221–230 of 789 posts
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If you pay with Google Wallet or Apple Pay it's a corporation what you bought, when and where. And since Google knows your location and has access to your mail, social media and everything on your phone, they can connect more dots.
Google is not going to put me in a concentration camp, enslave me, or send me to die in a trench on the front lines. (If you're reading this, please note this comment was written in 2025)
On top of that, it will provide the said information to government agencies if asked.
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> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…
It's funny but I always had assumed all countries had their own state-owned weather services, until I found out there was no such thing in Germany.
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>Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance. They protect against tracking and provide anonimity. That might be valuable.
A major point of crypto is based on tracking as the ledger (blockchain) is completely public.
I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…
Lucky you. I've been living here since i was born. :(
Pix is surreal. It was launched in the Bolsonaro (mal)administration, designed by the proverbially incompetent public work force, and is as Orwellian as can be. Its code is nowhere to be found.
The funniest thing is that is has been adopted feverishly by the rabid right wing crazies, the same lot who want to destroy everything 'government'.
I take pleasure in listing three of the problems:
1. Lack of Transparency
2. Potential for Abuse
A government-controlled payment system centrally-controlled, with no auditability? Oh please give me more (/s)
3. Censorship and Political Control
Pix is super interesting. I have two questions to which Google wasn't able to provide quick answers: 1. Is there an easy way for a US resident to sign up for a Pix-enabled account (e.g. at a Brazilian bank?) 2. Can Pix be used easily for online payments? If both are true, it seems like it could be used as a drop-in replacement to crypto for small-value transactions which are currently infeasible in the US due to tran…
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> Pix can't facilitate cross-border micro payments. No reason it couldn't. Bizum (mobile payments in Spain) started with just Spain but can now be used for payments across & to/from Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Andorra. Bizum is also a member of European Mobile Payment Systems Association which I think will eventually lead to all members being able to make transfers to other members, but that might a somewhat dream ra…
All Eurozone countries, all bu one an EU member (and that one is very small has a very close trade deal with the EU) so not really cross border except from a certain legalistic angle. The practicalities are very different from transferring between say Brazil and the US.
So what? Sweden has it's own Swish system, Sweden is well integrated in EU, Europe and Eurozone yet it only works within Sweden AFAIK.
That Bizum works across four countries is not a given just because they're all within the Eurozone. Just like how Brazil and US would need to figure out how to send electronic money between themselves if Pix was available in both countries, so did ItalySpainPortugal when it came to Bizum, which is a private company btw.
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> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…
That's exactly why NOAA in the US is under attack. Conservatives see $$$ potential if they privatize it.
Sweden has had a similar system for several years before PIX in Brazil. It is also integrated with the digital ID system (BankID). The main difference is that the Swedish system is ran through a private organization managed by all the major banks (and the central bank) in conjunction. So the central bank doesn't have direct access to the transaction data technically. While the Brazilian system is only interacted dire…
Both Swish and BankID have fees. After all, they're run by for-profit corporations.
Those apps also reduce competition in the banking sector since they're controlled by a few banks which generally have very high fees on their other services.
What's even worse, since BankID is private, there's no individual right to get it, and I've personally experienced banks abusing their oligopoly (buy this extra service or you won't get BankID from us).
The Swedish situation is a nightmare which nobody should try to emulate. Fortunately, the Swedish government has finally announced plans to introduce a public government eID, although 20 years too late.
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More likely a parking machine needs to be accessible to all users, and some people get confused when technology works too fast.
Perhaps if you get confused by fast things you shouldn't be driving?