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by Wowfunhappy 1615 days ago
We've purposefully built the financial system to allow for reversible transactions, because it protects consumers and reduces crime. If the client had paid with stolen crypto (as they paid with a stolen CC), then, yes, the freelancer would have been paid, but the person whose money was stolen would have been screwed.

If we wanted to build a financial system without those safeguards, we could do that, without using as much electricity as all the world's datacenters combined.
2 comments
josephcsible 1615 days ago
> If the client had paid with stolen crypto (as they paid with a stolen CC), then, yes, the freelancer would have been paid, but the person whose money was stolen would have been screwed.

Since delivery of products/services isn't reversible, all that making transactions reversible accomplishes is changing which party gets screwed when there's fraud.

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Wowfunhappy 1614 days ago
Agreed! But my base assumption is that suppliers are generally better-equipped than consumers to absorb sudden, unexpected costs.

But I also feel this is all extraneous to the larger point, which is that we can set up a fiat-based finance system in whatever way we feel, just like we could develop a blockchain-based system that allows transactions to be reversed under certain conditions. I'd like to use the one which releases an order of magnitude less carbon.

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tyingq 1615 days ago
>it protects consumers and reduces crime

I don't think it reduces crime. The merchants bear the cost, and have no power or information to go after the criminals.

I think it actually encourages crime. The banks and credit card companies aren't going after people when the merchants bear the costs. The criminals get to keep the goods and services they bought with the stolen credit cards. This case seems to be a typical example.

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Wowfunhappy 1615 days ago
Okay, then lets do away with reversible transactions! I would have assumed it was the banks who bore the cost in the majority of cases (which makes sense, since they have the most data to detect fraud and are the ones who are supposed to be doing due diligence), but I don't know enough about this industry.

But, let's do it without a blockchain that wastes massive amounts of carbon.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not advocating making transactions permanent. It's an "if this, then that".

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tyingq 1615 days ago
The current system does protect consumers. Just saying it does not reduce crime. It just shifts who the victim is.
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