clearly and conspicuously states that they will ship in the Summer of 2014. If they fail to ship by that time, they are required to offer purchasers a refund. However, the law clearly states that the company can set their shipping timeline, so long as they make the company aware of it.

dsl 13y ago
I don't think the authors issue is with the Mail Order Rule, but instead card processing networks. Visa and MasterCard will allow you to authorize cards for a pre-order (actually for any transaction, they don't care if it is a pre-order ot not), and then finalize the purchase when you ship. They do not allow you to use finalized funds as a business loan.