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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

#631

Post by tchaffee »

kelnos wrote: post #588
tchaffee wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if it's for human trafficking? Payment processors are made up of people, and people have to have the freedom of drawing a moral line they won't cross. The real problem as I see it is that payment processing is a near monopoly. Better competition and smaller players would almost guarantee that every transaction except the most egregious would have a willing payment processor. Diversity is so often the best answer…

How do you know it's for human trafficking? Are you deputized by the government to act as judge and jury? If you think something might be for human trafficking, you report it to law enforcement and let them deal with it. They'll gather evidence, build a case, make arrests, and hand things off to a DA/prosecutor who will file charges. Or, at some point, someone will decide it's not human trafficking, or at least that…

> How do you know it's for human trafficking?

It's a thought experiment. There are surely cases in life in which you know for sure that crime is being committed. What you're asking for though is that due criminal process be a part of denying a payment. Which seems extremely heavy handed.

If my payment processing company doesn't want to help sell guns, or help with human trafficking, or hell, doesn't want to support the meat industry, then I should be able to run my business according to those ethical choices. My company isn't sending someone to jail. They are just refusing to accept a payment. There is no need for due criminal process to refuse a payment.

Should it be illegal to start a vegan payment processing company?

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

#632

Post by tchaffee »

selcuka wrote: post #565
wwweston wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point you are missing is the payment processors should not even try to detect what the payment is made for. It should not be their job. You're thinking about this as if the question is simply about whether or not payment processors should have the job of examining every individual payment. There's a potential discussion to be had there, but that's the only dimension of the topic, and one of the things we're tal…

I didn't say that the payment processor doesn't have the right to question if the client can prove its legality with paperwork. Doesn't "Doordash Blowjobs Inc" mean that they have been legally allowed to form a company? In that case who is the payment processor to decide that they are "not good"?

> In that case who is the payment processor to decide that they are "not good"?

Should it be illegal to start a vegan payment processing company that won't allow butchers to be paid through them? If so, then why should it be illegal?

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

#633

Post by throwuwu »

ronsor wrote: post #520
throwuwu wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, career bureaucrats who get paid by the government and can’t be held accountable by the people. Nothing could possibly go wrong there.

Yes, I really do prefer corporate executives who also can't be held accountable by the people.

Ever notice how the US government was set up as a group of competing powers? Or how parliamentary systems have similar competition between parties, a senate, and the monarchy or wtvr? It’s almost like you can’t trust any one group with power no matter where they derive their power from.

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

#634

Post by psychlops »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #514
kayodelycaon wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s legal tender for debts. Not payments.

Depends on the jurisdiction I guess ? I just checked, and around here cash is the only type of payment that cannot be refused, and if they get caught trying they would be fined 150€.

A debt must be incurred for them to refuse it. If one walks up to a counter to pay for something, there is no debt and a business can refuse to take the cash.

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

#635

Post by lottin »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #584
lottin wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Did you read that somewhere?

What's more scalable - querying a database and hitting "delete" on the payment channels of 100,000 people at a political rally, or hunting them down one-by-one across an entire country? You're applying this to individuals. Which is never the real threat to any regime. It's always large groups of people.

I think you're living in techno-fantasy land. "Deleting" people on a database achieves nothing. Look at how authoritarian governments actually work in the real world. An authoritarian government would simply arrest the leader of the opposition on made up charges, and then they would throw them in the jail. They don't have to go after everybody who disagrees with the government. They just go after a few of them, and this is more than enough to discourage the rest.

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

#636

Post by Aerbil313 »

faeriechangling wrote: post #518
Aerbil313 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital money is clearly a downgrade. In the yet ole times, all money (precious metal coins) was decentralized, anonymous and untraceable! It even worked in all world without any exchanges! /Poe (Poe’s law, take it as you want.)

You kid, but that's a serious attack against crypto, which is that the value is dependant on the existence of a sizeable network with diverse functions. Whereas gold in the ground is shiny rocks in the ground. You can say, wait out a tax on gold by burying your gold.

Right. No crypto or your money in banks will work once that EMP from (virtually) inevitable nuclear war, Carrington event, societal collapse etc. hits.

Hint: We’re globally headed to The Collapse (with capital C) now. See climate change, resource scarcity, water depletion, or just ecological overshoot.

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

#637

Post by lazide »

x-complexity wrote: post #493
lazide wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because arresting people requires evidence and due process, which is work.

> Because arresting people requires evidence and due process, which is work. Such work is paramount in order to maintain the foundations of an accountable society. The alternative being suggested here is no better than witch hunting in the worst case, wherein certain groups/classes of people are barred from doing their business online just because of the sensitive nature of a given topic. (drugs/medicine, pornography…

There is no ‘alternative being suggested’ here - merely the current reality being described.

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

#638

Post by lazide »

kelnos wrote: post #594
lazide wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that it is the way it is now is because people want it that way. So good luck with that.

Well, what do you mean by "people"? If you mean "a majority of voters", then I doubt that's actually true, for quite a few types of businesses and transactions that are currently banned from payment networks. If you mean "those in power who can and do make decisions that a majority of voters wouldn't actually support", then sure, I think that's the case, but that doesn't make it right, and that doesn't make it inevit…

The current financial climate around card processing has been largely true since at least the late 90’s. Since Clinton.

YMC/AML has been this way since shortly after 9/11 (aka 2001).

The level of outrage from the voters is…. Tepid.

Will it change at some point? Sure. Not seeing it happen anytime soon though.

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

#639

Post by tchaffee »

stale2002 wrote: post #473
tchaffee wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested in the topic but not interested in your aggressive style and putting words in my mouth and telling me what I believe. You can have the last word if you'd like.

Yes, people usually don't want to engage when the contradiction of your new statement is put so clearly in contrast with your past statement. I wasn't really expecting you to engage with the point in any way. It is so rare that people do. The fact remains that you now admit that yes you want to force certain businesses, specifically utilities, to sell to people, and this contradicts your previous statement. You even…

No not for the reasons you claim, I don't want to continue because you're aggressive. I've happily engaged with people who point out what they think is a contradiction in my thinking. But not with people like you.

> non engagement

I didn't say I'd never speak to you again lol. Just that this topic is over because you can't seem to discuss it in a way that doesn't include personal attacks. Not interested in that style of debate in the least.

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

#640

Post by 542458 »

kelnos wrote: post #606
542458 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because a) Visa/MC’s core competency isn’t navigating the fraud-ridden waters of high risk transactions and b) Visa/MC are scared of possible legal consequences of engaging with these businesses. It’s just not predicted to be profitable for them.

Visa/MC are relentlessly profit-oriented. If they’re not engaging with entire market sectors it’s because they don’t predict it to be profitable.

I’m a bit confused by your second paragraph. You can still transact with CCBill from MC/Visa. CCBill is like Stripe for high risk orgs.

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