Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean your ENS was free money tho, so …
Very true, but same experience buying an NFT, 15% in fees etc
Just buy more expensive NFTs.
Joking aside fees are a real problem. Hopefully solved in 2022.
Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
371–380 of 398 posts
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a French bank, I have credit transactions first then debit ones, in a Swiss bank, the contrary, I was shocked, especially that day, I did check my bank account to verify if I could proceed with a wire transfer, the following day, it shown a temporary minus amount but I didn't get an overdraft. So yes, fuck banks.
In capitalist West bank robs you.
NICE
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of things that are just plain better in the UK compared to the US. Out of network ATM fees being a big one. See also regulation about what the incumbent last-mile network provider (Openreach) can charge ISP's to provide services on their lines which has led to a larger number of ISP's available in any one place (unless you're in Hull, because of historical reasons).
if ATM fees are important to you, you could always consider opening an account with schwab. they reimburse 100% of ATM fees. as for ISPs, it's hard to do worse than comcast, but at least they don't block a wide range of content by default. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
It was either "voluntarily block, or we'll force you to".
And the piracy site blocks are due to high court orders - not a lot an ISP can do in those cases.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea. For people who aren't familiar with this, the bank will reorder your transactions and batch them to do the biggest one first. Then you get charged an overdraft fee per transaction after that. If they did the small ones first, you may not go into overdraft until the last big one... So you'd pay one fee. Do the largest first, then each small one causes a fee. Highway robbery.
The argument, which I do not buy as sufficient but add here for completeness, is that it’s better for your large purchases (ie rent) to clear before your $10 lunch, etc.
That's only true if you do not have overdraft, and therefore some transactions will be denied.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you ever not want to put something on a cc? It's quite literally free money (rewards/points + you can delay payments for a month and pay no interest)
Rewards/points are not free. You're paying more upfront to get something "free" later on.
Only if it actually costs you more to use the credit card. If not, it's the cash buyers that are paying for your rewards.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#376The beginning of this article is a fairy tale that ignores what used to be one of the biggest drivers of revenue for banks: overdraft fees. Maybe the HN crowd has never been in a situation where they were auto-billed into a negative balance, which then caused an overdraft fee that then further drove their balance into negative territory, but this was a weekly/monthly fiasco for millions of Americans. I was once in a…
> Maybe the HN crowd has never been in a situation where they were auto-billed into a negative balance I wonder about this some times. It's truly not something I wish upon anyone, but at the same time it's almost a privilege to have live it first hand, as it's an...I was gonna say "unfortunately rare" but I think I'll go with "severely under-represented" point of view in this industry, especially silicone valley. Als…
> Also yes, overdraft fees are truly disgusting. What's worse is that there are transactions that can bypass "overdraft protection".
Totally agree. I used to work in the lending team at a UK bank. Someone on my team was on a panel discussion about change in banking, and gave a brilliantly frank answer on that point: https://youtu.be/M3toHjAABvw?t=3511
> it's an...I was gonna say "unfortunately rare" but I think I'll go with "severely under-represented" point of view in this industry
I do remember being disturbed by this. I'm from a totally privileged background myself, probably quite a bit more than the rest of us were, but still, something about watching that 'total amount lent' line increasing, it just never sat right. It felt ... profane, like a funeral director cheering because there were more car crashes this quarter. It's hard not to mentally flip that profit graph upside down.
And I'm glad that our industry is working harder to be diverse in gender and ethnicity and sexual orientation &c, but it feels like diversity in social class is still horribly neglected. It makes such a hugely palpable difference to have even one person in your team whose parents might be among the people you're lending to (or whatever it is that your company does).
I honestly don't well enough understand the sociology of software engineering to fathom why we're so silent on that particular dimension of privilege.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment seems false given private banks commonly don’t charge overdraft fees, or late fees, or interest charges.
What would classify as a private bank? IME, you're given the option for overdrafts regardless.
I think this is a dialect difference. To me (and presumably the parent?) private bank means a bank that offers private banking services to wealthy clients which generally involves selling certain loans or investment products rather than a current account. Whereas I think the grandparent meant “bank not owned by the state”. But I’m not entirely sure
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not irrational, there's a whole bunch of other things you're not considering. For example, a debt creates a financial obligation and as such it diminishes one's personal autonomy. People who value their personal autonomy will take that into consideration before going into debt.
Arent you in debt to your stomach? You need to eat.
Only when you skip lunch.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stripe is 12 years old, has ~4,000 employees, and does several billion in revenue each year. It’s not a startup anymore. Although I do agree with your general sentiment that if you want real work-life balance, an actual startup is probably not for you.
“Hypergrowth” is the operative word. Startup is also a way of running a company, not just “young company”
I disagree with both of your statements. Hypergrowth is a meaningless term and a startup is a type of company in a specific stage of its lifecycle. Running a company "like a startup" can be a thing, but that does not make the company a startup.
Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Debit cards are a fraud? Living on borrowed money is a fraud.
It’s a scam that: 0. for many aspects of life you need positive credit history to live at all 1. debit cards don’t help you build credit 2. secured credit cards (your own money! not borrowed!) do 3. both function almost the same way, but the latter is much less equally available And if you think “living on borrowed money is a fraud”, I suppose that means you think only independently wealthy people should own homes? N…
That's a kinda chicken and egg problem. I could argue that the more financing you give to people, the more they're gonna be willing to pay, so this actually drive prices up.