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by Nursie 4847 days ago
BUT BUT BUT BUT .... no transaction fees!

I love that over time people start coming up with solutions to the same damn problems that other payment schemes have already come up with, and that last week they were saying were evil because someone else was doing it.

It's not unique to bitcoin, you see it in all sorts of places, it is funny though.
2 comments
runeks 4847 days ago
The difference is competition. Nothing fancy, nothing new and shiny. Just something that has been proven to work time and time again in lowering prices.

The barrier to entry in the payment card industry is simply too high to allow much competition. Entering the business of bitcoin payment processing has an extremely low barrier to entry; all the hard stuff has been done already!

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tlrobinson 4847 days ago
Bitcoin is first and foremost a currency, not a payment scheme. You can use it like cash with no (or minimal) fees, or you can layer schemes with various properties on top of it.
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Nursie 4847 days ago
Right, cool, awesome.

But when people then layer payment schemes and payment-scheme type-assurances, services and (of course) fees on top of it, is it wrong to make this comparison?

Because at the moment you see a lot of people touting the 'no fees' part as the reason it wins over credit/debit cards, but when the weaknesses of that are pointed out someone like yourself inevitably pops up to tell us that of course it's not meant for that, but payment systems can be layered over the top, with a fee structure. Or it's silly to expect that because it's just like cash, when the expectation is in response to a BTC advocates claim that it's the best thing evar for the problem domain.

Basically it can't be both ways and I am kinda tired of the constant claims that it is.

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