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Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

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Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#601

Post by kelnos »

tchaffee wrote: post #411
elzbardico wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked both Visa and Mastercard have no problems being used to buy cigarettes or alcohol. I'd bet that orders of magnitude more people die because of cancer caused by cigarettes and in episodes of domestic violence or traffic accidents caused by alcohol abuse than the number of people assassinated by hit killers hired online and paid with credit cards.

I never claimed the near monopoly of current processors is moral. My claim is easy: we have the right to conduct a business according to our ethics.

In many jurisdictions, the electric utility is a private corporation. Is it ok for the power company to turn off power for a business they think is immoral, like, say, a strip club? Obviously it's not; laws prevent that sort of thing.

So at this point we agree (as a society at least) that some businesses should not be allowed to conduct business according to their ethics, but instead must do business with anyone who shows up at their door. At this point it's just a matter of deciding which businesses that rule should apply to. I would argue that payment processors are approaching utility-like levels of essential use in our society, if they aren't there already.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#602

Post by kelnos »

tchaffee wrote: post #360
zhfliz wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at best you suspect it, you don't know it unless you're on the sending or receiving side of the transaction. it shouldn't be my decision whether i want to allow the transaction, even if i wouldn't want to allow it. i'm not in a position to perform due legal process to determine whether you're indeed being paid for a hit job. the provider should be in a neutral position.

I asked a specific question and you refuse to answer it because your entire premise is based on not being able to know if someone is engaging in unethical behavior. That's premise is seriously flawed. The problem you're trying solve is caused by lack of competition and near monopoly players. The fix isn't to force those businesses to ignore ethics. The fix is hugely increasing the competition.

> your entire premise is based on not being able to know if someone is engaging in unethical behavior. That's premise is seriously flawed.

No, it's not. It's literally the facts on the ground.

Additionally, it's telling that you used the term "unethical" rather than "unlawful". Whether or not a credit card works should have nothing to do with someone's arbitrary ethics.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#603

Post by kelnos »

tchaffee wrote: post #350
kortilla wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bit of bullshit because these payment providers accept transactions for the government which consistently kills people at the local, state, and federal level every day. If you “know” the money is for a hit job, you contact the FBI or local police and they can mobilize protective services and arrest forces.

I'm not claiming payment processors are moral. I'm asking if the freedom to refuse unethical business should be your right. I was responding to the position of a parent comment that processors should accept even illegal transactions. Of course you contact the police in the situation I described. Do you accept the payment though or do you refuse the transaction? You keep avoiding a specific yes or no question.

You accept the payment, absolutely. It should not be your responsibility to do the required due process to ensure that a decision to deny the transaction is actually fair and correct. And more than that, I don't want to have to trust an unaccountable private corporation with that responsibility.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#604

Post by kelnos »

tchaffee wrote: post #466
crote wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> freedom to refuse unethical business There is a massive difference between "unethical business" and "illegal business". As banks provide critical infrastructure, they should absolutely not be allowed to refuse business they consider "unethical", just like a power company should not be allowed to cut someone off because they think they are behaving "unethically". As to "illegal business", the simple fact is that the…

Banks don't know what you're paying for at Porn Hub? Banks do know enough to price in risk. And there is your problem. They must be allowed to price in risk and if they are allowed to do that they can effectively deny business by making the price too high. PayPal isn't a bank but does payments. The real problem is there aren't enough alternatives like that. The solution to banks having so much power is to give them m…

What does "give them more competition" mean? The fact that the landscape looks like it does is a strong suggestion that more competition might not actually be viable.

Another possible solution to banks having so much power is to regulate them more. I know a lot of libertarian types don't like that answer, but it is a valid answer.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#605

Post by kelnos »

wheeeeeeeeee wrote: post #474
tchaffee wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming payment processors are moral. I'm asking if the freedom to refuse unethical business should be your right. I was responding to the position of a parent comment that processors should accept even illegal transactions. Of course you contact the police in the situation I described. Do you accept the payment though or do you refuse the transaction? You keep avoiding a specific yes or no question.

In this hypothetical situation you've set up in which Visa somehow knows that one of their billion+ payments is for the contract killing of another human, then no, it's probably better to not let the payment go through. However I find the argument you're posing apparently in favor of allowing a business like Visa to decline transactions on ethical grounds to be missing some important rigor. It's honestly kind of bori…

I think you hit the nail on the head with the assertion that the contract killing example is boring and doesn't really expose any of the grey areas or nuance that is necessary to really think about this issue.

But even ignoring ethics, I don't think multinational corporations should be unilaterally deciding on questions of law, either. I don't think they will ever make legal determinations based on any sufficient amount of rigor, either. Sufficient in this case, to me, is "would be the same decision reached by a court of law after engaging in due process". And even if they could theoretically apply that level of rigor, why should we trust an unaccountable multinational corporation with that power?

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#606

Post by kelnos »

542458 wrote: post #236
arcticbull wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

I understand the pitch here, but different industries (and organizations within industries) pose dramatically different fraud risks. There are "anything flies" payment processors today, but the fee premium you pay is massive due to the risks involved. For example, CCBill specializes in high-risk transactions and will handle anything legal, but the fees can be as high as 14.5%!

So why doesn't Visa and MC also allow high-risk transactions, and similarly charge 14.5% (or whatever they need to keep their profit margins where they'd like) for the privilege?

Nearly everyone with a credit or debit card will have one with one of the major payment networks (that just all happen to disallow these sorts of high-risk businesses). No one has the ability to pay with CCBill unless they've run into a high-risk business and have decided that's a (possibly pretty big) hurdle that they're willing to jump. And many people won't want to sign up with CCBill... the end result is that these high-risk businesses are less viable. Maybe they should be less viable, but I don't think unaccountable corporations should be making that decision for us.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#607

Post by kelnos »

refurb wrote: post #571
kazinator wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Payment processors must not be arbiters of what is lawful.

Then remove all liability for payment processors. There are numerous examples of companies doing something legal, that later blows up and they become the scapegoat for letting it happen. As long as that happens, payment processors are going to protect themselves by avoiding certain industries.

Sort of like a Section 230 for payment processors -- fine by me.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#608

Post by bilbo0s »

pyuser583 wrote: post #408
colinsane wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the payment processor knew the transaction was for a contract killing but processed it anyway, would they not be facilitating a crime (“aiding and abetting”)? are you saying we should specifically exempt payment processors from being held responsible for crimes that the rest of us — or any other business — could be found guilty of when performing the same functions? or are you suggesting something more broad: that…

If a telephone company knowingly serviced a contract killer, they would be fine. Same with postal service, etc.

Same with postal service, etc.

Uh, guys, this is not true.

This is not how any of this works.

Don't let these people on HN mislead you. Even the postal service cannot knowingly deliver a bomb to a target and claim immunity. It doesn't work like that. If you know they are committing a crime, then you have to stop them. Or at a minimum try to stop them.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#609

Post by collyw »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

How could a website function with cash payments at all?

Here in Spain it is still relatively common to make a bank transfer and show the receipt. Especially for anything government related. Stand in queue, talk to person. You need to pay 12 euros. Go to bank, pay, get receipt. Go back and stand in the queue again.

We don't need to be giving our governments any more control over the way that we spend our own money. And we certainly don't want to give them the power to shut people out of the system.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#610

Post by collyw »

m463 wrote: post #562
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

Also all the electronic tie-ins from cashless transactions. I've seen less technical friends getting their email or phone number tied to transactions, or installing apps to complete them.

It seems to be getting worse.

I order something online. Get asked to confirm the purchase on my bank app. Log in to my bank website from my laptop as I am already there, enter my password. Then I get prompted to open my phone and enter the same password to confirm that it is me logging into the bank app. I am allowed into the banks web app, where I tell it, yes it's me and I want to make that purchase.

It's at the stage where physical shops might actually be quicker and less hassle, especially if you have forgotten or mistyped the password and need to go through the process of resetting it.

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