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

Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 35 posts

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#11

Post by str3wer »

colesantiago wrote: post #10
leesalminen wrote: post #5

This is going to be unpopular here, but Bitcoin’s layer 2 Lightning Network is pretty ideal for micropayments. Strike (strike.me) is a Venmo-like app that lets users connect their bank account and then hold a USD balance. The only difference is that users can use their USD to send Bitcoin to the other end. They’re not exposed to bitcoin’s price volatility. On nostr, users are sending micro tips to other each other fa…

Crypto, Bitcoin and the rest of it cannot (and can never be) a solution to micropayments at all. It encourages people to lose their money due to extreme volatility and nobody uses it for anything other than speculative trading which also encourages people to lose money.

stablecoins.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#12

Post by ksec »

m_km wrote: post #3

Both PayPal and Stripe have a separate ‘micro transactions’ pricing that they will enable upon your request. Instead of 2.9%+$0.30, they will charge you 5%+$0.05.

OH wow. Thank You I didn't know that. So basically 10% for $1 transaction. If my calculation is correct the breaking point is $12. So anything under $12, assuming the country supports it.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#13

Post by colesantiago »

str3wer wrote: post #11
colesantiago wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto, Bitcoin and the rest of it cannot (and can never be) a solution to micropayments at all. It encourages people to lose their money due to extreme volatility and nobody uses it for anything other than speculative trading which also encourages people to lose money.

stablecoins.

Stablecoins are not stable at all.

tokens like LUNA went to 0 and USDC, USDT and others depegged which isn't really convincing as a micropayments alternative, in fact it is extremely dangerous.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#14

Post by supertrope »

brudgers wrote: post #9

To a first approximation your experience is why micropayments have never taken hold… They seem as much like a great idea here in 2023 as they did in 1994 when I first read about the idea. I had just started using the internet. Micropayments are infeasible because financial infrastructure has non-trivial costs. The costs are non-trivial because there the highest incentives to steal money and thus systems need hardened…

Indeed. Even stored value systems that cannot be directly cashed out suffer fraud. E.g. Toll-free phone numbers suffer traffic pumping fraud. Fraudsters robocall and try to keep each call going as long as possible as they get a cut of the per minute revenue. Bitcoin ushered in the direct monetization of stolen CPU time without having to first use it for spam, DDoS, etc.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#16

Post by sneak »

colesantiago wrote: post #13
str3wer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stablecoins.

Stablecoins are not stable at all. tokens like LUNA went to 0 and USDC, USDT and others depegged which isn't really convincing as a micropayments alternative, in fact it is extremely dangerous.

Stablecoins are more stable than BTC and ETH, so they have quite a bit more utility than one might think, given your comment.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#17

Post by colesantiago »

sneak wrote: post #16
colesantiago wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stablecoins are not stable at all. tokens like LUNA went to 0 and USDC, USDT and others depegged which isn't really convincing as a micropayments alternative, in fact it is extremely dangerous.

Stablecoins are more stable than BTC and ETH, so they have quite a bit more utility than one might think, given your comment.

Nope, what are they backed by? Nothing other than 'attestations' and 'trust me bro'.

Tether is a fraudulent ponzi, USDC is not stable and is backed by meaningless attestations, Luna is, well gone all the way to the floor.

Even if we take USDC on ETH there exists the uncontrollable volatile gas fee tax which is pointless for micropayments.

'Stablecoins' (or 'stabletokens' are inherently fraudulent and dead on arrival and is only used to pump the price of BTC in the which is the case for Tether.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-my...

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#19

Post by fragmede »

Are you referring to the Venmo API at https://venmo.com/docs/overview/ which has the following warning? If you've managed to buy a business' account to use that API, go for it, but otherwise that seems a bit of a development dead end.

> Our Venmo Developer and Payouts APIs have been retired, and we are no longer able to provide access to businesses who may want to start using it. To find out more about how you can use Venmo as a payment method in your checkout experience, visit https://venmo.com/business/accept-venmo-in-stores.

> For existing businesses who were granted access to the Developer or Payouts API in the past (generally prior to 2016), you will retain access to these APIs and may use them.

Edit: https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/26/how-not-to-run-a-platform

How are you getting access to the Venmo API?

Post reply on HN