• Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities

    Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?

    Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process

    Because it’s none of their business what I buy. If a store is a reputable business that isn’t defrauding me, and are a legal entity, then whatever they sell to me or I buy from them should only matter to me and the seller.

    Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?

    So half the market can get nuked once the CEO decides whatever faith du jour they have disallows whatever?

    • frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?

      This is one of the few places where I think cryptocurrency could be useful. It ain’t much, but there it is.

          • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            And literally not a single one of them is useful for the purpose of quick, efficient, and secure transactions.

            Blockchains are slow and inefficient by design, since they need to build consensus. On any sufficiently popular blockchain, transactions are either fast or secure, never both.

            The “fix” that the crypto industry has come up with is to re-invent banks, except with even more crime and virtually no regulations. Now you’re just entrusting FTX with your coins to enjoy “immediate” transfers, how could that possibly go wrong?

            • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 day ago

              getmonero.org 1 minute average confirmation time, private by default. Eth average confirmation time is 6 seconds and right now it’s doing 16 transactions per second, not counting L2s. Blockchains are way more secure than a centralized database controlled by a financial institution that can freeze or deny you the right to use your money or fat-finger your life savings away with no recourse.

              • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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                22 hours ago

                16 transactions per second

                Please, that’s nothing. In a mass adoption scenario, the whole thing would either crumble or eat a significant portion of the world’s electric production.

                I won’t have an argument about the futility of the whole decentralization endeavor and how it fails to meaningfully address any of the very real concerns that central banking has addressed over the centuries. History has already proven all of you fools.

                • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  18 hours ago

                  It’s 16 tps right now because that’s the current demand, highest tps recorded was 57, not counting L2s which are doing 430 tps right now (stats) and can handle way more, for example the biggest one called base can handle 1400 tps alone and the next major eth upgrade is targeting 100000 tps capability.

          • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Lightning Labs launched the Lightning Network in 2018 with the goal of reducing the cost and time required for cryptocurrency transaction. Specifically, the bitcoin blockchain can only process around 7 transactions per second (compared to Visa Inc., which can process around 24,000 transactions per second). Despite initial enthusiasm for the Lightning Network, reports on social media of failed transactions, security vulnerabilities, and over-complication lead to a decline in interest.

            • cadekat@pawb.social
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              19 hours ago

              I’m not really that familiar with LN, to be honest. It looks like there’s almost $500 million in the network available for transactions (source), and according to this report, there were about 6.6 million transactions in August of 2023.

              Not MasterCard or Visa levels, for sure, but also not a 10 minute wait for a transaction to complete either.

    • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?

      Amex. Discover. Diners Club. Venmo.

      • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        and will they accept me selling incredibly controversial pervert games that disgust even the most perverse?

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          I don’t know. Visa and MasterCard did for 20 years, so maybe. I don’t really care either way. I’m not going to judge people who play “Interactive Sex - Daddy Daughter Incest Volume 4” but I’m not going to go to bat for them either. I can think of way better hills to die on.

          • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            sure, we’re both on the same page, but pointing out non-alternative alternatives isn’t exactly a contribution to a discussion.

            • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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              22 hours ago

              I feel it was a good answer to the question posed

              Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?

              • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                Ok, and you forgot cash. That can be used to process payment too if you think about it.

                Just not an appropriate solution for this context though, is it?

                • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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                  20 hours ago

                  Considering your question was about a “payment card acceptance system” “for payment processing in under 30 seconds”, no, cash is not an appropriate answer to your very specific question.

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      These payment processors are businesses. They provide a service. Like valve does. It seems to me like you’re making an argument for valve, but not for these other businesses which only differ in the service they provide.

      If your point is “our society is too dependant on a small selection of payment processors and we need better options,” that’s a separate discussion and one I don’t think I’d disagree with.

      • Ebber@lemmings.world
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        2 days ago

        Yes, Valve and Visa/MasterCard differ massively in their service. Valve operates a store within a specific industry, Visa/MasterCard process payments across our whole society.

        It should be clear to anyone that payment providers must be held to a much stricter standard and have certain requirements of neutrality imposed on them. If not then in the best case you risk destroying the “free market” part of free market capitalism, worst case you’re weakening democracy by letting unelected, unaccountable people decide what is and what isn’t legal.

        • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago

          There’s also no choice. Which payment processor and credit card do I choose so that I can buy any legal pornography I want? How do you even get a card that’s not.visa or MasterCard for.l general use? I’ve only ever had one of those

        • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Well I find it a bit ironic to invoke the “free market” while simultaneously asserting they should not be free to choose who they go to market with. Isn’t the point of the “free market” that if Visa or Mastercard won’t facilitate the needs of the market, someone else will?

          • madjo@feddit.nl
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            13 hours ago

            Payment processors should be following the most free speech laws there are, because they have de facto monopolies. If they do have a choice though, if they don’t want to support porn, then they could choose not to be a payment processor.

            Ideally they should be nationalised, or perhaps internationalised.

      • TheFogan@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        Well I think bottom line is that’s the rub, the burden to become a payment provider is high… which it should be, but that’s because we need pretty damn good regulations on them (as obviously if their security goes to crap, the consiquences are insanely high).

        In addition it kind of is a small group by design because, we can’t have it as a large group. If we have a nice even spread across 50 payment processors, then either everyone needs 50 credit cards, or every service that needs to be paid needs contracts with 50 payment services.