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Should App.net Accept Bitcoin?
- kordless 13y agoThe obvious answer is "yes", but asking a question you don't expect a response from is silly. Why not just say "Send us enough Bitcoin and we'll add Bitcoin payments to our framework." and then take action if you get enough sent in? That way, there's no leading question, and you communicate exactly what it is that you want from us.
- danielamitay 13y agoLet us suppose that there is an organized group of Bitcoin enthusiasts with a combined amount of Bitcoin holdings of around 100,000BTC. Would an article "App.net begins accepting Bitcoin" increase the BTC/USD exchange rate by more than 0.01%? To me it seems that a continued stream of press is good for Bitcoin, and I am genuinely curious is there is such a group of enthusiasts that strategically spend Bitcoins for PR.
- drpancake 13y agoAt this point I doubt it -- and the exchange rate fluctuates so wildly it would be heard to measure anyway. It seems to take macro scale events to move the price these days, e.g. the policy announcements by the Chinese government.
- ajaimk 13y agoThe answer is yes. period.
- natrius 13y agoBitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the "How do I get cheap PR for my company" problem.
- vecinu 13y agoI completely agree with this and I think that has been the aspect that most companies have taken advantage of over the last few months. I haven't even heard of the companies that have begun accepting BTC, including Overstock.com. It is only the people with vested interest in BTC that are celebrating every adoption and making a big deal out of everything BTC related, in my opinion.
- danmaz74 13y agoYes. Unfortunately, it's not a long term solution.
- wmeredith 13y agoThe public is fickle. There is no long term solution.
- snitko 13y agoI like it how HN sentiment went from "let's ridicule Bitcoin" to "let's ridicule those who consider accepting it because now that everyone does it, it is stupid to make a big deal out of this".
- natrius 13y agoIt's not really ridicule. If you do a Kickstarter-style fundraiser to accept Bitcoin instead of just accepting it, it's a pure PR move. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
- pbreit 13y agoI tend to agree but I would not understate the value of marketing. The downside is pretty modest.
- JonFish85 13y agoYeah, I had actually completely forgotten that App.net existed.
- Blahah 13y agoIt's still not at all clear to me what it is, and why I would want to sign up. Even after reading the site.
- JonFish85 13y agoLast I knew about it, it was paid-subscription Twitter, essentially. Not totally sure what it is now. Honestly, I'm not sure they know what they are right now.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bliti 13y agoFrom their site: /* What is App.net? App.net is a network of social applications: App.net users can use their account to access hundreds of different applications available on a variety of platforms including Android, iOS, Mac, Linux and more. Currently App.net users can access microblogging, broadcasting via push notification, groupchat, public or private chatrooms, photo sharing, journaling and more. For developers, App.net offers a robust API and a variety of open source libraries and tools. App.net is supported by offering paid services to the people that use it, rather than by selling advertising. Unlike other services, App.net users own their content. We believe that there is room in the market for a service that benefits financially from building things that people are willing to pay for. */ Its a network of networks which you can use to build your own network. Not being pedantic or sarcastic, that is what it says in the description. I guess the issue people have is understanding why this would be useful. I'm not sure why, but I'm probably not their target customer.
- sp332 13y agoIt's not really a network of networks, but a central repo for social networks. They can store all your contacts and photos (etc) there, and then you can choose to share your photos uploaded from one service with your contacts on another. It keeps your identity intact across the whole network no matter what app you're using.
- schmichael 13y agoI had completely forgotten about app.net's existence, so mission accomplished on the free marketing front.
- baddox 13y agoFirst practical solution? It's one of dozens of practical solutions I see on the HN front page every single day.
- downandout 13y agoAbsolutely agreed. This is complete nonsense. Since people can already "commit" BTC to this cause, they have already implemented a Bitcoin payment solution. This blows up the entire premise. I don't recall all of the details of App.Net's launch, but I do remember lots of similar, desperate PR tactics aimed at convincing people to contribute money to it back then. There are some entirely new business models that Bitcoin enables, and IMO those may deserve some attention. This, however, is far from one of those cases.
- BrokenPipe 13y agoYES!
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoSo app.net will accept bitcoin if we bribe them with $10k in purchases? You either believe in the currency and wish to implement it into your platform, or you don't. Have they not already taken the time and effort to implement it by placing coinbase buy buttons on their website? Am I understanding this correctly? If app.net does not receive some arbitrary amount of purchases made in Bitcoin before some arbitrary date, that they will disable Bitcoin as a payment option out of spite? I certainly wouldn't spend any of my Bitcoin on such a hostile company.
- dalton 13y agoThere are lasting legal, technical and support operations that we are willing to take on long term if the market's big enough to support it. Otherwise, it's not worth the effort to implement those long term.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoHow so? They're transacting through coinbase. It's no different than accepting PayPal payments legally or technically. Buyers understand that if there is a dispute they will only receive the amount paid in USD, not BTC.
- msquared 13y agoBuyer spends 1 BTC @ $800 USD/BTC. Value of BTC goes down to $400 USD/BTC. Seller left with 1 BTC worth $400 (if they don't cash out). Buyer requests refund of value @ $800. Seller has 1 BTC @ $400. I guess this would be mitigated by immediate exchanges... Haven't used Coinbase enough to know how well this would work, specifically their merchant services, but what's the per-transaction cost to immediately exchange BTC on transactions? Also, I've seen buy/sell prices on CB - is that the same in their merchant accounts? I see daily cashouts as a merchant option, but that doesn't entirely remove the fear of a market crash. Or even smaller daily variations (morning price high, evening price low, etc). I could see how there would be at least some potential for long-term concern.
- pravka 13y agoIf you did the same thing for Dogecoin, I can almost guarantee that it would be committed within a day.
- steveklabnik 13y agoCoinbase's killer merchant feature is automatic BTC -> USD conversion. You'd need that for Dogecoin (which doesn't yet exist) for it to see uptake for merchants.
- lucb1e 13y agoWhat is app.net? I've visited their homepage and read the "learn more", but can't really figure it out. At first it seems like an Android an iOS simulator that lets you install the apps virtually so that you can use them ("get access to great apps on $platforms"), but they focus so much on social apps only... Are they an alternative App Store/Play Store then? I don't get it and I don't really feel like creating an account just to find out. Edit: Ah the bitcoin.app.net page explains it further down.
- amorphid 13y agoI just bought my first Bitcoins. As I was trying to buy a fixed amount in USD, the price in Bitcoins kept changing. It'd be weird to shop in Bitcoins, trying to guess the approximate price in USD as I was making the purchase. Whether the purchase price was volatile, or the value of the Bitcoins were volatile, I'm just not used to that!
- drcode 13y agoApp.net still exists?
- s9ix 13y agoWith all due respect, isn't Bitcoin easy enough to implement that you shouldn't need any commitment (10BTC? Really?) to accept it? Especially since the currency is floating, so 10BTC today (~$8400USD) may be half the amount or etc. on any given day...
- igorgue 13y agoShould App.net just stop operations? [yes | no]?
- Void_ 13y agoWhat is a member subscription? The main page says it's free.
- dutchbrit 13y agoSo what happens to the coins/accounts if they do not reach their 10 BTC goal?
- rch 13y agoThe secondary goal could be interesting (pure end-to-end transactions in BTC), but I'd prefer if app.net would disclose the terms and fees up front.
- philliphaydon 13y agoWow, this makes me NEVER want to use app.net I don't understand why they need to start a kickstarter style campaign with "stretch goals" to decide if they should support Bitcoin. I'm no user of bitcoin, but either use it, or don't. Don't try to con users into using it just to decide if you should support it.