[PragmaticPulp]

> Users who are paid this way receive USDP, which can be withdrawn to a bank account in its equivalent value in US dollars.

I feel like I’m missing something. How is this system any different than a centralized system like PayPal or any other traditional payment system, where users have a USD balance and can withdraw it to their bank accounts?

If the company secretly removed the cryptocurrency backend and replaced it with a centralized database, would anything at all change for the users? Or would it be functionally identical?

[johanneskanybal]

Pick your middleman. Using a crypto layer internally means you can circumvent traditional payment rails which means if you're in American growth-tech where revenue isn't a thing you can just remove all fee's for a while. Paypal could do the same for sure but chose not to.

Disagree with the notion they won't be shutting people out of the network when needed, that's not grounded in reality.

[throwoutway]

> Disagree with the notion they won't be shutting people out of the network when needed, that's not grounded in reality

Facebook is the only one with access to write to this chain correct? If so, they can shut people out of their chain by just disabling their Facebook, WhatsApp, or meta accounts. That’s grounded in reality

[PragmaticPulp]

> which means if you're in American growth-tech where revenue isn't a thing you can just remove all fee's for a while. Paypal could do the same for sure but chose not to.

PayPal doesn’t have any fees if you send money as a “gift” (that is, forgo any fraud protections) and you don’t use a credit card.

[panarky]

Why did you put an apostrophe in "fee's" but not in "rails"?

This isn't a grammar-nazi criticism because I frequently make similar mistakes with pluralization.

It strikes me that there must be some cognitive explanation for why some plurals seem to need an apostrophe when other plurals don't.

[johanneskanybal]

I'm fine with my English but non-native. Writing anything on the internet usually involves a googling of whatever expression I'm unsure of and if there's a reasonable amount of results that's an ok enough approximation for me. Try it with payment rails. No hate though I'm happy for friendly corrections.

[CRConrad]

For this, the basic rules of thumb are simple:

#1 Never apostrophe before plural-s.

#2 Always apostrophe before possessive-s.

Some weird possible exceptions noted in sibling comments (like apostrophe before plural-s on acronyms and single letters), but those aren't universal and therefore not mandatory. So if in (even the slightest) doubt, follow rules #1 and #2 and you'll be right far more often than wrong.

Oh yeah, one actually important and non-weird "exception": NO apostrophe "before possesive-s" on possessive pronouns like "his" or "theirs". I think this is because they're actually not ordinary nouns made possessive by adding apostrophe-s, but grammatically their own distinct words which happen to always contain an s at the end. So in that perspective, it's not even an exception; hence the quote marks.

And that ("it's") reminds me of rule

#3 Always apostrophe in contractions.

"Contractions" here means when a verb -- usually "is" or "has"; I don't know if (but don't think that) there are any others -- following a noun or a pronoun is reduced to its final 's' and added to the preceding word, as in e.g. "John's gone". You have to figure out whether the 's' stands for "is" or "has" from context: In "John's gone forever" it's "is", but in "John's gone and done it" it's "has". Usually it's pretty obvious, or doesn't really matter for understanding what's meant.

HTH!

[toast0]

Style rules used to suggest an apostrophe for initialized items such as C.D.'s for sale. Of course, modern style rules suggest CDs for sale (but don't tell the New York Times).

[leephillips]

The Times’ style guide would render more than one compact disc as C.D.s (no apostrophe, but with periods in intialisms).

Do you have a link to any authoritative style guide that suggested “C.D.’s”? The Times' guide (2015) demands apostrophes to pluralize single letters: “the word has two t’s”. I think that’s silly, just as their use of quotation marks rather than italics for book titles.

Here is a quote from the 2015 edition of the Style Guide:

“G.I. The colloquial term, derived from government issue, for American soldiers. The plural is G.I.s”

[TomSwirly]

The Chicago Manual of Style IIRC has this, also perhaps Strunk and White, and apparently the NY Times in 2010:

https://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/faqs-on-s...

[leephillips]

Hmm. Either the Time’s guide is inconsistent or they changed their rules between 2010 and 2015.

You’re correct about Chicago (you do RC); at least my 1969 copy.

My 1959 Strunk and White doesn’t seem to have anything about this, but it also doesn’t have an index, so maybe it’s in there somewhere.

[toast0]

I've probably gotten confused about the single letters and the C.D.s, thanks. (actually, looking at the other response's link, the Times may likely have changed their style guide)

But, then why an apostrophe for t's and not for fees? :D It rhymes, it should be punctuated the same is as good a rule as any!

[throw8932894]

Paypal charges 3% and randomly bans accounts.

[PragmaticPulp]

PayPal fees are zero when money is sent as a “gift” and isn’t coming from a credit card. That seems to be equivalent to this model.

WhatsApp has to play by the same banking rules as PayPal, so they’re not automatically exempted from the same regulations around prohibited transactions. These rules are still enforced at the bank layer.

[bierjunge]

Whatsapp sells my data for profit and allows ME to ban innocent accounts for 24 hours.

[jd115]

The timing of this is not accidental and Facebook is not acting on its own accord here. This is a move by the Russian mafia/state to make it easier to evade the imminent cut-off from SWIFT and global financial networks.

[panarky]

Just because Russia is a mafia state doesn't mean they're behind Facebook's payments initiatives.

To make this sound a bit less like mad conspiratorial ravings, could you flesh out how Whatsapp would allow Russian banks, government agencies, companies and oligarchs to move large quantities of money if they're disconnected from SWIFT?

For example, how would Russia get around the fact that Whatsapp is only offering this in the United States? How would Russians get fiat currency in and out? How would Russians circumvent the very low transaction limits?

[jd115]

Oh, but this isn't for the Russian people! It's for the so called "oligarchs" and their families who - surprise - don't actually live in Russia! They like America and western Europe much better.

And if you don't realise that Russian government / KGB is VERY MUCH behind Facebook and its initiatives, I'm afraid you have quite a bit of catching up to do.

[qeternity]

> And if you don't realise that Russian government / KGB is VERY MUCH behind Facebook and its initiatives, I'm afraid you have quite a bit of catching up to do.

Uh, I have to say, this is a new one for me. What's the theory here?

[vineyardmike]

In real news, Russia (the gov, and affiliates) has made lots of popular fb groups/accounts/pages to attract american attention and spread misinformation.

There have been reports on everything from "Christians for trump" groups to "abortions are a human right" groups. These accounts were used to spread disagreement and angst across the population. they even pit groups they owned against each other IRL [1]...

No evidence that russians were part of facebook but rather that they took advantage of the anonymity of the internet to pretend to be american and cause political divide (esp. during election times).

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-trolls-senate-intelli...

[qeternity]

Oh Russian troll farms pushing propaganda? I think that’s pretty much fact at this point.

A far cry from what it seemed was being insinuated, as if the Kremlin had something to do with Facebook’s success.

[panarky]

> "oligarchs" and their families who - surprise - don't actually live in Russia!

How would Whatsapp's service with a $300 maximum transaction limit, that's only available in the US, allow them to evade a hypothetical disconnection of Russian banks from SWIFT?

[pjc50]

Via an American company subject to the Magnitsky act?

[soco]

Why imminent cut-off? I mean, maybe Putin decides to invade Ukraine and maybe Biden decides to push for the promised cut-off, but why would Meta help them, and how would Meta be exempted from said cut-off?

[kranke155]

What? That’s an incredible story if true...