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Coin: A step in the wrong direction

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Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#51

Post by Semaphor »

samuelkadolph wrote: post #36
aclimatt wrote: post #8

To clarify about the pre-order issue: There's nothing inherently wrong with asking for funds to push the development of a product forward. Kickstarter has done a great job of promoting that model, and the world has seen a lot of good come out of it. However, Kickstarter has also done a lot of work to educate the public about the risk of this type of funding (certainly to their own legal benefit or otherwise), and thu…

Actually this is very much illegal. You cannot charge someone for a product and then not deliver it. Kickstarter doesn't charge you for a product, you pledge or donate to a project on Kickstarter and if it's successful, you get the item(s) for the level you pledged to for free.

So there is a part where the US has stronger consumer protection laws than Germany? Interesting.

Besides that, why are digital goods pre-orders seemingly allowed?

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#52

Post by goshx »

fletchowns wrote: post #41
dylanpyle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the BLE radio in Coin is only used for detecting location, and doesn't expose any card details in any form.

Yea but it's still a wireless radio. Who knows what sort of exploit some malicious and clever person could come up with.

IMO, if we worry about that we would never use NFC or any other technology, really. I dare to say that everything is exploitable.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#53

Post by Link- »

This article "is the step in the wrong direction".

I see nothing wrong with encapsulating/combining multiple mediums into one solution. One solution that extends the innate functionality of magnetic cards and provides additional functional layers. The author talks about Bitcoin as being one of the "other" directions in the horizon, I believe that Bitcoin or any other digital currency is on the same level as the magnetic cards. If Coin is able to tap into your Bitcoin wallet and execute transactions, that would help Bitcoin further infiltrate the market.

I also believe that Coin has the potential to provide an extra layer of security that magnetic cards don't.

1) Coin can implement a one click/touch procedure to disable a given card at any point in time and prevent its usage, which currently requires a call to the bank and a bureaucratic nightmare to reactivate the card. (at least in my country).

2) I'm sure Coin are able to implement an approval/rejection transaction workflow adding an extra layer of control in case of unauthorized usage.

3) Coin can add a key based security layer to their application also preventing unauthorized usage.

Really, the ideas are endless and this is why I love projects that are an extension/middle-layer for other outdated technologies.

I think the hate is originating due to a narrow vision of this product's potential.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#54

Post by lsh123 »

Plastic credit card costs next to nothing to manufacture, can be dropped from a 10 story building (good luck finding it afterwards though), can get wet with me in a heavy rain, can be replaced in 24 hours (at my bank) and I have $0 liability if I lose it or someone steals it from me. Compare this to Coin (or other solutions like phone based payments) and you will see that it is indeed a step in the wrong direction though not for the reasons discussed in the article.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#55

Post by saidajigumi »

gmjoe wrote: post #22

This article is ridiculous and doesn't even have anything to do with Coin. The first half isn't even criticizing Coin at all -- it's just saying the author wishing there were even better things. The author says "The problem with these technologies is vendor adoption. It’s not here yet, but it’s on the way." Yeah, it's been on the way for the past 10 years, but nothing's changed yet! I don't see RFID/NFC anywhere I sh…

> Yeah, it's been on the way for the past 10 years, but nothing's changed yet!

Along with transistor counts, other technologies follow a Moore's Law like improvement curve. Network (bandwidth) technologies are among those, but they have a strong step-function characteristic to their improvement. This accounts for the delay in end-to-end deployment of hardware improvements needed. This also creates a perception of sustained changelessness followed by rapid change (e.g. dialup modems to DSL/Cable).

Any improvement to payment infrastructure suffers from a much more entrenched form of the network upgrade problem. This stasis works to the benefit of companies (e.g. Square) who can provide value without having to move the world. Coin also fits into this opportunity/risk model.

The risk, which that quote hits on, is that Coin is already too late: if a payment network transformation lands too soon, it could leave Coin's bright idea in the dust. In that light, saying "it's been on the way for the past 10 years" is more worrying rather than less.

But there are upsides. Imagine that Coin grows into its meta-card future, eventually supporting EMV[1] as well as easy revocability and reissuance. Lose your Coin? A quick report and it's revoked and all of your cards are reissued onto a new Coin.

[1] Per Coin's FAQ, they do not support EMV, aka "chip and pin", yet. This is problematic for non-U.S. usage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#56

Post by ams6110 »

carsongross wrote: post #2

The hating on Coin is unbelievable. It seems like a great first step towards backwards-compatible card consolidation. Are there going to be issues with it? Of course. Will it last in the long run? Well, the phone thing is obvious, kids. I bet these guys are aware of that and have a plan. Regardless, its an innovative piece of hardware that moves the ball. That's better than any of the shit I've built.

For me, it's like the classic Spolsky critique of the "Cue Cat". It's solving a problem that I don't have. I carry a wallet anyway to contain my ID, my cash, and other cards that are not credit cards. Carrying a couple of credit cards along with all that is not a problem.

I personally don't have any hate for Coin or what they are trying to do; I hope they are successful. But it's not something I would buy.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#57

Post by goshx »

So, this product is new. Nobody has used yet. However, it already got a bunch of bad reviews. Why try to put a not even born yet business down if you are not even competing against it in the first place?

I'd be interested to see a business coming up from the article's author from the ideas he put in the article. But I guess writing a blog post is much easier than investing time and money to build up something new to make some people's life easier.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#58

Post by loganu »

kin wrote: post #31

I feel like some people on HN thrive so much on negativity. I don't even think this feedback is constructive. Look, author has 1 or 2 cards. I have an Amazon card, a Target card, a Debit card, my FSA card, my Company credit card. I have rewards cards that I don't keep in my wallet because I like to keep my wallet thin. Like it or not, Coin presents a hopeful solution to solving this for me. And don't go telling me I…

I feel like a lot of feedback could be useful if it was framed differently. Everyone talking about the potential to lose multiple cards at once, or fraud, or theft, or the 8-card limit seems to come at it from a position of snark and sarcasm.

If you're smart enough to realize potential risks, you're probably smart enough to ask if Coin's considered solutions to that use-case, or offer up a suggestion. They've clearly spent more time thinking this through than we have, and I doubt they've detailed everything on a marketing page and F.A.Q.

Personally, I'd be worried about travelling and my phone dying or disappearing and effectively locking my card when that pre-determined time elapses. But I'm sure that could be configured in the app, or workarounds created once this goes live and more feedback comes in. (Web login, a friends' phone, etc.)

As for the product itself, I'd love to see it work. It would solve a problem for me, and I'd happily replace my wallet with two of these and my driver's license. Is it the best technology for solving consumer-merchant interactions? Maybe, maybe not. But I'd rather see 15 companies develop divergent ideas until a clear winner emerges than see everyone forced to Bitcoin, NFC, etc.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#59

Post by ams6110 »

cypher543 wrote: post #28
brianmcconnell wrote: post #16

Two issues with Coin. One is this has been done before, exact same approach, and it did not work out because the card issuers didn't buy in (a credit card is also part of the issuing bank's brand). Maybe that's changed in the past few years, but I am skeptical. The second issue is it's solving a problem that isn't really a problem. I use two cards on a regular basis. I have others but rarely need to carry them with m…

> One is this has been done before, exact same approach, and it did not work out because the card issuers didn't buy in The card issuers don't have to buy in to anything. You program the Coin yourself using your existing cards. > I use two cards on a regular basis. I have others but rarely need to carry them with me. So I can reduce two slots in my wallet to one. Doesn't seem like enough of a benefit to me. Ah, the o…

cashiers have never so much as glanced at my cards.

In fact my impression is that in the vast majority of stores now you swipe your own card. The cashier never touches it.

Re: Coin: A step in the wrong direction

#60

Post by cypher543 »

stormbrew wrote: post #44
carsongross wrote: post #2

The hating on Coin is unbelievable. It seems like a great first step towards backwards-compatible card consolidation. Are there going to be issues with it? Of course. Will it last in the long run? Well, the phone thing is obvious, kids. I bet these guys are aware of that and have a plan. Regardless, its an innovative piece of hardware that moves the ball. That's better than any of the shit I've built.

Some of the 'hate' is coming from places (eg. Canada) that have already moved on to chip cards (which won't and probably can't work with this) and are now slowly moving on to nfc. It's just already late for this kind of development. 5 years ago? I'd have been all over this. Now? I'm just waiting for Apple to adopt NFC so we can all move forward on better solutions.

Their FAQ says that future versions will support chip cards.

https://onlycoin.com/support/faq/

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