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Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

economist.com

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Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#11

Post by ArtTimeInvestor »

Semaphor wrote: post #9
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which third parties do you mean?

My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.

I'm in a similar, semi educated situation as you are. But my interpretation of what I have read so far is different:

As far as I understand it: When a channel you have open is closed by the other side of the channel your wallet needs to know this within a certain time (24 hours? Can't remember).

So to avoid having to read the blockchain updates once a day, you would subscribe to some service that tells you when one of your channels is closed.

I also think you only have to do that if you distrust the other side of the channel. If you select a channel partner (a friend, a well known institution, a bank?) and only keep a small amount in that channel, I think you can just trust them and not sign up for any "watchtower" to watch if they try to cheat on you.

PS: Looking up the growth of the Bitcoin blockhain it seems that even if you do the watching yourself, that would only mean to read less than 1MB per day? Here is the data:

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#12

Post by RL_Quine »

Semaphor wrote: post #9
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which third parties do you mean?

My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.

You don't need a lot of funds, or to always be online. You can run the software quite happily on a cellphone (I have previously), the requirement to be "online" is only in the scale of occasionally (once a day would be more than sufficient), and even that can be delegated (dork "watchtowers") with little to no risk.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#13

Post by throwawaysea »

Payments should be treated like a public utility services, so that they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal. It is a bad idea to let any private service that is so widespread and fundamental to function as a proxy regulator of speech.

This problem was very apparent when Wikileaks faced a payment blockade a decade back (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2012/07/18/wikileaks-break...). We are overdue to reign in Visa and MasterCard, just as we are with giant social media common carriers.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#15

Post by lawn »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7
lawn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very poorly. The only way it's usable is by relying on third parties, at which point you might as well use standard services. Or even actual cryptocurrencies for that matter.

Which third parties do you mean?

That provide liquidity, open or manage channels for you, watch your channel so you don't lose your money or even hold your keys (as is the case with some popular wallets people recommend).

And the network itself centralizes around large hubs (otherwise route finding doesn't scale).

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#16

Post by rektide »

toyg wrote: post #10
epicureanideal wrote: post #2

Reluctant? Really? Citation needed.

My thoughts exactly. They might be reluctant to show they have so much power, but they're definitely not reluctant to wield it.

They're reluctant to take on risk, but that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact & what isn't. I'm sure they've had to grow headcount to tackle this expanding question, and they certainly don't consider it as driving up business value: it's a growing overhead to avoid risk, without cutting off too much business, and without becoming too visible/noteable for refusing service. None of these activities are in any way a win.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#17

Post by RL_Quine »

lawn wrote: post #15
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which third parties do you mean?

That provide liquidity, open or manage channels for you, watch your channel so you don't lose your money or even hold your keys (as is the case with some popular wallets people recommend). And the network itself centralizes around large hubs (otherwise route finding doesn't scale).

The repeated comments about "routing not scaling" are sort of weird, there's no real technical hurdle to overcome. Approximations of route finding are really all that's necessary, there's no strong centralizing force to be found there.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#18

Post by MattGaiser »

rektide wrote: post #14

Weird to me how misdirected the mass outrage against tech censorship feels, given that it's really the payment processors doing the most to stigmatize & make untenable any form of speech & commerce they consider risky.

Payment processors are doing it in response to mass outrage, particularly about revenge porn.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#19

Post by matheusmoreira »

What do you mean, "are becoming"? They have always been. If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service, they'll refuse to handle payments and then there's simply no way for the service providers to get paid. See wikileaks and other "problematic" sites.

Advertisers are also regulators. I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads. Stuff like this ruins the web.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#20

Post by RL_Quine »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #11
Semaphor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.

I'm in a similar, semi educated situation as you are. But my interpretation of what I have read so far is different: As far as I understand it: When a channel you have open is closed by the other side of the channel your wallet needs to know this within a certain time (24 hours? Can't remember). So to avoid having to read the blockchain updates once a day, you would subscribe to some service that tells you when one o…

You're misreading the graphs, the chain size can grow at most by 576MB a day.

A maximum of 4MB per block, 6 per hour, 24 hours per day.

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