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PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

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Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#211

Post by kkarakk »

tzs wrote: post #63
kkarakk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why? has ycombinator trademarked/registered hacker news?

Yes/no (in the United States). In other words, they claim a common law trademark on it [1], but they have not registered it with the USPTO. This means they probably have some trademark protection, at least in some states, but not nearly as much as if they had a registered mark. For example, they might be able to get an injunction against a similar user in some states, but probably not damages or attorney fees. With a…

thanks for your response, i don't know why i was downvoted.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#212

Post by naasking »

danso wrote: post #176
naasking wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should a payment processor be able to make such legal decisions? That's what the courts are for. The current trend of cutting services for political reasons is problematic at best, particularly when there's arguably a monopoly. There needs to be more transparency, and a clear and fair system for arbitration and dispute resolution. Better still, one that's consistent across all digital services so people know what…

You’re arguing that companies should only be able to decline service after a court allows them to?

We have discrimination laws don't we? Are banks allowed to refuse service for any reason whatsoever?

We're talking about people's livelihood here. If transactions don't violate any laws, payment processors should not be permitted to refuse service. When they do refuse service, there should be transparency in reporting.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#214

Post by danso »

naasking wrote: post #212
danso wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re arguing that companies should only be able to decline service after a court allows them to?

We have discrimination laws don't we? Are banks allowed to refuse service for any reason whatsoever? We're talking about people's livelihood here. If transactions don't violate any laws, payment processors should not be permitted to refuse service. When they do refuse service, there should be transparency in reporting.

Yes, there are laws that protect against discrimination based on certain categories (religion, gender, race, veteran status, etc). Business owners still have the right to refuse service for other reasons of their choosing, like the customer being a loudmouth ass, or not following the dress code, without having to refer to a legal statute.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#215

Post by stale2002 »

gcb0 wrote: post #121
arisAlexis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin

you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC. at this point, might as well trade in casino chips. (see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)

The 3rd parties that convert your USD to BTC aren't censoring people, whereas PayPal is.

So that is a significant difference. Apparently PayPal is censoring way more people than the average crypto exchange.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#216

Post by stale2002 »

mrep wrote: post #128
Tehnix wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also consider Google and Bing on the same footing?[0] No, right?. But in anycase, fair enough, the technical correct one is duopoly—the problem just is, it doesn't make it any better. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-s...

Oligopoly. Discover card and American Express are both mostly accepted (I say mostly because some companies don't accept American Express due to their charge back policies). And yes, it makes it so much better. True monopolies can slack so hard and yet still rake in boatloads of cash because their customers have no other option. Google cannot sit around on their search engine or other companies will steal all their c…

And yet here we are, living in a world where PayPal, visa, and MasterCard are successful able to censor lots and lots of people.

So, by definition, this is a problem.

We would no longer have a problem if we get to the point where a single company censorsing your transactions is no big deal because a dozen others will immediately step up in their place.

But we don't live in that world, and so because of this we have to recognize that there is indeed an oligopoly problem.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#217

Post by naasking »

danso wrote: post #214
naasking wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have discrimination laws don't we? Are banks allowed to refuse service for any reason whatsoever? We're talking about people's livelihood here. If transactions don't violate any laws, payment processors should not be permitted to refuse service. When they do refuse service, there should be transparency in reporting.

Yes, there are laws that protect against discrimination based on certain categories (religion, gender, race, veteran status, etc). Business owners still have the right to refuse service for other reasons of their choosing, like the customer being a loudmouth ass, or not following the dress code, without having to refer to a legal statute.

You're changing the goalposts. This thread is about:

1. (arguably monopolistic) payment processors upon which people's livelihood depends, not restaurants or other noncritical services of which there are many to choose, and

2. It's about discrimination for political motivations, not being abusive to your employees.

There's a hardly a line between religious and political convictions, and if you don't find discrimination along these lines troubling, then I think your bias is showing.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#218

Post by O1111OOO »

sokoloff wrote: post #11
ThrowMeDown01 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This name confusion seems intentional Do you have proof, or do you just happen to feel this way without actually knowing any background story? If you make such an accusation you should state your reasons, preferably observable facts. Both "hacker" and "news" are generic terms after all. In addition, even if they did mimic the name, I would not see a problem. It's very descriptive, unlike a completely made-up word t…

This site, with the name "Hacker News", was already popular and predates the other site by several years. If I launched a new site called "TheFacebook.com" tomorrow, what proof would you need that I was, at a minimum, knowingly causing confusion?

> This site, with the name "Hacker News", was already popular

You mean, with the name "ycombinator", right? I remember accessing this site a few times in the (distant) past and was a little confused as to what it was and what it was "selling" (based on the actual frontpage).

I'd check out https://ycombinator.com/ and assumed the news subdomain was a forum or some '1337' thing.

I say this as a slashdotter, digger, redditor (and others) - all of whom have and always had brand naming. I'd say that over the last couple of years, HN has crossed a bridge into the mass market. Before then... it was niche.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#219

Post by danso »

naasking wrote: post #217
danso wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are laws that protect against discrimination based on certain categories (religion, gender, race, veteran status, etc). Business owners still have the right to refuse service for other reasons of their choosing, like the customer being a loudmouth ass, or not following the dress code, without having to refer to a legal statute.

You're changing the goalposts. This thread is about: 1. (arguably monopolistic) payment processors upon which people's livelihood depends, not restaurants or other noncritical services of which there are many to choose, and 2. It's about discrimination for political motivations, not being abusive to your employees. There's a hardly a line between religious and political convictions, and if you don't find discriminati…

You are the one who is moving the goalposts. From your original comment:

> The current trend of cutting services for political reasons is problematic at best, particularly when there's arguably a monopoly.

Your statement asserts this is a problem ("at best") when a business cuts off service for political reasons, especially if "there's arguably a monopoly". Presumably, from your wording, you are also unhappy when a non-monopoly business cuts off service (which, technically, PayPal is, unless it faces antitrust action that I'm not aware of).

> There's a hardly a line between religious and political convictions, and if you don't find discrimination along these lines troubling, then I think your bias is showing.

And yet, in the U.S., there is a line, because there is an actual federal law that protects religious belief, and there isn't one for political beliefs. I'm not interested in arguing with you the validity of the precedent set by the 1st Amendment's protection for religion, or the validity of religion or its immutability in general, but that's the reality of our current legal framework. So yes, I am biased in favor of reality and not fantasy. Try imagining the tangled framework needed to protect political belief in a way that wouldn't infringe on freedom of expression if you want to understand why political belief has not yet enjoyed such protection.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#220

Post by einpoklum »

sparkie wrote: post #153
beerlord wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scary stuff. That's the real reason to use and encourage Crypto: to avoid political censorhip and control. Its a shame it was co-opted by mining and speculation.

Had bitcoin not been sold as a way to get rich, it's likely that most people would have still never heard of it. It's unfortunate that most people misunderstand what Bitcoin is because they can only think of it in terms of legacy financial instruments (ie, treat it like a stock). However, there's no doubt that many people who are in it for the technology and liberty got to know about it because someone else made mone…

It _is_ a pyramid scheme, in which the originators and some early adopters all of the BitCoin. 0.1% of bitcoin owners have over 50% of all BitCoin. 1% of owners have over 90%. That's 2017 data. If adoption grows, the fractions of owners will essentially drop by another factor of 10.

These people's coin cannot be devalued by inflation - only by dumping Bitcoin. So encouraging adoption is encouraging buying into the pyramid scheme and enabling these people to use their ill-gotten gains to take people's stuff.

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