Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

paralleleconomy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#51

Post by pjc50 »

roenxi wrote: post #31
shakezula wrote: post #5

> Cancel culture will not win But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? This feels like an excuse to capitalize on the politically charged term of “cancel culture”. My grift alert is blaring.

It can be grift and censorship resistant at the same time. The free market embraces not only JIT, but many other distressing tactics that only just work. I suspect, if they can stay ahead of the regulators, we'll be looking back at services like this in 20 years and note: 1. Riddled with scams and fraud. 2. Better overall results than the well regulated banks. The banks tend to rely on regular bailouts to maintain th…

But this is just a payment processor, i.e. a frontend API to banks. They even talk about PCI compliance! Can't get much more mainstream than that.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#52

Post by catapart »

wedn3sday wrote: post #44
catapart wrote: post #8

Nice pivot. I look forward to this "economy" stabilizing in the same way that Truth Social or Parler did - at about a tenth of the scale of their competition. Happy to let the pill-sellers and woke-fearers spend their money in their own little walled garden, well away from where I every have to hear about it (or be advertised to).

Ya, this is pretty much how I felt about the whole Ivermectin thing. Who am I to tell someone not to take horse de-wormer, when I also advocate for the freedom to take psychedelics? If someone _really_ wants to make sure they dont have horse heart worms, I dont see how they're hurting anyone else (besides being a disease vector, but thats not going to get worse).

Same. It's dangerous to tell people that it does stuff that it doesn't do (more dangerous as an audience grows to the point that anecdotal data should be left out entirely, for audiences of an appropriate size), but as long as you're just doing you, have at it. But then, I'm that way about pretty much everything, including rat poison. Do what you're gonna do to yourself, just don't make it other people's problem (note that suicide is almost universally going to be someone else's problem, so that's not an endorsement of taking rat poison).

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#53

Post by blisterpeanuts »

shakezula wrote: post #16
pessimizer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? Payment processing. edit: I have to say that I'm finding the replies unintelligible. The largest payment processors are banning organizations from receiving payments. This organization claims that they will not do that. Would that destroy censorship in the world, or keep Visa and Mastercard from banning people (or banning Parallel Economy themselves?) No. Does…

But… that doesn’t prevent censorship when it’s still reliant on the same core payment processors. As best as I can tell this is basically security through obscurity.

Isn't Parallel Economy basically positioning itself as an alternative to Paypal? Not a "full stack" solution, at least not yet, but nonetheless a workaround if Paypal locks you out.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#54

Post by catapart »

pessimizer wrote: post #29
catapart wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When fear-stoking is on the main page instead of technical details or documentation, it's obvious what they're selling isn't a technical service.

What you editorialize as "fear-stoking," fearful people might characterize as "fear-recognizing."

Maybe, but my editorializing is not relevant to the point? Whatever you call it, they're selling THAT, rather than technical services. But, to be blunt: that site is not "recognizing" anything. As ameister14 pointed out - they are offering affirmation.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#55

Post by goatcode »

shakezula wrote: post #5

> Cancel culture will not win But what are they doing to actually prevent censorship? This feels like an excuse to capitalize on the politically charged term of “cancel culture”. My grift alert is blaring.

Pretty much any assurance you have anywhere: the people doing the work. Theoretically, that is. I'd have to know the actual people before making a realistic determination as to whether they're not part of the same ilk as those whom they claim to oppose.

As we see in any of the social media platforms with things like selective enforcement of rules: people are policy.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#57

Post by chasd00 »

hirundo wrote: post #4

That's a good company name. The broader the cancellations, the broader the emerging parallel economy. Every case of a corporation refusing a customer is an opportunity for another to accept. In a relatively free market you don't extinguish a sector by dividing it; that just generates targetted support. Media is dividing along partisan lines and apparently payment processing is too. What else? How broad will the paral…

we're going to have a red internet and blue internet pretty soon as various service providers begin to take sides. It will be interesting if the owners of fiber/copper in the ground and on poles begin to take sides as well. Same goes for peering providers...

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#58

Post by blisterpeanuts »

Comevius wrote: post #35
pjkundert wrote: post #3

Great work! If you could implement a payment flow where payouts could be made in Crypto, that would be awesome. It is very difficult getting paid for my software, and I’m just a little software developer in Canada. I don’t understand how you manage to maintain merchant accounts with the credit card vendors. It seems likely that they’ll shut you down, as soon as someone tries to fund a peaceful protest that goes again…

The Canada convoy protest was peaceful, except for the bribery, threats, assault, dangerous driving and setting a building on fire. That and the $6 billion economic loss, or the fact that nobody wanted them there, or that the protesters were protesting the COVID-19 vaccination mandate. And if that's not enough the whole thing was funded from the United States by Donald Trump donors and an American billionaire called…

Two men tried to set an apartment building on fire. They were apprehended, and were confirmed by the police as unaffiliated with the truckers convoy.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#59

Post by namelessoracle »

wedn3sday wrote: post #38
gruez wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>was peaceful, except for the bribery, threats, assault, dangerous driving and setting a building on fire. That and the $6 billion economic loss, or the fact that nobody wanted them there Many of these points applies to BLM protests. Should those organizers be booted from the financial system as well? >or the fact that nobody wanted them there, or that the protesters were protesting the COVID-19 vaccination mandate s…

Yes. However much I support the ideals behind any given movement, I strongly believe that after you cross a critical threshold, let us call it the "setting things on fire line" you should stop being able to get paid through the banking system.

I very much doubt you would support everyone participating in the BLM riots last summer be removed from having a bank account.

Re: Parallel Economy: Censor-Resistant Payment Processing

#60

Post by catapart »

pessimizer wrote: post #46
catapart wrote: post #8

Nice pivot. I look forward to this "economy" stabilizing in the same way that Truth Social or Parler did - at about a tenth of the scale of their competition. Happy to let the pill-sellers and woke-fearers spend their money in their own little walled garden, well away from where I every have to hear about it (or be advertised to).

> at about a tenth of the scale of their competition. I wish they were all at that scale, instead of being part of oligopolies/monopolies that depend on the silence/support of government to maintain that position.

Competition is great, and you'll never see me use PayPal for personal concerns over their own anti-consumer practices, but I don't see any particular value in introducing side-shows to the event. Stripe was a real contender for PayPal because it was playing the same game. Now they actually compete. Introducing a "competitor" that is promising to NOT play the same game just means that it's a novelty. There is value in it, but it isn't going to change the monopolistic landscape because the powers that control that sector got that way by survival of the fittest. Disruption has to prove that the fitness test was invalid. And, in money, that's a LOOOOONG history of fitness testing. The financial industry is the "theory of evolution" of the business world. Its machinations are rock-solid, as far as anyone is concerned.

And, to be clear, that's not to say that they don't evolve. It's been a VERY recent trend for financial institutions to deal in social responsiveness as a metric for financial success. The whole "ESG" framework wasn't thought up by controlling parties, it was DEDUCED by analysts and bureaucrats watching market trends as the world changed. And this type of evolution is WHY finances are so rock solid - finances offer the most auditable ledger humans have ever created. We can run data analytics on finances for the rest of eternity and get amazingly predictive results.

So yeah - when other parties show up to the plate, offering to either disrupt the status quo based on solid analytical data, or to throw their own weight around (wherever it came from) within the status quo - I'll be 100% on board. But there's nothing I find substantial about a company that is pretending that eschewing the ESG methodology will make them competitive. Happy to invest some interest if they start making some headway, but until then it's just another tantrum thrown by people who are mad that they can't make money and say they hate people at the same time.

But I will at least commiserate that we deserve better than our monopolistic overlords. I'm hoping there are more people willing to play the game in our favor (rather than for the interests of the money class), even though that isn't immediately and overwhelmingly profitable.

Post reply on HN