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Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

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Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#181

Post by pjc50 »

lsadam0 wrote: post #62
pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your money is exactly as secure as your private keys, and if they are stolen there is basically no prospect of getting it back. "Be your own bank" implies "be your own security division", which very few people are qualified to do.

If I leave cash on the street should I expect it to be safe? Is that a deep security issue? You implied there were deep fundamental flaws in BTC security, but your response shows nothing of the sort. Your 'deep flaw' is 'you have to protect your private keys'. You are describing a UX flaw, and I would agree with that. Objectively, you have exposed no 'deep security issues'.

The deep security issues are that transactions are, by design, untraceable and irreversible.

That means that any security breach is catastrophic. Whereas the routine security breaches of credit and debit cards, and online banking systems, are not catastrophic.

Physical cash is of course not subject to instant theft from anywhere in the world - the theif has to be in the same place as the cash. Whereas it's basically not safe to use bitcoin on any computer connected to the internet - to do so is equivalent to leaving it in the street - rendering it hilariously unsuited to ecommerce.

Not to mention that the most convenient ways of actually getting money in and out of the bitcoin system, the exchanges, tend to have frequent security breaches and exit scams of their own.

(I should just point out that in this discussion generally the anti-bitcoin side uses 'bitcoin' to refer to 'the totality of systems needed to do normal useful things with bitcoin', while the pro-bitcoin side limits it to only the protocol and possibly the reference client implementation.)

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#182

Post by stegosaurus »

apo wrote: post #175
stegosaurus wrote: post #141

I find the vitriol towards Bitcoin kind of odd. If I posted an article about Linux 4.1 or something, I wouldn't expect to see comments saying 'meanwhile, I used Windows yesterday, and played GTA5, and it was good'. What gives? Are there forums in which people have this sort of reaction to, I dunno, HTML5? From some of the posts here you would think that it's IED control software.

I've run into the sentiment you're talking about both online and IRL. It puzzles me as well. Three factors come to mind: 1. There's a deep-rooted idea today that money comes from the government and that everything else is a scam. Bitcoin challenges that idea. 2. Bitcoin refuses to die despite the predictions of just about everyone who first learns about it. 3. The technical underpinnings of Bitcoin are counterintuiti…

As I posted further down - most of the issues here seem to stem from people having this idea that in the extreme long term Bitcoin takes over the world and 'their' (as if this is some sort of holy war?) green bits of paper become firewood or something.

That isn't a realistic model for how the world works and is really just an odd way of thinking.

I can play Quake 3 and have fun with it, and post blogs about it, without thinking it's going to destroy every other video game out there ever, without debating whether it even is a video game, etc. Hey, it has fast inverse square root, that's cool, but it's not going to result in the actual world being deleted and exchanged for CGI VR land.

Fundamentally it seems to be that there's some element of 'faith in the concept', that is turned off when it comes to money, perhaps as a protection mechanism. I don't know.

... Just chill out, you know? I might go out for a run soon. You can still walk, don't worry, it's not banned (I also walk, it's useful, maybe we can be friends?).

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#183

Post by cwyers »

Oh wonderful, now the world's two most popular all-digital currencies can be used in the same place -- Bitcoin and TF2 hats. Russian criminals and Chinese investors looking to get money out of the country can work together in a new age of unity and togetherness.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#184

Post by DickingAround »

stegosaurus wrote: post #157
jerf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'd suggest you do sometimes see people saying that about Linux, especially when Linux "on the desktop" comes up. And the reason is that neither project is simply a neutral software development project, but are politically charged. Linux at this point really just has a political "tinge" to it with the free software stuff, but Bitcoin is drenched in politics. So people are responding with their political bra…

I think you're spot on with this. The general quality of discourse on any thread seems to drop hugely whenever politics comes up. We seem to be able to leave each other alone when it comes to using vi vs. emacs - the odd joke comes up, but that's about it. But politics? There seems to be this attitude of conversion, missionaries, convincing, it's kind of frustrating. I think it's healthy to question one's views somet…

The debate about Linux desktop or bitcoin need not be political. But I'd like to offer an indicator for when things inevitably become 'political'; when there's no provably correct answer and the use of force is involved.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#185

Post by Goronmon »

Cyph0n wrote: post #66
coldtea wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. As…

I'm sorry, but you're looking at Bitcoin from a narrow viewpoint. There are in fact people who actually need Bitcoin in their day-to-day. My home country Tunisia for example has very strict currency controls in place, which means that it is impossible to purchase any goods from outside the country or even transfer money overseas. The government now provides rechargeable card with a 1000 TND (~500 USD) limit that can…

I'm sorry, but you're looking at Bitcoin from a narrow viewpoint. There are in fact people who actually need Bitcoin in their day-to-day.

The question was why Bitcoin gets negative responses on places like HackerNews, and that question was answered.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#186

Post by cloudjacker »

dmihal wrote: post #170
kbenzle wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw Bitcoin as another Second Life, great for smart young programmers to have a new sandbox to play in, but not actually useful for working adults. I was similarly "annoyed" by all the Second Life media hype happening after I had written it off.

The difference is that Bitcoin/Blockchain technology really is a groundbreaking invention from a computer science perspective. Bitcoin may or may not succeed, but something can't be un-invented. Furthermore, it's interesting to see companies like Steam, and even Wall Street players, embracing this new technology.

> Bitcoin may or may not succeed

Thats what people were saying in 2012, 2013

The network is working fine. This is success. What is your metric of success in this statement? I find it counterintuitive.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#187

Post by cloudjacker »

chii wrote: post #69
StavrosK wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just asked for a refund, because the game was terrible. I asked for the refund to be sent to my wallet, there was an option to get Bitcoin back. I think that, for the wallet, they refund you the game's store price.

this seems like a good way to launder bitcoins. Unless if you got back _the same_ coins you spent - i guess steam holding on to your coins for 2hrs~ isn't that big of a risk, rather than immediately swapping it out for cash.

it isn't a good way to launder bitcoins.

there are good ways, this isn't one of them. Stick with Shapeshift.io

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#188

Post by pjc50 »

stegosaurus wrote: post #182
apo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run into the sentiment you're talking about both online and IRL. It puzzles me as well. Three factors come to mind: 1. There's a deep-rooted idea today that money comes from the government and that everything else is a scam. Bitcoin challenges that idea. 2. Bitcoin refuses to die despite the predictions of just about everyone who first learns about it. 3. The technical underpinnings of Bitcoin are counterintuiti…

As I posted further down - most of the issues here seem to stem from people having this idea that in the extreme long term Bitcoin takes over the world and 'their' (as if this is some sort of holy war?) green bits of paper become firewood or something. That isn't a realistic model for how the world works and is really just an odd way of thinking. I can play Quake 3 and have fun with it, and post blogs about it, witho…

In the pre-Gox days of the Bitcoin subreddit you could find plenty of people advocating exactly that - that Bitcoin would make not just 'fiat' money obsolete but government itself.

Any idea, good or bad, is vulnerable to being discredited by its most annoying public advocates. Bitcoin 'hate' is mostly a reaction by people who encountered this and got fed up with it.

Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-environmentalist: it's built on vast amounts of wasted electricity.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#189

Post by ryanlol »

hartpuff wrote: post #171
aedron wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. I can pay with bitcoin on Steam. It makes bitcoin more fungible and thus viable as a currency. And for what it's worth, I find the bitcoin payment process immensely superior to credit cards: Just pull out the phone and scan the QR code on the screen. Screen updates to show payment was made. Love it. (Now, acquiring the bitcoins in the first place though...)

> It doesn't matter. I can pay with bitcoin on Steam. I can pay with Dogecoin with one additional step. >It makes bitcoin more fungible and thus viable as a currency. Isn't using Bitpay just a way of exchanging bitcoin for dollars, while kidding yourself that's not what you're doing? > And for what it's worth, I find the bitcoin payment process immensely superior to credit cards: Just pull out the phone and scan the…

>All that's left is to wait countless tedious hours for the funds to appear in the, for example, Namesilo account. It is easy (so is using a credit card), but it's almost uselessly slow (unlike credit cards).

This is not a bitcoin problem.

Re: Steam now accepts Bitcoin for purchases

#190

Post by Kinnard »

stegosaurus wrote: post #141

I find the vitriol towards Bitcoin kind of odd. If I posted an article about Linux 4.1 or something, I wouldn't expect to see comments saying 'meanwhile, I used Windows yesterday, and played GTA5, and it was good'. What gives? Are there forums in which people have this sort of reaction to, I dunno, HTML5? From some of the posts here you would think that it's IED control software.

HTML actually sucks, technically . . . It was never meant to be used to build modern web apps, just documents with links.
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