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cryptocurrency is to banks/paypal as itunes was to traditional music buying/licensing I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) but the analogy is fairly clear to m

by kag0 5y ago

cryptocurrency is to banks/paypal as itunes was to traditional music buying/licensing I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) but the analogy is fairly clear to me

evanextreme 5y ago
I wouldnt say thats a correct analogy though, a traditional bank / cryptocurrency provide similar user experiences these days with how their mobile apps work. At the end of the day even in crypto an overwhelming majority of users interact with blockchains from centralized bank like platforms that function in an incredibly similar way, especially with the advent of neo banks like Chime. Downloading a song was a completely different experience from driving to a store to get a CD.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  You're missing the point. The music comparison is not driving to the store compared with downloading. It's pirating to downloading legally. iTunes made it just as convenient to buy as it did to pirate, which is the main reason people pirate anything - inconvenience. Steam did exactly the same thing for PC gaming. Netflix did the same for TV and Film. (Only now stuff is split between so many streaming services pirating is becoming the path of least resistance again).
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    Sort of a tangent but your parenthetical about streaming services is why, after roughly 10 years of “keeping my nose clean,” I’ve found myself slowly firing up my home server more and more frequently with “very legal and very cool” content I am slowly (but increasing in speed) acquiring. I don’t mind paying for my content. I have several subscriptions. But the constant shuffles and searches for where i can watch anything is becoming a bigger and bigger obstacle. I’m going to pick the easiest route, not the cheapest one. Hell it’s why I don’t download music - I don’t love Spotify as a company, but damn they make it easy to listen to my music. If they were to fracture or 20 other competitors pop up and licensing starts getting all spread out/hard to follow, then you can bet music will be in line for me too.
    - ElFitz 5y ago
      What is lovely too is how content comes and goes depending on licensing deals and where you physically are. Want to finish that tv show? Too bad! We didn’t bother telling you, but we lost the deal.
    - jkubicek 5y ago
      This doesn't completely fill your needs, but the Apple "TV" app does a great job with cross-app searching. For most any content I want to watch, I have one place to go to search for it, I know if it's available on any of the streaming services I subscribe to and if it's not available for free it's trivially easy to rent / buy a high-quality stream. It's not perfect, as far as I know Netflix content isn't indexed and frequently it suggests I watch a movie in an app that doesn't actually serve that movie, but it's mostly OK.
      - Forgeties79 5y ago
        It’s funny you mention Apple TV. I was considering that just yesterday as a way to simplify things. It just seems kind of silly to buy a (somewhat) redundant piece of hardware though in the age of smart tv’s. I’ve got an LG C1 and I just find it silly I may need to go around the onboard apps to access the exact same stuff. But maybe it’s at least a stop gap idk
- OrlandoHakim 5y ago
  Not sure how familiar many here are on the difference in savings rates available in crypto stablecoins vs traditional banks. My US FDIC savings account offers a measly interest rate of 0.03% APY right now. By contrast rates on crypto stablecoins are often 7-10% APY easily with some such as UST on a Terra offering an amazing 19.53% APY. Yes the crypto stablecoins are riskier in some ways than USD and FDIC insurance is still the gold standard, at least up to their limit. On the other hand, there are now decentralized insurance protocols available on stablecoin yields which cover risks of a stablecoin or an unintended behavior in a smart contract for ~2% APY. Everyone should do their own research of course, but crypto can be compelling in that at the very least it can allow your savings to preserve their purchasing power net of inflation, something that isn’t possible with a traditional bank savings account.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    I have no knowledge of stablecoins. But are my savings secured? As in if the bank breaks down, becomes insolvent and dissolved my money is still backed by the government and I will not loose a dime? Else I don't care about 0.03% or 7 to 10%. Regardless of me thinking that a growth economy is eating the planet. When it comes toy savings I am more conservative as a mythical pope mixed with Ronald Reagan. I don't care about it growing. I care about it not vanishing in the blink of an eye. Everything else is just playmoney. No problem if I loose it or use it to light a fire in my fireplace at home. Just printed paper (virtual) that I can spend for whatever.
    - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
      As I mentioned in the GP, for 2.5% per year you can insure any amount of stablecoin savings against risk of loss, so yes they are secured. In a traditional bank your savings are only secure up to a specific limit which is $250k in the US and less everywhere else in the world (e.g. $6,600 USD in Ukraine). Also in a bank your savings are not secure against inflation which is currently -7.5% in the US and as high as -54% in Turkey. In other words, for a US resident, putting money in the bank is currently virtually guaranteed to lose at least 7.5% of it’s purchasing power per year. It brings new meaning to the expression “safe as money in the bank.” Here is an example: 1. Purchase UST on an exchange on a 1:1 basis with USD 2. Send it to the Terra Station self-custody wallet on your phone 3. Deposit the UST into a decentralized app (dApp) at www.anchorprotocol.com to earn 19.53% APY accruing every 6 seconds 4. Purchase the equivalent of FDIC insurance for ~2.5% APY from any of Nexus Mutual, InsurAce or Bridge Mutual 5. Enjoy a nice safe net ~17% APY on a USD stable deposit * Bonus: Because of the payout mechanism this fixed APY yield is considered a capital gain and not interest income so it is taxed more favorably than a traditional savings account and you don’t trigger a taxable event until you sell. I would suggest it is worth investigating and maybe trying it out with a small amount to see for yourself.
- babypuncher 5y ago
  The analogy falls flat on its face when you realize that crypto transactions both take more time and cost more money than PayPal, credit/debit, ACH, etc. When Apple introduced iTunes, the appeal to consumers was obvious: You can buy only the songs you want, you are not forced to buy a whole album. You can do it from the comfort of your home. And you don't have to go through the (then time consuming) process of ripping a CD to get it on your iPod. With cryptocurrencies, I see no such obvious benefits that would compel consumers to trade their bank accounts and credit cards for ethereum wallets. The transaction fees are considerably higher. Their decentralized nature, often touted as their greatest asset, becomes and anti-feature once you need to issue a chargeback for a purchase from a fraudulent seller. Crypto does not solve a problem people regularly deal with, and nothing about it is fundamentally easier than the systems it seeks to replace.
  - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
    It’s true that txs take more time and money in POW chains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, but it is certainly not true of many many other cryptocurrencies. For example, Terra is a Proof of Stake blockchain with negligible fees and a 6 second settlement time. It is currently widely used as a payment system in South Korea.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
      What about charge backs? What protections do I have?
      - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
        I can’t speak to the payments solution https://chai.finance/ https://chai.finance/ but UST is censorship-resistant like Bitcoin and does not have chargebacks. I consider that a feature, not a bug.
        babypuncher 5y ago
        You may consider that a feature, but most people don't. As someone who has had to issue a chargeback in the past, I'm not about to give it up in exchange for solving a hypothetical problem that does not affect me. Chargebacks are not "censorship".

by kag0 5y ago

cryptocurrency is to banks/paypal as itunes was to traditional music buying/licensing I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) but the analogy is fairly clear to me

evanextreme 5y ago

I wouldnt say thats a correct analogy though, a traditional bank / cryptocurrency provide similar user experiences these days with how their mobile apps work. At the end of the day even in crypto an overwhelming majority of users interact with blockchains from centralized bank like platforms that function in an incredibly similar way, especially with the advent of neo banks like Chime. Downloading a song was a completely different experience from driving to a store to get a CD.

breakfastduck 5y ago
You're missing the point. The music comparison is not driving to the store compared with downloading. It's pirating to downloading legally. iTunes made it just as convenient to buy as it did to pirate, which is the main reason people pirate anything - inconvenience. Steam did exactly the same thing for PC gaming. Netflix did the same for TV and Film. (Only now stuff is split between so many streaming services pirating is becoming the path of least resistance again).
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  Sort of a tangent but your parenthetical about streaming services is why, after roughly 10 years of “keeping my nose clean,” I’ve found myself slowly firing up my home server more and more frequently with “very legal and very cool” content I am slowly (but increasing in speed) acquiring. I don’t mind paying for my content. I have several subscriptions. But the constant shuffles and searches for where i can watch anything is becoming a bigger and bigger obstacle. I’m going to pick the easiest route, not the cheapest one. Hell it’s why I don’t download music - I don’t love Spotify as a company, but damn they make it easy to listen to my music. If they were to fracture or 20 other competitors pop up and licensing starts getting all spread out/hard to follow, then you can bet music will be in line for me too.
  - ElFitz 5y ago
    What is lovely too is how content comes and goes depending on licensing deals and where you physically are. Want to finish that tv show? Too bad! We didn’t bother telling you, but we lost the deal.
  - jkubicek 5y ago
    This doesn't completely fill your needs, but the Apple "TV" app does a great job with cross-app searching. For most any content I want to watch, I have one place to go to search for it, I know if it's available on any of the streaming services I subscribe to and if it's not available for free it's trivially easy to rent / buy a high-quality stream. It's not perfect, as far as I know Netflix content isn't indexed and frequently it suggests I watch a movie in an app that doesn't actually serve that movie, but it's mostly OK.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      It’s funny you mention Apple TV. I was considering that just yesterday as a way to simplify things. It just seems kind of silly to buy a (somewhat) redundant piece of hardware though in the age of smart tv’s. I’ve got an LG C1 and I just find it silly I may need to go around the onboard apps to access the exact same stuff. But maybe it’s at least a stop gap idk
OrlandoHakim 5y ago
Not sure how familiar many here are on the difference in savings rates available in crypto stablecoins vs traditional banks. My US FDIC savings account offers a measly interest rate of 0.03% APY right now. By contrast rates on crypto stablecoins are often 7-10% APY easily with some such as UST on a Terra offering an amazing 19.53% APY. Yes the crypto stablecoins are riskier in some ways than USD and FDIC insurance is still the gold standard, at least up to their limit. On the other hand, there are now decentralized insurance protocols available on stablecoin yields which cover risks of a stablecoin or an unintended behavior in a smart contract for ~2% APY. Everyone should do their own research of course, but crypto can be compelling in that at the very least it can allow your savings to preserve their purchasing power net of inflation, something that isn’t possible with a traditional bank savings account.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I have no knowledge of stablecoins. But are my savings secured? As in if the bank breaks down, becomes insolvent and dissolved my money is still backed by the government and I will not loose a dime? Else I don't care about 0.03% or 7 to 10%. Regardless of me thinking that a growth economy is eating the planet. When it comes toy savings I am more conservative as a mythical pope mixed with Ronald Reagan. I don't care about it growing. I care about it not vanishing in the blink of an eye. Everything else is just playmoney. No problem if I loose it or use it to light a fire in my fireplace at home. Just printed paper (virtual) that I can spend for whatever.
  - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
    As I mentioned in the GP, for 2.5% per year you can insure any amount of stablecoin savings against risk of loss, so yes they are secured. In a traditional bank your savings are only secure up to a specific limit which is $250k in the US and less everywhere else in the world (e.g. $6,600 USD in Ukraine). Also in a bank your savings are not secure against inflation which is currently -7.5% in the US and as high as -54% in Turkey. In other words, for a US resident, putting money in the bank is currently virtually guaranteed to lose at least 7.5% of it’s purchasing power per year. It brings new meaning to the expression “safe as money in the bank.” Here is an example: 1. Purchase UST on an exchange on a 1:1 basis with USD 2. Send it to the Terra Station self-custody wallet on your phone 3. Deposit the UST into a decentralized app (dApp) at www.anchorprotocol.com to earn 19.53% APY accruing every 6 seconds 4. Purchase the equivalent of FDIC insurance for ~2.5% APY from any of Nexus Mutual, InsurAce or Bridge Mutual 5. Enjoy a nice safe net ~17% APY on a USD stable deposit * Bonus: Because of the payout mechanism this fixed APY yield is considered a capital gain and not interest income so it is taxed more favorably than a traditional savings account and you don’t trigger a taxable event until you sell. I would suggest it is worth investigating and maybe trying it out with a small amount to see for yourself.
babypuncher 5y ago
The analogy falls flat on its face when you realize that crypto transactions both take more time and cost more money than PayPal, credit/debit, ACH, etc. When Apple introduced iTunes, the appeal to consumers was obvious: You can buy only the songs you want, you are not forced to buy a whole album. You can do it from the comfort of your home. And you don't have to go through the (then time consuming) process of ripping a CD to get it on your iPod. With cryptocurrencies, I see no such obvious benefits that would compel consumers to trade their bank accounts and credit cards for ethereum wallets. The transaction fees are considerably higher. Their decentralized nature, often touted as their greatest asset, becomes and anti-feature once you need to issue a chargeback for a purchase from a fraudulent seller. Crypto does not solve a problem people regularly deal with, and nothing about it is fundamentally easier than the systems it seeks to replace.
- OrlandoHakim 5y ago
  It’s true that txs take more time and money in POW chains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, but it is certainly not true of many many other cryptocurrencies. For example, Terra is a Proof of Stake blockchain with negligible fees and a 6 second settlement time. It is currently widely used as a payment system in South Korea.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    What about charge backs? What protections do I have?
    - OrlandoHakim 5y ago
      I can’t speak to the payments solution https://chai.finance/ https://chai.finance/ but UST is censorship-resistant like Bitcoin and does not have chargebacks. I consider that a feature, not a bug.
      - babypuncher 5y ago
        You may consider that a feature, but most people don't. As someone who has had to issue a chargeback in the past, I'm not about to give it up in exchange for solving a hypothetical problem that does not affect me. Chargebacks are not "censorship".