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

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

#191

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #149

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…

Dispensaries are getting wise too. Even though you can't use a credit card anywhere, they have found a way for you to use a debit card. Basically it's just like an ATM withdrawl but they tie it into the checkout flow so to you the customer, its just like you paid with a debit card.

I've used a credit card at dispensaries many times. Details in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28829949

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

#192

Post by cletus » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

paisawalla wrote: post #137

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, whi…

> ... 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.

Well done on missing my point entirely, possibly intentionally. I'm fine with whatever happening between consenting adults. Unfortunately, there's a link between sex work and human trafficking that cannot be ignored [1]:

> Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited.

and

> Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows.

Sex trafficking impacts people who aren't consenting (including minors).

So what are the negative externalities of cannabis consumption? Long term cannabis abuse can be a problem but pales in comparison to, say, alcohol abuse. Basically, there's no world that makes sense for alcohol to be legal and cannabis not to be.

Also, cannabis legalization has arguably hurt the illegal drug trade [2].

[1]: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...

[2]: https://time.com/3801889/us-legalization-marijuana-trade/

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

#193

Post by CryptoPunk » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #136

psychlops wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe cyptocurrency has the potential to do everything a 1000 times better.

Take security: with natively programmatic money, security providers can be debundled from currency issuers and payment providers. For example with smart contract wallets it's possible to assign your own guardians which act as security backups and who need to approve all transactions, based on whatever conditions you set, e.g. m of n need to sign to approve >x amount withdrawn within y time frame.

This massively opens the space for competition which inevitably increases quality and efficiency.

It's the same with the security of data: the centralized finance approach has all customer data stored by one party. If that party is compromised, you have a massive leak affecting millions of different people. With programmatic money, digital commerce can work like cash, with no private information disclosed at all, to any one, and no private data being collected in large centralized repositories.

There are also basic institutional advantages with programmatic money on autonomous networks: the rules cannot be changed without consensus, so a rent-seeking party cannot use the network's monopoly status to extract economic rent. A centralized authority, like a regulator or a private company, can always abuse monopolistic control over an industry, meaning that risk will always hang over traditional industries, making them unreliable in the long run.

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

#194

Post by echelon » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:23 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 reason the payments industry doesn't like sex isn't human trafficking. It's the high fraud and charge back rate.

When your parent or partner finds out you paid for an OnlyFans membership, you lie and tell them you lost your card. This happens incredibly often, and payments companies don't want to touch this.

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

#195

Post by ghaff » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #125

rawbot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a recent situation. Back in the early 00's, paying for something online with a credit card, other than porn, was a novelty. I think things started to change in the late 00's. I remember a LOT of software being sold online (licenses and such) was sold via money orders or sometimes wire transfers.

I was accepting credit cards online from 1994 (although I have to confess now that the business is defunct that the form—which didn't use https(!)—just emailed the entry to me(!)). My first order from Amazon was in 1997 (it was two books: The Psychology of Religion and Varieties of Religious Experience ). I bought a number of musical instruments online with credit cards as early as 1998. Buying things from individual…

That lines up with my recollection.

While it was much less widespread than today, credit cards for ordering from a catalog or e-commerce was becoming quite common by the late 1990s but, as you say, for an individual, it was hard to accept credit cards pre-Paypal. (I had a small software business through about the mid-90s and I eventually was able to accept a credit card through a local reseller but it wasn't at all a routine process.)

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

#196

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #149

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…

Dispensaries are getting wise too. Even though you can't use a credit card anywhere, they have found a way for you to use a debit card. Basically it's just like an ATM withdrawl but they tie it into the checkout flow so to you the customer, its just like you paid with a debit card.

[deleted]

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

#197

Post by Spivak » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #189

jnwatson wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clothing manufacturing industry is also deeply tied to human trafficking, but no one is talking about banning credit card transactions at the Nike store.

There is no US law against that.

Yeah, there’s a big difference between “dudes with guns will throw me in prison for this” and “as a company we cannot in good conscience contribute to xxx.”

Banks and CC companies by usual standards are staying out of things more than average. If it’s not a risk to their liberty or wallets the financial sector is happy to stand back and watch all sorts of awful things.

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

#198

Post by truthwhisperer » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

the web initially would have given us access to a myriad of information and therefore ultimate freedom to make our own decisions

however it turns out that how sad, the web is going to restrict our freedom. QR codes, biometrics surveillance, payment discriminations and people like #blm who can act on Facebook and other networks.

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

#199

Post by 3np » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

RL_Quine wrote: post #26

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it is "368.664K Megabytes", not "368.664K Bytes"? The day before yesterday it shows: 368.471K Yesterday it shows: 368.664K So "0.193K" up in that day. What does that mean? 193 Megabytes?

I don't know, blockchain.com has a history of showing just complete garbage information.

My favorite block explorers (both self-hostable for the privacy-conscious):

https://blockstream.info/

https://mempool.space/

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

#200

Post by elzbardico » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #134

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…

> 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 b…

If it only we have some kind of country-wide entity that was run by the people through elections and that could create a centralized payment system with open access to everyone....

But no! The state! oh the horror! Cant have state-run things!!!!