[urza]

Bitcoin literally fixes this. Bitcoin is the first public infrastructure for sending money online without intermediaries and trusted third parties. This is the problem it solves, yet any mention of this on HN gets downvoted.

You can use something like https://btcpayserver.org/ and be your own payment processor with very little work.

Kind of frustrating that HN hates bitcoin so much, that even under link/article about small merchant getting harassed by shopify/stripe, they would rather downvote any mention of real solution..

[oldprogrammer2]

It may fix this particular problem, on one side of the transaction, but it creates new ones. What if I, as a purchaser, want to dispute my purchase? What if I was ripped off? What if the product was broken, not as advertised, etc. I like knowing there is recourse through chargebacks.

For example, I rented a vacation home last year, on VRBO, and the highly unusual contract (that was not shared until after the purchase) made me very uncomfortable. As an aside, I was also surprised that I was billed directly by the rental company via Stripe, rather than through VRBO. I requested a refund within an hour of booking.

For two weeks, I attempted to contact the rental company. I never received a single acknowledgement from them, and VRBO provided zero support. The only way I was able to get my money back was with a chargeback, showing my request for a refund within the cancellation window.

I am 100% confident that if this had been a bitcoin transaction I would have lost that money. I would also expect a rise in bad actors abusing that lack of recourse if bitcoin did increase in popularity for payment. In my mind, that is the challenge that crypto needs to solve before it can become widely adopted as a payment option.

[ascagnel_]

Forget chargebacks: the wildly fluctuating price of BTC means that even a good-faith retailer can't offer refunds without risk to either the buyer or the seller. The price of BTC has risen almost 40% in the past month; how do you settle this without either side feeling like they've gotten ripped off?

[urza]

I agree that this is still a challenge that needs to be solved in better ways. There are some solutions possible. For example OpenBazaar used 2-of-3 multisig escrow. Bisq is using security deposits, limits and reputation. For some large transactions there are legal escrow services. But for small regular transactions with most merchants, there is no good standardized solution so far. You just have to do your research about about the counterparty and trust the merchant as far as transaction goes.

[theplumber]

Consider crypto payments as cash payments and the problem(your expectations from a payment provider) is "solved"

[throwsjdhsj1234]

Or for services/goods that requires this kind of leeway, use an escrow.

Yes it does introduce a third party, but the point is that compared to the current system there is no other option for the many cases in which you don't need don't want to use an escrow, the payment processor invariably act as such and can shutdown your business at will.

[mrguyorama]

A system that requires me to put transactions in escrow more often than extremely rarely is not a system I want to use.

[throwsjdhsj1234]

It's a system you already use if you use credit cards. The payment processor play this role by assuming the counterparty risk and issuing chargebacks when they deem it appropriate.

[HorizonXP]

I don’t know if BTC fully fixes this, but I agree that crypto in general is heading down the path that will likely fix this. And agreed, HN continues to hate crypto due to 99% of it being garbage, and ignoring the 1% that is actually revolutionary.

[ecopoesis]

“'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.”

It doesn’t matter if 1% of cryptocurrency useful and not a scam: because 99% of it is, if you use crypto you’re going to get scammed.

[theplumber]

If you use money you're going to get scammed

[anonymousab]

The key is that the vast supermajority of your interactions with fiat won't be at high risk of being a scam.

[theplumber]

Because you are familiar with fiat/cash and its risks and you use crypto only for "crypto" stuff not to buy your groceries.

You won't send cash to someone you don't really trust, would you? How is crypto different? With paypal you get some "security" with the tradeoff that sometimes you won't get it(i.e you get scammed either as buyer or seller) and many times it just pissesoff both the sender and receiver using "fraud detection" and treating both as criminals.

[urza]

That's why I say bitcoin and not crypto.

[theplumber]

The main issue with crypto is the exchange rate and volatility. The local ATM gives you a shitty rate on bitcoin and by the time you spend it its value may be lower or higher by a big margin. The merchant may experience a similar issue.

[urza]

There are some ways how you can solve this. You can convert to and from stablecoins. You can use hedging and use cfd or futures to keep your bitcoin on stable fiat value. Depending on what you need, this can be done on exchange, with some payment gateway or even trustlessly via smart contracts.

[tekknik]

So, I use fiat to buy bitcoin, convert it to a stablecoin, go buy lunch, convert it back to bitcoin, then the merchant converts it back to fiat. Why jump through all those hoops to buy lunch? or anything for that matter. At this point i could just use gold.

[theplumber]

I'm talking about the reality and in the real world the solution you propose does not exist. For some reasons stablecoins do not seem to be used outside few online exchangers.I can't find them available at the local atm.

[urza]

All the solutions I mentioned do exists and are used daily by thousands. And no, atms are indeed not the place to exchange bitcoin for stablecoins.

[brunes]

You're ignoring something critical here.

The whole reason these address validation and KYC measures exist is to protect against fraud. They aren't done "just for fun".

Please explain how bitcoin solves for that problem. Hint: it doesn't.