It amazes me that the anti-crypto crowd would rather be at the mercy of the payment processors that they hate than to accept any crypto transactions.
Crypto isn't perfect, don't get me wrong, but these "all crypto bad" types prefer you not to use it, even for donations because otherwise you are catering to those evil ancaps and contributing to climate change.
Unfortunately, there really is no other option for those who want to donate or purchase things online (semi)-anonymously and/or without a man in the middle. Maybe something like GNU Taler will fix that, but I don't know who uses that or how that works.
@xianc78 Have you seen the fees on crypto.
@RoboftheVolcano At least it's not going to a single entity. They go to miners.
@xianc78 As a business owner I don't care who I pay the money I want it to be less. Until crypto is less it does not work.
@RoboftheVolcano I'm talking from the perspective of someone who advocates for decentralization and those who have been deplatformed from banks and payment processors, not so much for businesses trying to maximize profits. But yeah, transaction fees are a problem.
@Spingebill Apparently, crypto being used as an investment rather than a medium of exchange was a psyop to undermine it's use, but this is all a rumor and I have no confirmation on it.
Work at any wagie job and there's gonna be one coworker who is literally Carlos Matos. There were a lot of pump and dump scams at first, and then when the pandemic hit and everyone jumped on the Robin Hood/Gamestop stock meme the craze after that for the get rich quick types was to make money on shitcoins because they heard the story of the guys in the 2010s who invested and got rich on it.
So a lot of this was being pushed by newly minted "crypto millionares" who went from wagies to living like rappers, and I feel this story resonated with wagies hard. The dream of wagies is to escape the cage.
I'm sure at least some of the crypto millionares very well were psyops as well, but many of them are like Carlos Matos who believe that this shitcoin will make them live large. You can sus them out easily if they're staring at shitcoin graphs on a centralized exchange over using BTC and XMR.
Lately that's not even the biggest psyop IMO, the biggest one is online gambling. No joke, Eddie from Stake is a crypto millionare who makes assloads of cash from people depoting ltc and similar (gamblers love LTC because it's fast meaning the "money's in" faster). If you're bored do a deep dive on Eddie and Kick/Stake. He's using the dodgy regulatory environment with the tactics of Golden Palace at it's peak (which was sponsoring so much shit for fame at one time) to his advantage.
This IMO is going to be the next scandal used against crypto.
@PurpCat @Spingebill
>The dream of wagies is to escape the cage.
The only true way to ever "escape the cage" is to find a way to be self-employed (and be successful at it) or to homestead and be 100% self-reliant (grow your own food, generate you own electricity, etc). Even before crypto, people who won the lottery were under the impression that they would never have to work again, but eventually the money dries up.
A lot of them think they can get rich quick by being an e-celeb, gambler, or betting on crypto/stocks. The truth is, it never works and they end up back at McDonald's.
Hence the /biz/ memes of wojacks working at McDonald's.
@PurpCat @Spingebill Those markets are already saturated. You need to either think locally or think outside the box.
@SockPuppet @PurpCat @Spingebill Unfortunately, it's hard to do the latter without doing the former right now, due to inflation. So unless you win the lottery or inherit a bunch of money/land from a recently deceased relative, there is either scam or be dependent on states and systems.
I mean, even Luke Smith had to scam credit card companies in order to afford all that country-side land.
https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/making-free-money-off-credit-cards/
The whole reason the "Nissan Driver" stereotype exists is because a lot of people found out that you can get a temp tag, never ever get it registered or insured, and save a lot of money that way. I've seen cars with expired temp tags and nothing is done about them. The worst that can happen is you might get ticketed, as long as you don't get into a wreck with no insurance/registration you're in the clear. Cops in my area literally seem to not give a shit about this.
Sure it's only under $100 a year you're not paying, but it's lax compared to Europe where "your car is a Euro 5 diesel and not Euro 6, sorry you can't drive in this city".
@PurpCat @SockPuppet @Spingebill I can never get away with that. So many nearby towns here are the ones that intentionally make their speed limits low and hide cops everywhere because their income comes from ticketing people. I take extra caution in those areas (or try to avoid them as much as possible), but if you are just 1/2mph above the speed limit for more than 5 seconds, expect blue and red.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio
Another one was more recent and blew up hard with a court ordering them to refund tickets:
https://www.techdirt.com/2017/02/13/court-orders-small-ohio-speed-trap-town-to-refund-3-million-unconstitutional-speeding-tickets/
@SockPuppet @PurpCat @Spingebill Regardless on how you drive, it's inevitable that you will get into some accident or be pulled over, one way or another. That's why employers don't care about traffic violations when they ask about your criminal record.
@PurpCat @SockPuppet @Spingebill That's different. They care about safety and getting the delivery, passenger to their destination on time. You are also driving someone else's car most of the time.
But ubereats/doordash/grubhub? Or many low paying jobs? That's your own car.
In fact there was a contract with a private corporation pushing for a quota for the speed cams.
https://www.techdirt.com/2017/02/13/court-orders-small-ohio-speed-trap-town-to-refund-3-million-unconstitutional-speeding-tickets/
Another one that got shut down was also run by one:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/27/ohio-speed-camera-contempt/2465791/
@SockPuppet @Griffith @PurpCat @Spingebill Aren't most tolls for privatized roads?
Its not about the money, its about being able to hit and run and nobody can track you down, or about being able to abandon the car if you do crime in it
@sapphire I don't get this argument. I never hear anyone made the argument that it should replace cash/barter or be used for all transactions. I think it should be used for things like renting VPSes or donating to open-source projects. Both of which wouldn't be options anyway without electricity.
And as I said in another post, it's use as an investment is just a psyop made to undermine it's intended use.
@sapphire No man in the middle. With bank transfers transaction fees go to the banks and payment processors (single corporate entities). With crypto, transactiion fees go to the nodes and miners (literally anyone who sets up a rig).
@sapphire It's better than having a centralized man in the middle. I'd rather have random people take a cut of my transactions than some single, rich monopolist taking a cut.
Do you support onlyfans even though the top 1% of earners take home 99% of the money because it “decentralizes porn”?
@sapphire You are at the mercy of a single entity who can drop you at anytime.
And before you bring up the electric company and ISP, if they drop you, you aren't going to be running a VPS or donating to FOSS projects either way, so it's a moot point.
On that note, at least I have ownership stake in my financial institution.
>bro it's so easy just register an account on this shady ass crypto exchange and give them all your personal information because KYC laws
>then make another account on this other exchange to trade your sneedcoins for dogecoins for a low transaction fee of 22%
>then transfer them over here to this virtual wallet and wait 9 days for them to arrive, then you can make an account on this cloud hosted wallet run by a man with 67 felony convictions for fraud and living in some third world country with no extradition treaty
>then you can print out your dogecoin tokens and take them to the flea market on wednesday afternoon between 1 and 4, and trade them for atlanta public school lunch tickets
>once you get those, you put them in an international flat rate package and ship them to this norwegian man who will send spoogecoins to your 512 digit spoogecoin wallet address that you have to hand write on the envelope
Another thing that amazes me about the whole crypto thing is all the governments banning and regulating it because while they claim that they don't want people to use it for illegal purposes, by banning it or regulating it to hell and back, they are ENSURING that people will ONLY use it illegally. White market businesses won't be able to accept it anymore, while the black and gray markets will continue to use it.
Granted the real reason is probably because they want people to stick to fiat and eventually use CBDCs, but the illegal business argument makes no sense.