There's a stats view under My Books with both a book and page view. In order for it be accurate you need to include a read date for every book you read though.
In AK-47, the 47 comes from the year the design was finished, design work didn't even begin until 1945, so the AK-47 certainly didn't help them win WW2.
Is that because you don't trust yourself not to watch it all in a binge situation? The shows on netflix could easily be watched one episode at a time on a regular schedule if that's what you prefer. You get both options (and hundreds of other scenarios) instead of just the one decided by someone else (or else having to record it on a DVR to make your own schedule).
It's nice to know that the other people watching a show are also at the same point as you are (or relatively close), allowing you to speculate on what might happen next in the time between episodes.
I also like looking forward to the next episode, which doesn't really happen when you can watch that next episode immediately (and self imposed waiting doesn't feel the same).
I agree that one thing that's lost is the ability to discuss episodes with people as a show progresses. Since you never know what episode a person is on you can't really risk discussing things until you're sure the person has caught up. With weekly shows like Game of Thrones for instance, you can feel pretty comfortable discussing an episode amongst other fans. Not sure if that's really something I'll miss when it's gone, but it's definitely a big change with Netflix that ultimately started as a smaller disruption with DVR devices...
I suppose personally my feelings on the matter is even though I might lose the few advantages that you mentioned, the disadvantages far outweigh it and I won't miss the airing of shows like Breaking Bad or Suits that took one season and split them in half with gigantic gaps in between (months or even years), to the point where you can't even remember where the show was going by the time it returns. I like the freedom to watch at whatever schedule I prefer, without any kind of arbitrary limitations that may or may not suit my lifestyle at the time, and the confidence to know I'm going to be able to see a story through from start to finish once devote time to it...
Well there is a product/service in there. Discussion channels tied in with your Netflix Id so that you you can only discuss topics with people on the same schedule. You could also join a group which had the programming pre-determined, and drip fed the shows to you on a specific schedule, like every Sunday night. You get the benefits of a scheduled delivery of content and associated social benefits, but you also get to join a schedule which suits your times.
Reddit works well for that. The House Of Cards subreddit for example features a thread per episode, which has pretty much replaced my per-episode watercooler talk.
> It's nice to know that the other people watching a show are also at the same point as you are (or relatively close), allowing you to speculate on what might happen next in the time between episodes.
The shared cultural experience is nice, but utterly foreign to those of us outside the US, where the discussion arrives weeks, months, or even years before the show.
I prefer to develop my own schedule for watching a show.
Generally I wait for the entire season of a show to come out and then schedule several nights of viewing (over a couple months) with friends where we watch 3-4 episodes at a time. The downside of this is having to avoid discussion of the show in the few months after release.
With Netflix dumping seasons at a time it makes it much easier, and much more fun, to do this.
We'll lose the sense of community that comes from simultaneous viewings. But, people still bond over books and book series, which is what Netflix programming will be like.
This is a no tuition guarantee, not a no parental contribution guarantee. In effect they are saying that if you make under 125,000, you'll only pay 20-25k for living expenses (room/board/textbooks/etc), which is similar to Harvard and Princeton, considering they both try to structure aid so families do not have to take loans out to pay them. Coincidentally (or not), this is also equivalent to the FAFSA EFC as you mentioned.
In this announcement Stanford clearly says that the no parental contribution level is 65,000, raised from 60,000 and now equivalent to Harvard/Princeton.
The "parental contribution level" was always frustrating to me. There's no way my parents were going to pay for my education, so that number being high and tuition being zero doesn't really help anything.
Am I misunderstanding how that works, or are they just saying "the parents should pay x and the student z - x" when they really mean "the total cost is z?"
As a student at Princeton, I know I'd never have been able to attend if it were not for their extremely generous financial aid. Princeton's aid package lowered the total cost to well below the other schools I applied to (mostly New Jersey state schools).
I believe there are proposals to allow pruning the blockchain, but I'm not 100% sure on the details.
To guarantee a transaction goes through you have to wait for it to be confirmed, but most transactions really aren't that important/high risk, so beyond checking that the address does actually have the money, it's instantaneous. Many payment processors (I know Bitpay has this option) actually take the 0 confirmation transaction risk, allowing customers to pay instantly.
Transaction fees are not high, with a typical fee of .0001 bitcoin (3 cents), which is small compared to credit card fees. While work needs to be done converting to/from cash, actually using bitcoin (that you already have) to buy things is a better experience than using credit cards. You simply grab your phone, scan the QR code, and hit send. This is much better than entering your credit card for the thousandth time on another website, or being redirected to paypal, entering your password, and choosing your preferred payment option for the thousandth time (stop asking me to use Paypal Credit!).
Using an Android wallet such as Mycelium, or a desktop wallet like Electrum doesn't require you to download the entire blockchain, and although that comes at the cost of some trust, I personally don't find that problematic.
Basically, bitcoin has some problems, but I think some of your criticisms are no longer applicable to most everyday usage of it.
> actually using bitcoin (that you already have) to buy things is a better experience than using credit cards
It's just not. It's not easier than swiping a magnetic strip and signing something, or typing in sixteen digits (or using autofill or the site's previously saved CC info) and pressing buy.
It's not good that I can't demand a return or have recourse in the event of fraud. And it's not a benefit that with bitcoin I have to spend the money first (to buy bitcoin) and wonder if it will hold its value, versus just buying stuff when I feel like it on credit and covering the transaction within 30 days at no interest cost.
I know there are a lot of people who really want your above quoted statement to be true. But, for now and the forseeable future, it isn't.
> It's just not. It's not easier than swiping a magnetic strip and signing something, or typing in sixteen digits (or using autofill or the site's previously saved CC info) and pressing buy.
It's much easier to take your phone, open an app, and scan a QR code, than to take out your credit card, transcribe a 16 digit number, check the expiration date, and enter the CSC (or is it CVC?).
Sure, for websites where your information is already saved, or if you leave all your credit card information saved in the browser, then this isn't easier, but they're still pretty comparable in my opinion. Even if it was slightly more work (which I personally disagree with), I would find that worth not having my credit card information saved by who knows how many third parties.
> It's not good that I can't demand a return or have recourse in the event of fraud.
I've never had to go to my credit card company for a refund, since most places I buy from will take refunds with a receipt or proof of purchase (and if they don't, why would I buy from them?). Fraudulent purchases are another issue, but the risk of fraud is lower with bitcoin versus credit cards (no single number that allows access to all funds, a properly secured wallet is impossible to steal, although I know wallet security is still not the easiest thing to have).
> And it's not a benefit that with bitcoin I have to spend the money first (to buy bitcoin) and wonder if it will hold its value, versus just buying stuff when I feel like it on credit and covering the transaction within 30 days at no interest cost.
This is a very real problem, and what I think will truly determine whether bitcoin gains anything near a large following.
> It's much easier to take your phone, open an app, and scan a QR code, than to take out your credit card, transcribe a 16 digit number, check the expiration date, and enter the CSC (or is it CVC?).
> Sure, for websites where your information is already saved, or if you leave all your credit card information saved in the browser, then this isn't easier, but they're still pretty comparable in my opinion. Even if it was slightly more work (which I personally disagree with), I would find that worth not having my credit card information saved by who knows how many third parties.
This is the crux of the disagreement though. It's really just not easier to use bitcoin on a practical level. I use Paypal all the time for online business purchases when it's allowed, and it's as simple as clicking on the paypal button, seeing my email address already in the field, and then typing in a memorized password.
For a CC sure I might have to grab the card out of my wallet and punch it in, but my numbers are pretty much memorized by now and it's beyond simple. And I'm one of the anal ones who doesn't like my browser keeping my CC info, many people just autofill in seconds. And the number of times I have to enter the information for the first time is pretty low, I usually use Amazon and various other regular places that have my CC info saved, like everyone else does.
As for having my credit card information saved by third parties, aren't you yourself describing a situation where you have your bitcoin information saved by a third party? Are you really keeping your entire wallet and its keys in your phone and settling the transaction yourself? I assume not.
Difference is if your third party implodes you're totally screwed. If one of my merchants blows their security I might have to be sent a new CC number, or worst case scenario spend some time on the phone disputing a few charges or something, with no real economic risk.
> a properly secured wallet is impossible to steal
Yes. In related news an immovable object is impossible to move.
> For a CC sure I might have to grab the card out of my wallet and punch it in, but my numbers are pretty much memorized by now and it's beyond simple.
"beyond simple", really? A lot of people would disagree with you. The inconvenience of typing in the CC billing info is the number one reason why fewer sales take place on mobile than on desktop.
And it is one of the main reasons why people stick with a store they know have their CC saved (eg. Amazon) as opposed to buying on some random site where they know it is going to be a PITA to type in all the billing info.
Bitcoin solves this payment friction for a first-time shopper at a given shop, and that's a big deal. You should know this. This is why you yourself admit preferring using Paypal over CC because Paypal also solves first-time shopping friction.
I'm not sure you are me are using the same definition of simple.
Typing 16 digits plus four digits on the front and three digits from the back of a card in your pocket is incredibly simple. I just described it in one short declarative sentence.
In addition it is mildly tedious, and slightly inconvenient. But extremely simple it remains.
In contrast, bitcoin requires typing in an extremely long and essentially random sequence of alphanumeric characters.
Except that it doesn't you say? Because an app can automate it? Oh wait.
> I just described it in one short declarative sentence.
Except you forgot: you have to type the expiration date, the cardholder's name, and sometimes the full billing address. I will repeat again: typing the CC billing info is not simple enough and this is the number one reason e-commerce sales conducted on mobile are not as high as sales conducted on the desktop.
> bitcoin requires typing
No. It sounds like you have never made a Bitcoin purchase. Typically the merchant's site launches your local wallet app via a "bitcoin:" URI pre-populated with an address and an amount -> click OK to confirm transaction -> done.
One of the reasons I stick with Amazon is, yes, they have my payment info saved. But they also have other things like Amazon Prime, and their reputation. People don't stick with Amazon just because they have payment info saved. They trust Amazon is going to keep their info secure, and if they're unhappy with the purchase, Amazon is going to make them whole.
I don't have that trust and security using Bitcoin with a site I've never used before. I don't know if the site is on the up and up, or if they'll just take my BTC and run.
Your comment reveals something often overlooked by the crowd shouting "OMG Bitcoin doesn't have chargebacks". Most people shop from merchants they trust, most merchants are honest, most disputes are resolved without chargebacks. Therefore chargebacks aren't really that needed or that important for most transactions.
IOW: you would have no problem paying Amazon in bitcoins, because you trust them.
One thing most people who claim chargebacks are needed overlook is the impact the availability of chargebacks has on reducing the types of actions merchants take which might require one. The existence of the chargeback mechanism itself means merchants are more likely to ensure customer satisfaction to avoid them. That doesn't mean they aren't needed it could also mean they are incredibly effective at limited merchant fraud or laziness in dispute resolution.
Chargebacks are just one of many methods that customers can use to maintain uprightness among merchants: legal actions (eg. small-claims courts), complaints to FTC or BBB, online reviews, etc.
Legal action is far too time consuming and expensive, writing to the FTC or BBB is completely worthless as it will do absolutely nothing, and online reviews are limited in their ability to do anything, and might not have any impact.
A chargeback is simple, easy, and fast. And it puts the onus on the merchant to prove they didn't do anything wrong.
None of those are really comparable in effort, cost, or effectiveness compared to just calling my credit card and having the charge reversed and the threat that I have the option to do that if they don't deal with my orders or issues appropriately.
> None of those are really comparable in effort, cost, or effectiveness
Does it matter? Some defrauded users WILL be persistent and WILL go through the effort of using these recourses, so they do keep merchants in check.
The fraud world is not as simplistic as you think it is ("oh crap customers can issue chargebacks against us, I guess we have to be honest now").
Fraudulent merchants will act fraudulently, regardless if chargebacks exist or not. Honest merchants will act honestly, regardless if chargebacks exist or not.
Yes it matters to me because the fact that some customers will do it won't actually matter in getting me my money back if there is a problem. The occasional customer going through the process of paying to take a merchant to small claims court(and if they are out of state it will be a considerable expense) isn't going to stop fraud or problems like the one below it will just cause the merchants to pay those specific customers off.
The problem isn't just out right fraud. Say you come to my online store and buy something. My warehouse screws up and doesn't ship it but they list in the system they have. You call up in a week and say "Wheres by foo" and I say "We shipped it". With chargebacks I am encouraged to go investigate and solve the problem. Without I am encouraged to trust my system.
Or say I sell you tickets to an event. For whatever reason I go bankrupt before the event can exist. With a credit card I'm still getting my money back. Without chargebacks I'm boned.
So then you say "Well only use trusted merchants like Amazon!" which is great if you want to centralize all commerce on the internet to one provider per vertical but not really ideal.
> it won't actually matter in getting me my money back
You aren't answering my point. Your argument was that we need the threat of chargebacks to make merchants more likely to ensure customer satisfaction. I told you that other threats like legal action are sufficient to keep the pressure on merchants to remain honest. For example a merchant repeatedly taken to court will eventually be shut down, or maybe fined sufficiently that it will eat his profits so he will be enticed to be more honest.
> Without I am encouraged to trust my system
If customers threaten to go to court or report you to the FTC/BBB I can ensure you you will be encouraged to go investigate too.
> So then you say "Well only use trusted merchants like Amazon!"
I am not asking for change. People already do it. They already use trusted merchants (mostly). This was the central point stated at the beginnig of this thread: "most merchants are honest, most disputes are resolved without chargebacks. Therefore chargebacks aren't really that needed or that important for most transactions." So yeah for the 1% of cases where you think the merchant might be fraudulent use Bitcoin with escrow, or a credit card, or cash-on-delivery, or whatever. For the other 99% a standard non-escrowed Bitcoin transaction is acceptable.
But you're ignoring the difficulty and worthlessness of these actions. If the company isn't local going to small claims becomes expensive so despite threats almost no one will do it. FTC/BBB does nothing unless there is obvious widespread fraud and how long will a resolution take for you?
>If customers threaten to go to court or report you to the FTC/BBB I can ensure you you will be encouraged to go investigate too.
No you're encouraged to wait until they actually go through the process of taking action then if its cheaper resolve it.
You keep saying most merchants are honest which I agree with but honesty isn't the only reason for charge backs as I mentioned.
Filing a complaint to the FTC or BBB is no more difficult than filing a credit card dispute. In both cases you merely supply evidence of the fraud.
But I am not claiming a legal action is as likely as a chargeback to make the customer whole. I am claiming a legal action works just as well as a chargeback to put pressure on merchants to keep them honest.
> honesty isn't the only reason for charge backs
What other reasons? Illegal charges after theft of credit card billing information? I would say this is an argument for Bitcoin since using Bitcoin makes impossible for the merchant to steal or lose your billing information :) So what other reasons for a chargeback are you thinking about?
I repeat again: I agree the customer is less likely to get his money back with an FTC complaint than a chargeback. But FTC complaints still work as an incentive to keep merchants honest because what the FTC does eventually is one or more of the following: initiate lawsuit, shut down the business, seize the merchant's assets (offices, products, money, everything), etc.
> What evidence do I have of fraud if its just a shipping dispute and their word against mine?
The same evidence you would supply to your credit card issuer for a dispute: shipment info, package tracking numbers, pictures of items delivered, customer/merchant email exchanges, etc.
> Mistakes, and disruptions in the continuance of the company
As I said, most merchants are trying to please customers, so most mistakes are resolved without a chargeback. I don't think you will disagree here. I have never had to issue a chargeback, yet I had a few mistakes happen on me and the merchant always resolved them in my favor.
As to "disruptions in the continuance of the company" this is an extremely rare event, even rarer than outright fraud. So I will agree this is a nice case to have chargebacks available, but again as I said for 99.9...% of other purchases Bitcoin's lack of chargebacks is totally acceptable. I don't think you will disagree here either.
So your solution to the problem is one that likely won't result in the customer getting their money back and involves a lot more work on their part? It also requires that the company screw up repeatedly with many customers(to get the FTC to investigate), and is still operating?
If you are still honestly convinced that is an acceptable replacement for charge backs we will never find agreement here.
>I have never had to issue a chargeback, yet I had a few mistakes happen on me and the merchant always resolved them in my favor.
You dismiss completely the possibility that this is because of the existence of chargebacks? The fact that you have the ability to reverse the charge, cost the company a charge back fee and potentially raise their payment processing rates if they don't help you out satisfactorily? You don't think that has anything to do with the way they act?
Google tiger direct bitcoin refund for some examples of how a company handles these things without that threat. People spending days trying to resolve the issues bouncing between multiple companies. The alternative is calling their credit card company and having the funds available again in a few minutes.
Or look at all the people waiting >1 year past their expected delivery date for miner shipments and in some cases having the company go out of business before they arrive or send them used equipment.
> likely won't result in the customer getting their money back
Likewise, a good fraction of credit card disputes end up being resolved in favor of the merchant, not the customer.
> involves a lot more work on their part
I already told you submitting an FTC or BBB complaint is no more work than submitting a credit card chargeback.
> It also requires that the company screw up repeatedly
True if you go to the FTC. Not true if you go to small-claims court: it will be investigated even if only 1 screw-up occur. Yes going to small-claims court is more work than filing a credit card dispute, but then if it is not worth your time given the transaction amount, it kind of proves that being refunded isn't THAT important to you. In this case you would complain to the FTC, and write off the small amount lost.
> You dismiss completely the possibility that this is because of the existence of chargebacks?
I acknowledge chargebacks incentivize merchants to act honestly. But I will repeat for the third time: this is not the only thing that incentivize merchants. FTC, BBB, legal actions, etc.
> Google tiger direct bitcoin refund
I did and I found 2 stories, both resolved in favor of the customer:
This proves my point that most merchants act honestly and that most disputes get resolved without chargebacks :)
> having the funds available again in a few minutes
No. When credit card issuers refund you instantly, it is always a TEMPORARY refund (check the fine print of your credit card agreement) - you still need to submit a full package usually within 60 days with evidence of the dispute (tracking numbers, product descriptions, pictures of what was received, etc) for the credit card issuer to investigate and either make the refund permanent, or resolve in favor of the merchant. That's why I keep explaining t you that submitting this evidence of the dispute is similar in complexity to submitting a complaint to the FTC as they ask the same things a credit card issuer would ask.
Out of curiosity: how many credit card disputes have you ever filed? What proportion were resolved in your favor, and in the merchant's favor?
>Likewise, a good fraction of credit card disputes end up being resolved in favor of the merchant, not the customer.
Do you have any evidence of this?
>I already told you submitting an FTC or BBB complaint is no more work than submitting a credit card chargeback.
But then right after you said I would need to compile all the evidence to do so. So what is it? No more work(and I just have to fill in a form) or more work?
Also you realize the BBB is a private company that has no teeth right?
>True if you go to the FTC. Not true if you go to small-claims court:
I see bitcoin people recommend small claims court all the time. It works great when the merchant it local. It doesn't work so well when the merchant isn't since you have to file in their county. So add on travel time, missed work, etc to travel to where ever they are(assuming they are in your country) and it becomes a lot less likely someone is going to go this route.
>I did and I found 2 stories, both resolved in favor of the customer:
Both of which involved around a week of hassle just to get their product. And if they weren't newly accepted and watched by the bitcoin community at that time what would the result have been? Also if you'd looked a few results down on google you'd have also found this story https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/coinbase-extreme-bitcoin-tra...
This was a big company and if you read the correspondences they were more than happy to ignore the people until a 3rd party stepped in. This works great on rare occasions but bitpay isn't going to be able to afford to police transactions with their fees.
I'll also note you skipped over the miner disputes in your response.
You admitted already you have never filed a dispute yet you seem to talk with authority about the process? I've filed 2 disputes against merchants both found in my favour neither required submitting evidence and 1 dispute due to fraud that required me to submit a signed letter confirming I didn't make the charges.
http://bit.ly/10iW5wJ page 12: "Merchants report that they win, on average, 40% of the chargebacks they dispute". Obviously x% of these disputes (with 0 <= x <= 100) are disputes that the customer should have won, but the merchant did because the dispute process is not flawless.
> So what is it? No more work (and I just have to fill in a form) or more work?
Typically it is no more work. I have experience from almost filing a dispute on my Wells Fargo credit card against Sprint. I didn't end up filing it because Sprint sent me a refund at the last second. Wells Fargo's online dispute forms do ask for some evidence: such as a log of email exchanges, shipping tracking numbers, etc. That's how I know. Obviously the process varies between credit card issuers. And I am sure no evidence is required when it is clear the merchant is at fault (a phone call will do). But either way this is similar to the complexity of the process of submitting a complaint with the FTC, where it can be as simple as a phone call if verbal info is all you are willing to provide to them.
> Also you realize the BBB is a private company that has no teeth right?
> I see bitcoin people recommend small claims court all the time. It works great when the merchant it local. It doesn't work so well when the merchant isn't since you have to file in their county. So add on travel time, missed work, etc to travel to where ever they are(assuming they are in your country) and it becomes a lot less likely someone is going to go this route.
I agree, but don't lie by saying "it also requires that the company screw up repeatedly".
> This was a big company and if you read the correspondences they were more than happy to ignore the people until a 3rd party stepped in. This works great on rare occasions but bitpay isn't going to be able to afford to police transactions with their fees.
You imply TigerDirect was intentionally dishonest, but it is very obvious the incorrect refund amount ($14.99 instead of $167.21) was a glitch, a bug. No matter how you want to believe it, this story doesn't show that merchants are dishonest and evil when they take bitcoins and they know there are no chargebacks. Are you claiming some evil TigerDirect employee typed in $14.99 intentionally on his terminal to try to rip off the customer?
> I'll also note you skipped over the miner disputes in your response.
I didn't reply because this is not relevant: most customers who paid the manufacturers with credit cards could not dispute the charges either, because of the 60-day limit after which chargebacks are not allowed. So I am not sure what is your point... Whether you paid the manufacturer with a credit card or in bitcoins, all customers are out of their money regardless.
Also, you too skipped over many of my points:
- "But I am not claiming a legal action is as likely as a chargeback to make the customer whole. I am claiming a legal action works just as well as a chargeback to put pressure on merchants to keep them honest."
- "But I will repeat for the third time: this is not the only thing that incentivize merchants. FTC, BBB, legal actions, etc."
- "As I said, most merchants are trying to please customers, so most mistakes are resolved without a chargeback. I don't think you will disagree here"
- "So yeah for the 1% of cases where you think the merchant might be fraudulent use Bitcoin with escrow, or a credit card, or cash-on-delivery, or whatever. For the other 99% a standard non-escrowed Bitcoin transaction is acceptable."
Yes, but at least I can be made whole from a fraudulent merchant in a timely manner with a chargeback. Not so for any of the other methods you mentioned.
>Fraudulent purchases are another issue, but the risk of fraud is lower with bitcoin versus credit cards
The CC companies have full control over the transactions. They can stop and/or reverse charges. As far as the consumer is concerned, there is very little risk of fraud.
You can get fraud protection with Bitcoin (if you want it) by using two-of-three multisig transactions with an escrow agent of your choosing.
The "no recourse for fraud" meme about Bitcoin is simply wrong. There are not many dispute-resolution mechanisms right now because the technology is young and because most existing users don't particularly want (and don't want to pay for) the second-order services that credit-card companies provide. If Bitcoin catches on among a wider demographic, dispute resolution and most other things that Bitcoin "can't do" will get built.
The technology is very flexible and can accommodate just about everything that existing payment mechanisms (and monetary systems) offer; the reverse is not true.
> The "no recourse for fraud" meme about Bitcoin is simply wrong.
OK, but wait:
> There are not many dispute-resolution mechanisms right now... If Bitcoin catches on among a wider demographic, dispute resolution... will get built. The technology is very flexible and can accommodate just about everything...
Ah, OK. So the fact that there's no recourse for fraud is actually correct. But because, in theory, there could be fraud detection, then there's no reason to worry about fraud.
Are you asking me about the capabilities of the techology, or are you asking me to predict the future? I'm giving you the former.
I don't know what Bitcoin will look like in ten years. I do understand the technology and am interested in having a discussion about it. But on Hacker News, in threads like this one, a great many of the comments demonstrate fundamental technical misunderstandings or seem to regard Bitcoin as a mature ecosystem. So I think it's appropriate to try to dispel the ignorance and to emphasize that Bitcoin is actually a nascent technology, one that offers far more than the rudimentary sort of magic Internet money that we see today. Bitcoin is a base layer for permission-lite financial innovation in whatever direction the market demands. You can build all sorts of stuff on top of it.
That means that if Bitcoin's still around in a decade, the ecosystem will likely look very different from today's. "Assume we will never have a ladder," you seem to be saying. Meanwhile, plenty of capable people are hard at work building ladders.
I find the fundamental disconnect to be that people are pushing the lower-cost transactions as a bit motivation for Bitcoin. The less enthusiastic point out all of the good anti-fraud infrastructure credit cards have from a consumer perspective. Then the proponents point out you can build that on Bitcoin, which is true; but it doesn't come for free, thus I expect mostly negating the transaction cost advantages that Bitcoin is potentially offering.
Cold Storage[0] done right, that's a properly secured wallet. I think this is the best, and cheapest security (minus fiat currency conversion expenses) available atm.
This is a digression though. The subject came up in the context of a claim that bitcoins were "just as convenient as credit cards".
Cold storage is essentially isomorphic to keeping treasure in a safe, and needless to say very much not equivalent to making a credit card transaction.
Two things make currency work: usability and security. How can this be a digression?
> Cold storage is essentially isomorphic to keeping treasure in a safe
I'll admit the wiki is a bit tl;dr .. (I guess you didn't read it).
Using your "keeping treasure in a safe" quote:
Cold storage is like keeping a treasure in a safe, at the bottom of the deepest ocean of another earth-like planet in a solar system which we cannot even assume (knowing about it is impossible;) that exists.
What? No, no, no. Cold storage is exactly as secure as the physical storage used to keep it. Unless that physical safe (or deposit box, or mattress) in which you put the printout or USB stick was launched on an interstellar rocket, then no.
It's true that it's inaccessible to the internet. It's not true that it's more secure than physical storage, because ultimately it is physical storage.
I await your "But you can memorize a key such that the attacker can't use it!" response and am presently googling the XKCD link to zing you with.
Well regarding bitcoin theory obviously you skimmed through the basics, but I'll make an effort to counter your arguments.
A (public) bitcoin address is useless without the private key. Suppose you do find one, you'd just knew the transactions referring to it(by looking up the blockchain).
One can easily have thousands of addresses. Many people generate a different address for each transaction, so good luck finding the one that looks like a safe.
A safe will be opened up without a key, eventually, a bitcoin address never:
[0]The private key is mathematically related to the Bitcoin address, and is designed so that the Bitcoin address can be calculated from the private key, but importantly, the same cannot be done in reverse.
I don't have the foggiest idea what you're on about. The subject was bitcoin "cold storage", which is the idea of storing the private keys to a walled offline, out of the reach of network-enabled attackers.
You're just saying that recovering a private key is mathematically hard, but that's not the attack vector in question. You still need to store the private key somewhere, and that storage is subject to attack. Network-attached storage is subject to lots of attacks, thus there's interest in storing this stuff offline.
OK my bad, having just read myself this morning I'll admit I got confused along the way.
But still:
> Cold storage is essentially isomorphic to keeping treasure in a safe
Though I don't like this analogy, if we must use it then it's the key that you keep in a safe[0].
As previously mentioned, one can have many keys and simply stealing one doesn't mean their "treasure" is stolen, whereas a safe is easier to be found and opened.
A simple example of deep cold storage is opening a safe deposit box and putting a USB stick containing an encrypted wallet file in it. The public (sending) addresses can be used any time to send additional bitcoins to the wallet, but spending the bitcoins would require physical access to the box (in addition to knowledge of the encryption password).
For a number of reasons, for some banks doing a pilot in Eastern Europe, I prototyped a card-interoperable system that does something like this. From the user's point-of-view.
- You shop and check out
- You are presented a QR that you scan
- The "app" asks you to sign into your bank.
- The bank issues you a virtual card with your billing address details, but a one-time-PAN (credit card number), CVV and expiry.
- There is a sub-account created that is the amount you are about to auth with the merchant. The merchant about to be doing the authorization is linked.
- The "app" presents the merchant "POS" with the virtual card details
- The merchant "POS" authorizes it using any gateway they happen to be using. Which in turn does the Brand-Net auth dance with the issuer.
- On positive auth, the sub-account balance is transferred to the merchant (thanks, VisaNet!), and the OTP (one-time PAN) is tossed in the recycle bin.
In any case, they don't have to deal with 6,000 banks like we have in the US. That said, the US could probably do this easily enough in cooperation with FDC or Total Systems or both.
If the merchant doesn't have the QR-code thing, you can still manually key-enter your one-time PAN virtual card details like you do today, knowing that you don't care about the number past its use right now.
There are a lot of weird details about how it all works if some party or another isn't an active full cooperating member of the system, but the idea is to:
1) Limit card number exposure
2) Get a user's explicit pre-auth for a specific merchant, amount and date
3) Get the usability factor you are talking about
4) Leverage the existing bank card consumer protection rules already in place
Which is not to say that Bitcoin isn't cool. But I'm not sure that it is useful enough for consumers to replace the thin-veneers like this that the existing payment infrastructure players will inevitably roll out.
There may be (and probably are) lots of uses for the blockchain. Consumer payments may not ultimately be one of the big ones.
*EDIT: I apparently am an idiot that can not figure out how to convince the system to let me wrap "bullets".
It's definitely easier than typing in sixteen digits (plus expiration and security code), assuming you have a device with your Bitcoin wallet handy but no credit card autofiller. If your device has both your Bitcoin wallet and a credit card autofiller, I would say both methods are equally easy.
Comparing bitcoin to credit cards is not quite correct. If you want to compare it to traditional payment instrument, the closest one will be probably cash.
And as for credit cards - product can be built on top of bitcoin to provide similar service I believe.
I run an E-Commerce shop, with inexpensive products and I get fraudulent purchases all the time. If I don't detect a fraudulent transaction, ship the product, when the chargeback comes in not only am I out of the money, I'm out of the product as well. Losing over 200% on that transaction, plus there's usually associated chargeback fees that could be $35-70. Credit Cards are shit for retailers.
You attach too much importance to CC chargeback mechanisms. I am a typical American consumer and in 20 years doing about 5,000 credit card transactions I have never had to issue a single chargeback at all. So I know for a fact that I would be willing to use Bitcoin for all its advantages if that meant giving up the ability to charge back. Consider this: credit card fees which are passed to customers by inflating prices by ~2% probably indirectly cost me north of $20,000 over my 20 years of use. I could have saved $20,000 and I would have been totally fine with the lack of chargeback mechanisms in Bitcoin. Even if I end up being scammed one day by a non-reversible $1000 Bitcoin transaction, I would still be $19,000 financially ahead with Bitcoin.
Also, CC chargebacks are far from being perfect. In many cases the customer has no recourse for fraud. For example you cannot chargeback a transaction made more than 60 days ago. Some fraudulent merchants stall shipping (eg. claim delays, issues, ship the wrong thing, etc) for 60 days specifically to exploit this fact and exploit the fact customers don't know about this 60-day chargeback limit. Or if your PIN code is stolen and a fraudulent transaction is made with the PIN code, you will typically be held liable (check your CC fine print, for example: "If your Password or PIN is used in such a transaction, you will be liable for the full debt" from http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/common/pdf/borrowing/revolving_...)
Don't forget that despite the lack of chargebacks, you still have all the other usual recourses available to you if you are defrauded after paying in bitcoins: small court claims, send a complaint to the FTC or BBB, etc. But the fact chargeback mechanisms are rarely needed in the first place, and have various limitations (60-day, PIN stolen, etc) indicates that Bitcoin doesn't need them to be reasonably successful as a payment technology.
