Bitcoin Forum

You want to chargeback honest merchants ?
You want to freeze customer accounts without explanation?
You want to refuse them donating to companies your government doesnt like ?
Im sure you get the idea.

word

You know what peer-to-peer means, right?

Im sure paypal started with the best of intentions....the same guy invested in facebook which probably explains why they take 30% margin on facebook credits  :D

My quest is simple, making it easier for anyone to use bitcoin.

Bitcoinica is already paypal..

Its taking everyones money and giving it to scammers...



Next question..

Actually, yeah, PayPal did start with almost bitcoin-style revolutionary intentions. Look up Peter Thiel. From his wikipedia page: "Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people throughout the world from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation"... Sound familiar?

Obviously that's not what paypal became. I believe they ended up getting faced with a decision to either likely die, or fall in fully with the existing banking system. Such is life as a centralized organization trying to pioneer a new currency. So obviously they decided to build paypal within the existing banking system and rake a few $B while they had the opportunity. Looks like he's doing some pretty crazy stuff with it now; eg: his floating autonomous nations: http://theweek.com/article/index/218393/libertarian-island-a-billionaires-utopia .

I wonder if he even knows about bitcoin.

According to the following thread, he is indeed aware of bitcoin, but not necessarily fully educated on it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64610.0

He does (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64610.0). He's also associated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Bilderberg_Group) with the Bilderberg Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group); hopefully as a fresh perspective and not to be indoctrinated.

The lack of a paypal-bitcoin-service for Bitcoin prevents MANY people from adopting bitcoin.

Let those people have their paypal-bitcoin-service, and if they find that they don't like it, they can use Bitcoins without the paypal service.

Paypal doesn't have the danger of losing their clients in the same way that a paypal-like bitcoin service does. If paypal-bitcoin-service doesn't do a good job, then they lose clients to people using Bitcoin natively.


Why don't you want a paypal-bitcoin-service? You don't want bitcoin to have widespread adoption? You don't want bitcoin to be a platform for better replacements to all the money services that people currently enjoy with dollars?


I know that Paypal sucks. A big part of that is that they have a powerful monopoly. A paypal-bitcoin-service is not Paypal.

See Open Transactions (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki).

Maybe a little off-topic, but it strikes me that many people seem to think that paypal is an all-evil corporation.
I love paypal, it's a great way to use a creditcard on the internet, it's fast, much easier than putting in the credit-card numbers, and as it turns out, much more secure. The fact that the transactions are reversible is what is holding the scam numbers and risks low. Sure, you hear a lot about credit card fraud and paypal fraud, but if compared to the volumes of transactions they do process that are not fraudulent, it's really very small.
It's the chargebacks that are forcing all the shops to tighten their security and make sure it's hard as hell for somebody who manages to steal a credit card or a paypal account to use it. It's very comfortable for a consumer to know that even if something like that happens, he/she will always get the money back. It's not as comfortable for the merchant, but hey, call me crazy, but I think consumer's rights are more important than merchant's rights.
All in all, paypal is a great service.

Don't think of bitcoin as a solution for all life's problems and a replacement for every pre-existing money service and every pre-existing currency, it's not.

Bitcoin is a thing of it's own, it has it's own uses, advantages and properties. Don't bash paypal just because bitcoin exists, it's two different things.

Consumers don't create markets, they partake (although consumers can become contributors). Businesses and entrepreneurs build and develop the products and services that are demanded; they need to be supported instead of attacked. Their reputations are what keep the consumers coming back.

If a consumer loses on a bad purchase, he can go elsewhere. If a merchant loses on a purchase, it raises the costs all around. If the merchant sustains enough losses, the product or service becomes unavailable.

Which is worse? The potential for a small loss, higher costs for everyone, or in extremis - lack of existence?

I agree the real villains are credit card companies.

Dont know why we dont have a ripple credit card yet :)

There is hardly any way for those who get their greedy hands on a successful money system to keep their hands to themselves. Because Bitcoins are distributed and not under the control ( so far ) of a small group of people, the world has hope. ☺


Using a middle man for anything means you have to feed his family as well as the two who want to do business. How can adding a third person in between a direct connection every lower the price of anything?

Plus, when you have someone in between you and those you want to do business with, they have the power to tell you who you can do business with. Why give them that power? Or in other words, why lose that power/freedom if you do not have to?

This was the point of my comment above. Bitcoin is, among other things, a peer-to-peer technology. We should take advantage of that. From now on, anything I try to sell online will include btc as a payment option. Also, in many cases when I'm buying online, I ask if btc is an option.

If you can connect directly then the offer from the third party can be declined (unless they are violent or something) and you are no worse off. If you cannot connect directly someone might be able to help you.

That is intended as support for paypal-ish companies, not paypal, paypal can burn, they are holding 200 gov dollars hostage.

If the middle-man is not charging all that much, things can be "just okay" as far as your personal finances go. Paypal has high fees.

Plus, who here has not fumed  :-[ at least once because of a crazy bank fee? If software can replace them, it seems good to go ahead and use it, especially if it is reasonably secure. Bitcoin is reasonably secure.

I don't think the argument is that it lowers the price, but it CAN increase the utility for one or both sides of the transaction. For bitcoin, the obvious utility-enhancing middle-man possibility is online wallets that confirm transactions instantly (thereby taking the double-spend risk) and not requiring the customer to wait 10+mins. Yes, cost is slightly higher, but utility is higher too, and for some, that outweighs the cost.

The point is that with BTC there are options. You can elect to do a native peer-to-peer transaction on the underlying network, and no one can stop you from doing so. That's a HUGE win. But if you want to pay for some add-on services, that's fine too.

You got it.  :) Needing permission to buy something, using a money system that is weakening by the day, with the same downward spiral in value we have seen coming for years, is not for me. ( dollars ).

The utility is great and I am willing to pay for it, as long as it is reasonable. Paying 2.6 percent plus 30 cents on every transaction is not just no longer necessary, it is greedy. With the advances in smart software and programming, all someone needs to do is to make a better exchange site similar to things like bitinstant or aurumxchange and charge less. They would become heroes.