Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by psychlops » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #126

White_Wolf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company (Ex: Water, electricity). Advertising is a different beast altogether. Being able to to exchanges (money for goods, etc) is something quite a basic right(If I can call it that). That doesn't apply to making money though. I don't think it's normal in any way t…

How credit card processing hasn't been classified and regulated as a utility is truly baffling to me. Especially with governments explicitly recommending contactless card payments instead of cash during the pandemic and many doing things like taking large bank notes out of circulation for years now. We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors (not that t…

Crypto is the only competition that can force financial innovation in TBTF era.

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

#132

Post by xdennis » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

mildmotive wrote: post #61

There was this case where Pornhub hosted a lot of rape footage of teenagers[1]. Victims came forward, they testified of their abuse and said that they tried very hard to remove videos involving their sexual assault from the platform. They were however unable to successfully do so because not only were Pornhub careless and unresponsive, the videos would shortly after being removed (if they ever were) resurface on the…

> I’m instead happy that someone with authority is stepping up.

Their authority is just rule by fiat. They are not answerable to the people like an institution in a democracy.

What Mastercard/Visa are doing is not a proper way to run a country, let alone the world.

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

#133

Post by pornel » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #82

pornel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now do stats about energy usage!

Sorry, that's a purely political take, nothing to do with economics or technology. Everyone is using energy to do the things they want to do. Notice that Bitcoin is somehow specially demonized, but vacation travels or Li-Ion battery production is not. (Although, travels are largerly banned, so there's some progress there.) I'm pretty sure even if everyone transitioned to "renewable energy" (also largely ideological c…

Security of PoW depends on continuously using more resources than an adversary can gather. It has to always cancel out any advancements in efficiency, by design. It's unfixable in this aspect.

This is unlike any other activity where resource usage is roughly proportional to the value delivered, rather than maximized on purpose. Even if we had a Dyson Sphere, we'd have to waste more than a half of it on mining.

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

#134

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #126

White_Wolf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company (Ex: Water, electricity). Advertising is a different beast altogether. Being able to to exchanges (money for goods, etc) is something quite a basic right(If I can call it that). That doesn't apply to making money though. I don't think it's normal in any way t…

How credit card processing hasn't been classified and regulated as a utility is truly baffling to me. Especially with governments explicitly recommending contactless card payments instead of cash during the pandemic and many doing things like taking large bank notes out of circulation for years now. We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors (not that t…

> We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors

Sounds like you're saying we need crypto. Decentralized banks? That's exactly the sort of crazy idea that's just not gonna happen outside of crypto.

> Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist??

They provide a useful service. They pay for stuff for you, then you pay them back later. This is great because if fraud occurs it's their problem to deal with.

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

#135

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #127

woofcat wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're saying the regulations should include not excluding someones legal business because you 'dislike it' ala WikiLeaks.

Todays finance regulators require you to not do business with some people, often without good evidence. For example, if you do business with wikileaks, you will get a nudge from the regulator to 'reduce the number of high risk clients' you work with... They're not saying it's illegal, but they're also saying they're going to find some regulation to prosecute you with unless you do as they say. It's a sad state of aff…

This sort of thing is exactly why we need private and anonymous cryptocurrency like Monero.

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

#136

Post by franga2000 » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

psychlops wrote: post #131

franga2000 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How credit card processing hasn't been classified and regulated as a utility is truly baffling to me. Especially with governments explicitly recommending contactless card payments instead of cash during the pandemic and many doing things like taking large bank notes out of circulation for years now. We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors (not that t…

Crypto is the only competition that can force financial innovation in TBTF era.

Innovation isn't what's needed, it's regulation. Making an alternative that does a couple things better but a thousand things worse isn't going to turn a broken market into a free one.

There are multiple types of decentralization and the one we need for finance isn't the "everyone is (theoretically) equal and there are no rules" of crypto but the "distributed network of trusted providers" that we use for things like public key infrastructure and email. People WILL get hacked, lose their wallets, etc. so recovery MUST be possible and like it or not, law enforcement SHOULD have the power to freeze accounts and take back money that doesn't belong to someone.

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

#137

Post by paisawalla » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

I find it remarkable that in the same post where you criticize those who would maintain bans on drug purchases, you end up finding your own reasons why to maintain a ban on a different vice. But sex work has externalities I guess is how you might respond, but drug bans are also based on arguments of externalized social harm.

At first I thought you were going to give an argument for removing financial gatekeeping, which I think is an inappropriate point to apply leverage towards moral ends. But -- and this is the heart of the problem everywhere -- you end up picking and choosing between vices. This maintains the processor's position as the morality enforcer, which is the entire issue: it's just one more thing that power-driven agents can strive to influence.

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

#138

Post by villasv » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

The US is an exception in its fragmented banking system. Usually there's no conflict of legality between state and federal government, and banks are consolidated in a few big players that are pretty eager to satisfy business owners demands so having bank accounts is not usually an issue (even for somewhat-illegal or unregulated market business). Even startups nowadays are getting fast access to corporate credit cards.

But credit cards are on scope of an entirely different order of magnitude compared to a local bank checking account. Visa and Mastercard are global authorities on cashflow. And this is exactly why they're accidentally becoming regulators, they transcend the US weirdly fragmented banking system.

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

#139

Post by Imnimo » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

Isinlor wrote: post #8

I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions. If it's legal then banks should have no choice but to handle it.

What would be the impact on consumer protections like chargebacks if banks were forced to process transactions they deemed to have a high risk of fraud?

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

#140

Post by elzbardico » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #126

White_Wolf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company (Ex: Water, electricity). Advertising is a different beast altogether. Being able to to exchanges (money for goods, etc) is something quite a basic right(If I can call it that). That doesn't apply to making money though. I don't think it's normal in any way t…

How credit card processing hasn't been classified and regulated as a utility is truly baffling to me. Especially with governments explicitly recommending contactless card payments instead of cash during the pandemic and many doing things like taking large bank notes out of circulation for years now. We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors (not that t…

The Brazilian government created an instant payment system that doesn't depend on payment processors. You can send money to anyone in seconds using their tax id number or their phone numbers, it clears in seconds.

It is named PIX.

All banks implemented it, so, no matter what is your bank you're able to do payments from your smartphone using your banks app.

It is so popular and easy to use that even street merchants accept it.