Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some examples for viable alternatives?
Normal currency which is both less centralized and easier to use.
The ones that can be printed by centralized entities?
Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
41–50 of 447 posts
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#42So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.
I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
>Can someone explain?
What exactly is the news here? Some company accepts some new form of payment that hardly anyone uses.
When it comes to "money", Bitcoin proponents seem massively misinformed on how it actually works. The blockchain technology is interesting, but a new currency isn't as exciting as they want you to believe. I don't care that my dollar has no inherent value, as long as people accept it in exchange, that's all I care about. And they do, everywhere.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "So you buy bitcoins with dollars, Bitpay exchanges the bitcoins back into dollars, and then they hand the dollars over to Steam." You don't have to buy bitcoins directly, you can mine them.
Then I'm converting dollars to bitcoin via my electricity bill, with even more inefficiency.
It's a bootstrapping measure. The idea eventually is that Bitcoin will be a useful currency without such heavy reliance on converting back and forth with traditional currencies.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#44So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.
I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
I think the sector is full of bullshit and there are a lot of people looking for easy money because you can easily setup a gambling site without asking for regulatory based permissions.
But, again, the core innovation about cryptocurrencies/blockchain (I risk a lot of HN karma using the later word!) is strong and has long term implications beyond the current issues on PoW, miners, etc.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#45>Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
Translation: cheap publicity in tech media and goodwill from some geek sites with no impact whatsoever on its actual revenues and 99.999% of payments.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about refunds? With Paypal you know you're getting the same amount back, in the same currency, as if you haven't bought anything at all. Given the fluctuating nature of Bitcoin, surely that's not possible?
Why not? You just calculate the refund amount based on the USDBTC rate.
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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#47So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.
I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
Nerds follow most propaganda like any other sector. Do a quick poll and see what level of encryption HN uses for day to day life.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#48So many bitcoin haters in these comments... we'll see who's wrong in a decade or so.
I've always wondered why hackernews hates bitcoin so much. Can someone explain?
It's because it's not just comprised of tech people, who are excited about its theoretical underpinnings, but also by business savvy people, who know that it will hardly fly for numerous reasons (and if a similar technology ever catches up, it will have so many government imposed regulations as to be totally different), plus old jaded tech persons who know a marginal at best tech and/or snake oil when they see it.
Aside for people excited by the tech (and its potential applications to other fields), the core of bitcoin believes are either get-rich-quick types who buy into the pyramid scheme, tin-foil crackpots (similar to gold hoarders), and stick-it-to-the-man true believers (with a freeman-of-the-land [1] mentality) naive enough to believe it can trump regulation and disrupt "the system".
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#49stop with this bitcoin bullshit. fuck that.
Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like anything in life I think there is a bit of 'crab mentality' here where people don't want to see something succeed if they do not stand to see any reward from it.
I think it's more a reaction to the culty "get rich quick" Bitcoin "investors". It seems that very few people are actually interested in Bitcoin for its UX and the things it enables, everyone is either get-rich-quick or anti-get-rich-quick.
>I think it's more a reaction to the culty "get rich quick" Bitcoin "investors".
Are there any other kind?
Besides, the fact that among the top 3 exchanges were the crap fests of "a man-week of amateur PHP code" and the like that were taken down speaks volumes about the kind of crap the bitcoin crowd can't see through.