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>And if the person is not honest, all it will take is for a few people to lose a small amount of money which is simply not worth fighting for, but it is enough

>And if the person is not honest, all it will take is for a few people to lose a small amount of money which is simply not worth fighting for, but it is enough to get those victims to warn others about the scam. I am sorry but I don't consider it a positive that someone can clandestinely scam people out of lots of small amounts of money and the only thing an ordinary customer can do is wait until someone else more knowledgeable notices it and then hope they warn everyone and have enough resources to put together a class action suit or just accept that their money is lost because maybe it was too little to care about. At best, this is no better than the current system when using sketchy non-crypto payment systems; at worst, it's asking customers to shelter all of the risk of the product being a scam. >This includes middlemen and friction. The point here is that to the market operator, it's actually less middlemen and friction than crypto, they operate the currency directly and so there is no fees for them. It seems like you're shifting from the perspective of the market operator to the customer, but that's not what I was discussing, and it's also not true of most cryptocurrency anyway. >You really should, because that would be a huge lesson for you and everyone else that criticizes crypto without taking a look at the actual reality of a lot of people. I don't think it would help because it doesn't explain why the fees would be lower. That's the only question I'm interested in, as far is this hypothetical conversation is concerned. I can pull up a lot of numbers but that's not really giving a full picture. Your description seems to suggest this is illegal in Argentina and you'd be asking your employee to commit a crime, so I suppose that answers my question.

rglullis 5y ago
> clandestinely scam people (...) and then hope they warn everyone and have enough resources to put together a class action suit Do you have any idea of how much money is lost on scams via Western Union? Or how much money companies spend on fraudulent ad views? Insurance fraud? Before you cry "this is whataboutism", the point I am trying to make is that every security/insurance system is designed around a risk/benefit analysis. There are some situations where the cost of having these systems is simply not worth the value of the transaction, so why should we use it? Conversely, should we kill every business opportunity just because the cost of avoiding scammers and ill actors is too high? Do you think that Craigslist should be drowned into a see of ineffective regulations because of all the scammers that are there, or should we try to educate people around the potential pitfalls and let it operate in a more organic form? > The point here is that to the market operator, it's actually less middlemen and friction than crypto Absolutely not. If I want to sell something online and I accept crypto as payment, I can do it without any middlemen. The only "friction" the user faces is to open the wallet (or scanning a qr code) and pressing "send". Gift cards force the user to commit to an initial higher amount and to a specific vendor. It's a whole different league. > I don't think it would help because it doesn't explain why the fees would be lower. Because you'd be bypassing the central bank, and you would be negotiating with other people who are also trading with the rates from the "blue" dollar (the non-official market). Nothing illegal. Kraken (a crypto exchange) operates on Argentina for years already and any "retail" account can trade there. It's just that the volume there is not big enough yet to make the government greedy about it.
- lmm 5y ago
  > Do you have any idea of how much money is lost on scams via Western Union? Which is why we try to move away from that kind of thing, and part of why we're seeing stricter KYC, 2FA requirements and so on. Consumer protection is a hugely valuable part of civilised society, but funding it is a prisoner's dilemma - if you make it optional then people make the individually rational choice to skip it, which is fine until you reach a tipping point where so few people are opting in that the market allows scammers to thrive. > Do you think that Craigslist should be drowned into a see of ineffective regulations because of all the scammers that are there Really objective phrasing there lol. No, I think Craigslist and the like should be subject to effective, proportionate regulation (and, sure, in some cases that might mean shutting down a marketplace where there's simply no way to run it and have it not be full of scammers, and I'll defend that as the right decision for the overall public interest), and I believe government for all its faults is better at doing that than blockchain operators.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > I think Craigslist and the like should be subject to effective, proportionate regulation. In theory, "effective, proportionate regulation" would be great. In practice, we get systems that promote the Surveillance State, regulatory capture and Crony Capitalism, and the implementation of "one-size-fits-all" solutions that eliminate all options to have local autonomous communities. > Consumer protection is a hugely valuable part of civilised society. Like I said in the top comment: it's not an either/or proposition. I don't think that blockchain/crypto/decentralized solutions need to replace the existing solutions to be worthwhile. They are worthwhile because they increase our optionality and work as an hedge. A "civilized society" that requires all people to be subject to the same rules all the time and can not withstand ambiguity and context analysis is a fascist one. The more you see people pushing for this idea that blockchain should be eliminated, the more you will see other people realizing how much it is needed.
    - lmm 5y ago
      The idea that capital should be allowed to act without any oversight or accountability is fundamentally fascist. Wealth distribution follows a power law at the top, so the majority of wealth ends up in the hands of a few or even a single individual - if you say that wealth must be able to be used anonymously and society must not be allowed to stop any mutually beneficial trade between two individuals, then you give those few essentially unlimited power, because there will always be someone desperate enough to do whatever it is they want. I agree with the need for some flexibility and grey areas. But unrestricted capital is far too dangerous, like private nuclear weapons.

rglullis 5y ago

> clandestinely scam people (...) and then hope they warn everyone and have enough resources to put together a class action suit Do you have any idea of how much money is lost on scams via Western Union? Or how much money companies spend on fraudulent ad views? Insurance fraud? Before you cry "this is whataboutism", the point I am trying to make is that every security/insurance system is designed around a risk/benefit analysis. There are some situations where the cost of having these systems is simply not worth the value of the transaction, so why should we use it? Conversely, should we kill every business opportunity just because the cost of avoiding scammers and ill actors is too high? Do you think that Craigslist should be drowned into a see of ineffective regulations because of all the scammers that are there, or should we try to educate people around the potential pitfalls and let it operate in a more organic form? > The point here is that to the market operator, it's actually less middlemen and friction than crypto Absolutely not. If I want to sell something online and I accept crypto as payment, I can do it without any middlemen. The only "friction" the user faces is to open the wallet (or scanning a qr code) and pressing "send". Gift cards force the user to commit to an initial higher amount and to a specific vendor. It's a whole different league. > I don't think it would help because it doesn't explain why the fees would be lower. Because you'd be bypassing the central bank, and you would be negotiating with other people who are also trading with the rates from the "blue" dollar (the non-official market). Nothing illegal. Kraken (a crypto exchange) operates on Argentina for years already and any "retail" account can trade there. It's just that the volume there is not big enough yet to make the government greedy about it.

lmm 5y ago
> Do you have any idea of how much money is lost on scams via Western Union? Which is why we try to move away from that kind of thing, and part of why we're seeing stricter KYC, 2FA requirements and so on. Consumer protection is a hugely valuable part of civilised society, but funding it is a prisoner's dilemma - if you make it optional then people make the individually rational choice to skip it, which is fine until you reach a tipping point where so few people are opting in that the market allows scammers to thrive. > Do you think that Craigslist should be drowned into a see of ineffective regulations because of all the scammers that are there Really objective phrasing there lol. No, I think Craigslist and the like should be subject to effective, proportionate regulation (and, sure, in some cases that might mean shutting down a marketplace where there's simply no way to run it and have it not be full of scammers, and I'll defend that as the right decision for the overall public interest), and I believe government for all its faults is better at doing that than blockchain operators.
- rglullis 5y ago
  > I think Craigslist and the like should be subject to effective, proportionate regulation. In theory, "effective, proportionate regulation" would be great. In practice, we get systems that promote the Surveillance State, regulatory capture and Crony Capitalism, and the implementation of "one-size-fits-all" solutions that eliminate all options to have local autonomous communities. > Consumer protection is a hugely valuable part of civilised society. Like I said in the top comment: it's not an either/or proposition. I don't think that blockchain/crypto/decentralized solutions need to replace the existing solutions to be worthwhile. They are worthwhile because they increase our optionality and work as an hedge. A "civilized society" that requires all people to be subject to the same rules all the time and can not withstand ambiguity and context analysis is a fascist one. The more you see people pushing for this idea that blockchain should be eliminated, the more you will see other people realizing how much it is needed.
  - lmm 5y ago
    The idea that capital should be allowed to act without any oversight or accountability is fundamentally fascist. Wealth distribution follows a power law at the top, so the majority of wealth ends up in the hands of a few or even a single individual - if you say that wealth must be able to be used anonymously and society must not be allowed to stop any mutually beneficial trade between two individuals, then you give those few essentially unlimited power, because there will always be someone desperate enough to do whatever it is they want. I agree with the need for some flexibility and grey areas. But unrestricted capital is far too dangerous, like private nuclear weapons.