On Friday, 26 October 2018 at 17:20:08 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 06:19:29 +0000, Joakim wrote:
On Friday, 26 October 2018 at 05:47:05 UTC, Neia Neutuladh
wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 02:38:08 +0000, Joakim wrote:
As with D, sometimes the new _is_ better, so perhaps you
shouldn't assume old is better either.
There's no assuming going on. Cryptocurrencies are worse than
credit cards for everything that normal people care about,
Such as? I already noted that they're easier and cheaper, you
simply flatly state that "normal people" find them worse.
In most countries where people are going to donate to D, the
vast majority of people have access to a credit card.
That's not really true, and that's not actually something "worse"
about cryptocurrencies. If you really mean have some lying
around, it is true that more are using credit cards. If you
actually mean access, crypto-currencies are pretty easy to buy
these days.
If for some reason cryptocurrencies become popular and
sufficiently stable to be used as currency, I have no doubt
that existing credit card companies will start offering
automatic currency exchange, so you can have an account in
USD and pay a vendor who accepts only Ethereum, or vice
versa. As such, accepting credit card payments is good enough.
I don't know what we'd be waiting for, the tokens I mentioned
are all worth billions and widely used, particularly by
techies:
Very few merchants accept any sort of cryptocurrency. I think
I've found three. One was through a cryptocurrency forum, and
one was Valve announcing that they would stop accepting it.
You must not have looked very hard, there are online retailers
accepting crypto-tokens and websites that will make payments for
you on Amazon or other sites through Bitcoin:
https://www.overstock.com/blockchain
https://purse.io/shop
Why would I wait for antiquated credit-card companies to
accept these tokens? The whole point of these new tokens is to
obsolete the credit card companies.
You wouldn't wait. You haven't waited. For you, the benefits
are large enough and the downsides small enough that it doesn't
make sense to wait. But I'm not you.
No, I'm not much of a cryptocurrency user or online shopper even.
I mostly buy locally with cash.
I would wait because I've lost access to important credentials
before and had to send a copy of my government-issued ID to a
company to get them to deactivate two-factor authentication.
I've had to use password reset mechanisms frequently. I don't
trust myself not to lose access to a cryptocurrency private
key. And that would destroy currency and lose me my life
savings.
I don't blame you for being careful if you've had these problems,
most of which I've never had, but you wildly exaggerate with your
last sentence. Crypto-tokens are a replacement for cash and
credit cards, which you should never be carrying around more than
a couple hundred or thousand dollars worth of. If you're carrying
around your life savings in cash or credit cards and are worried
about moving them to bitcoin, you have much bigger problems. ;)
I would wait because I want a mechanism to dispute
transactions. Maybe I authorized that transaction, but the
merchant didn't deliver.
I don't think the payment provider is the right mechanism for
that. The seller wants to protect their reputation and your
payment is publicly verifiable through the blockchain. There are
much better ways to build trust through those building blocks
than the currently broken credit card chargeback process:
https://www.shopify.com/retail/what-is-a-chargeback
I would wait because I want an environmentally-friendly system
instead of one that uses as much electricity as Afghanistan to
process fifteen transactions per second.
Yes, I noted the Bitcoin "Proof of work" problem in this forum
almost five years ago, so I'm well aware:
https://forum.dlang.org/post/xzuzvykrqouqlsjmk...@forum.dlang.org
There are "Proof of stake" crypto-tokens out there that purport
to avoid that issue:
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake/
Ether, one of the tokens I mentioned originally, is moving to
this scheme.
I would wait because cryptocurrencies have extremely volatile
exchange rates, which makes it difficult to set prices or store
value in them.
If you're buying online, which is what we're talking about, it's
trivially simple to track the exchange rates and instantaneously
set store prices accordingly. It may be a bit different for
consumers, but by the time they're all using some payments tech
like this, the exchange rates will likely have settled down.
I would wait because I can't use cryptocurrency to do anything
useful, so I would incur a fee to transfer money into it and
another to transfer money out of it.
Not necessarily- it depends on who you're buying your tokens
from- and crypto-tokens usually work out cheaper once you include
other transaction costs.
I would wait because I don't trust any cryptocurrency exchanges
to stick around like I expect Visa or even a community bank to
remain in business, or even not to commit fraud against me.
You trust credit card companies and banks not to commit fraud
against you, how quaint. ;)
While I might not trust my local bank much, I do trust my
government to regulate them and to bail me out should the worst
happen.
I see, so you want other taxpayers to bail you out for your
mistakes, interesting.
I think my concerns are rather normal. Judging by adoption,
there's some set of concerns that's normal.
Some of them are popularly held, but most are fairly irrational.
In any case, whether crypto-currencies ever go mainstream is
irrelevant to this thread. They're already fairly popular among
techies, from whom the D foundation is soliciting donations. As
such, providing a way to accept such donations is literally a
no-brainer: the work put into taking them will likely pay for
itself many times over.
I've made two Bitcoin donations in the last year, and zero
through cash or credit cards, and I hardly use crypto-tokens.
That is the tech audience in question here, not your random
peregrinations about irrelevant issues, such as mainstream
adoption.
On Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 00:10:37 UTC, Nick Sabalausky
wrote:
On Friday, 26 October 2018 at 02:38:08 UTC, Joakim wrote:
On Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 22:35:40 UTC, Nick Sabalausky
wrote:
And yet it's still by far the most common payment method. So
what if it isn't trendy. Deal with it.
In the US maybe, not in most of the world, where they're still
using cash. ;) I almost never use my cards, and like that
crypto-currencies have more in similar to cash.
I was referring to internet payments, as that was the
conversation's context.
And you're right that cash is extremely common outside the net.
Note that cash is considerably older than even credit/debit
cards.
Which is why cash is being replaced by crypto-tokens that
maintain its benefits while being online. :)
On Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 23:10:50 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
Common fallacy: new == better.
As with D, sometimes the new _is_ better, so perhaps you
shouldn't assume old is better either.
Nobody claimed otherwise.
Nor did anyone claim what Teoh wrote, so I was just showing I can
put words in his mouth too. ;)
