>Do you have any idea of how much money is lost on scams via Western Union? Or how much money companies spend on fraudulent ad views? Insurance fraud?
I'm fully aware, that's why I'm upset that the entire design of crypto seems to be either punting on this problem (to the "social layer" as you said) or is just intentionally making it worse (ransomware). This is not a revolution I can get behind.
>There are some situations where the cost of having these systems is simply not worth the value of the transaction, so why should we use it?
I mean, this doesn't really give any confidence in the value of your transaction if it's so worthless to even matter. Doesn't this just seem a bit fishy to you? After talking to a lot people, I don't think any self-respecting creator online wants to exist in that space for any longer than they have to because it's rife with scams. It's certainly not making me want to drop any money on micropayments any time soon.
>If I want to sell something online and I accept crypto as payment, I can do it without any middlemen.
Well this isn't true, the network itself and the miners (or whatever) is still the middleman. With a currency the vendor operates, there is no middleman at all, you control the whole money supply. Yes the customer still has to pay a form of "exchange rates" when taking cash in and out but that's the same thing as crypto.
>Gift cards force the user to commit to an initial higher amount and to a specific vendor. It's a whole different league.
Again you're changing the discussion to the customer, not the market operator. I don't think this is a reasonable comparison to make because now you're not talking about having a service like Onlyfans any more, you're talking about having entertainers sell directly to customers, which is also a whole different league, probably one that has higher fees because now the creator will likely want to charge more as they now have to offset many other extra costs.
>Because you'd be bypassing the central bank, and you would be negotiating with other people who are also trading with the rates from the "blue" dollar (the non-official market). Nothing illegal. Kraken (a crypto exchange) operates on Argentina for years already and any "retail" account can trade there. It's just that the volume there is not big enough yet to make the government greedy about it.
I still fail to see what the actual practical benefit of crypto here is if the only situations it's really useful is a place where the government has made low cost international bank transfers illegal and you just have to hope they don't come after crypto even though you know they will eventually. It's essentially being propped up by a central financial authority; isn't that the opposite of what crypto is supposed to be?
Read again my very first comment. It does not need to be a "revolution" to be useful. As long as it is can be really useful to some people some of the time, it is already valuable.
> After talking to a lot people, I don't think any self-respecting creator online wants to exist in that space for any longer than they have to because it's rife with scams.
Sorry, that is BS. Plenty of "self-respecting" businesses and people are willing to work just for the expectation of money through advertisements, why wouldn't they work for micropayments?
And again, the idea is to have another option, not to have an all-encompassing solution. It does not have to be a binary choice.
> Again you're changing the discussion to the customer, not the market operator.
Markets do not exist in a vaccum. The whole point of credit cards is that it makes the transaction easier/faster/cheaper for the consumer, so of course you need to look at the solution as a whole.
> the network itself and the miners (or whatever) is still the middleman
No, the network does not charge a proportion of the transaction costs. They provide a service. Do you count your electric company and your ISP as "middlemen" between you and your Amazon purchases?
> I still fail to see what the actual practical benefit of crypto...
I'm fully aware, that's why I'm upset that the entire design of crypto seems to be either punting on this problem (to the "social layer" as you said) or is just intentionally making it worse (ransomware). This is not a revolution I can get behind.
>There are some situations where the cost of having these systems is simply not worth the value of the transaction, so why should we use it?
I mean, this doesn't really give any confidence in the value of your transaction if it's so worthless to even matter. Doesn't this just seem a bit fishy to you? After talking to a lot people, I don't think any self-respecting creator online wants to exist in that space for any longer than they have to because it's rife with scams. It's certainly not making me want to drop any money on micropayments any time soon.
>If I want to sell something online and I accept crypto as payment, I can do it without any middlemen.
Well this isn't true, the network itself and the miners (or whatever) is still the middleman. With a currency the vendor operates, there is no middleman at all, you control the whole money supply. Yes the customer still has to pay a form of "exchange rates" when taking cash in and out but that's the same thing as crypto.
>Gift cards force the user to commit to an initial higher amount and to a specific vendor. It's a whole different league.
Again you're changing the discussion to the customer, not the market operator. I don't think this is a reasonable comparison to make because now you're not talking about having a service like Onlyfans any more, you're talking about having entertainers sell directly to customers, which is also a whole different league, probably one that has higher fees because now the creator will likely want to charge more as they now have to offset many other extra costs.
>Because you'd be bypassing the central bank, and you would be negotiating with other people who are also trading with the rates from the "blue" dollar (the non-official market). Nothing illegal. Kraken (a crypto exchange) operates on Argentina for years already and any "retail" account can trade there. It's just that the volume there is not big enough yet to make the government greedy about it.
I still fail to see what the actual practical benefit of crypto here is if the only situations it's really useful is a place where the government has made low cost international bank transfers illegal and you just have to hope they don't come after crypto even though you know they will eventually. It's essentially being propped up by a central financial authority; isn't that the opposite of what crypto is supposed to be?